“I have already mentioned to you the situation, and general intent, of the Bridge-House and Yard, and I have now to remark, that they seem, at a very early period, to have been used for the erection of Granaries for the City to preserve Corn, &c. in, during the times of famine and scarcity of provisions. This information we derive from Stow’s ‘Survey,’ volume ii., page 24; where he adds, that there were also certain public ovens built in the same places, for the baking of such bread-corn as was there laid up, for the relief of the poor Citizens at such seasons. These ovens were ten in number, six of them being very large, and the remainder only half the size; and for their erection, Stow observes, that John Throstone, or Thurston, Citizen and Goldsmith, one of the Sheriffs in 1516, gave, by his testament, the sum of £200.
“We have now arrived at the days of King Henry the Eighth, about the period when Pope Alexander the Sixth sent over the celebrated Polydore Vergil to receive the tribute called Peter-pence, of which he was the last Collector in England. As he was already celebrated for his Poems and his books, ‘On the Invention of Things,’ and ‘on Prodigies,’ he met with great encouragement in this country; where he not only received several ecclesiastical preferments, being made Archdeacon of Wells, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s, but in 1521 he was employed by the King to write a History of England, which he performed in most elegant Latin, and which was first printed at Basil, bearing the date of 1533 for 1534. He left England in 1550, and died at his birth-place, Urbino, in Italy, in 1555. The best edition of this work, entitled ‘Polydori Vergilii Urbinatis Historiæ Angliæ,’ which contains a descriptive eulogy on London Bridge, is that of Leyden, 1651, octavo;—though I quote from the Basil folio of 1570,—and if you turn to page 4 of that volume, you will find the passage commencing ‘Is fluvius amœnissimus,’ &c. of which I shall attempt to give you a translation. ‘This most delightful river’—the Thames,—‘rises a little above the road to Winchcomb, whence flowing several ways, it is first increased at Oxford; and the beautiful wonder, having washed the City of London, pours itself into the Gallic Ocean, who welcomes it into the impetuous waves of his seas; from which, twice in the space of twenty-four hours, it flows and returns more than the distance of sixty miles, and is of the greatest national advantage, for, by it, merchandise may easily be returned to the City. In this River there is a stone Bridge, certainly a most wonderful work! for it is erected upon twenty square piers of stone, 60 feet in height, 30 feet in breadth, and distant from each other about 20 feet, united by arches. Upon both sides of the Bridge there are houses erected, so that it might appear not to be a Bridge, but one substantial and uninterrupted street.’ The same author, at page 25 of the same ‘History,’ says farther of London Bridge:—‘This part of the City, which looks Southward, is washed by the River Thames, in which stands the Bridge, as we have said before, leading towards Kent, erected upon 19 arches, and having a series of extensive magnificent houses standing upon both sides of it.’—But I fear you are drowsy, Mr. Barbican; take another draught of the sack, good Master Geoffrey, and then we’ll to it again.”
“Eh!—What!”—said I, starting up and shaking myself, “drowsy, did you say? Oh no! Heaven defend that I should be drowsy, when a gentleman of your inveterate learning and lungs condescends to give me a lecture! I was, indeed, for a moment thinking of the Chinese devotee who vowed never to sleep at all, and so cut off his eyelids: but I never slept, my ancient; I never winked over your homily, though I would fain have you come to your nineteenthly, lastly, and to conclude. However, whilst we live we must drink, and so here’s to your reformation, friend Postern. Now, by St. Thomas of the Bridge!” ejaculated I, as I took up the tankard, “you’re either a wizard, Master Barnaby, or else this tankard hath no bottom; and, truly, it’s the first time I ever saw wine keep hot on a mahogany table.”
“Fancy, Mr. Geoffrey, mere fancy,” replied the placid old man with a shrewd smile; “but even as it is, it will serve as a good prelude to some of the more amusing scenes with which the fragments of Bridge history furnish us in the sixteenth century. Indeed, all I have been able to lay before you are but fragments: cyphers which derive their value by connection, and look considerable only by their number.
“It was then in the year 1526, when Cardinal Wolsey was meditating a marriage between King Henry VIII., and the Duchess of Alençon, that his adversaries had anxiously contrived for him to be despatched on an embassy to France, in order to remove him from about the throne, or, at the least, to weaken his power. On July the 26th, the Cardinal left England, and in that extraordinary and entertaining piece of biography, called ‘Cavendish’s Life of Cardinal Wolsey,’ we have a particular account of the grand procession in which he rode through the City to cross London Bridge, on his road to Dover. The best edition of this work is, past question, that by Samuel Weller Singer, Esq., 1825, octavo, 2 volumes; in the first of which, at page 86, you may see an engraving of the Cardinal’s progress, from a Manuscript in the possession of Francis Douce, Esq., and read the passage I have alluded to in the following words. ‘Then marched he forward out of his own house at Westminster, passing all through London, over London Bridge, having before him of gentlemen a great number, three in a rank, in black velvet livery coats, and the most part of them with great chains of gold about their necks. And all his yeomen, with noblemen’s and gentlemen’s servants following him in French tawny livery coats; having embroidered upon the backs and breasts of the said coats these letters: T. and C., under the Cardinal’s hat. His sumpter mules, which were twenty in number and more, with his carts and other carriages of his train, were passed on before, conducted and guarded with a great number of bows and spears. He rode like a Cardinal, very sumptuously, on a mule trapped with crimson velvet upon velvet, and his stirrups of copper and gilt; and his spare mule following him with like apparel. And before him he had his two great crosses of silver, two great pillars of silver, the Great Seal of England, the Cardinal’s Hat, and a gentleman that carried his valaunce, otherwise called a cloak-bag; which was made altogether of fine scarlet cloth, embroidered over and over with cloth of gold very richly, having in it a cloak of fine scarlet. Thus passed he through London, and all the way of his journey, having his harbingers passing before to provide lodging for his train.’
“As the Account Rolls of the Bridge estates, in 1533, furnish us with a very good conception of its prosperity and revenues at that period, I shall request you to listen to only a very short abstract of the charges as they appear upon a printed document which I have already quoted. ‘1533, Thomas Crull and Robert Draper, Wardens of London Bridge, Salary to each of them, £16. 8s. 4d.—£32. 16s. 8d. Winter’s Livery to each, £1.—£2. Reward to each, £10.—£20. For horse-keeping to each, £2.—£4. Total to each of them, £29. 8s. 4d. Sum of the whole, £58. 16s. 8d. Rental this year, £840. 9s. 3¼d.’
“I have next to speak of an event occurring on London Bridge, in 1536, which is probably better known, and more often related, than most other portions of its history; I allude, as you will guess, to the anecdote of Edward Osborne leaping into the Thames from the window of one of the Bridge Houses, to rescue his master’s daughter. The particulars of this circumstance are given by Stow in his ‘Survey,’ volume ii., page 226, in the list of Lords Mayors of London; when having arrived at the year 1559, and the Mayoralty of Sir William Hewet, a Cloth-worker, he farther speaks of him as follows:—‘This Mayor was a Merchant, possessed of a great estate, of £6000 per Annum; and was said to have had three sons and one daughter,’—Anne,—‘to which daughter this mischance happened, the father then living upon London Bridge. The maid playing with her out of a window over the River Thames, by chance dropped her in, almost beyond expectation of her being saved. A young gentleman, named Osborne, then Apprentice to Sir William, the father, which Osborne was one of the ancestors of the Duke of Leeds, in a direct line, at this calamitous accident leaped in, and saved the child. In memory of which deliverance, and in gratitude, her father afterwards bestowed her on the said Mr. Osborne, with a very great dowry, whereof the late estate of Sir Thomas Fanshaw, in the Parish of Barking, in Essex, was a part, as the late Duke of Leeds told the Reverend Mr. John Hewyt, from whom I have this relation; and together with that estate in Essex, several other lands in the Parishes of Hartehill, and Wales, in Yorkshire; now in the possession of the said most noble family. All this from the old Duke’s mouth to the said Mr. Hewyt. Also that several persons of quality courted the said young lady, and particularly the Earl of Shewsbury; but Sir William was pleased to say ‘Osborne saved her, and Osborne should enjoy her.’ The late Duke of Leeds, and the present family, preserve the picture of the said Sir William, in his habit as Lord Mayor, at Kiveton House in Yorkshire, to this day, valuing it at £300.’ Pennant, in his collection of anecdotes, called ‘Some Account of London,’ which I have already cited, page 322, says, after relating this story, ‘I have seen the picture of Osborne’s master at Kiveton, the seat of the Duke of Leeds, a half-length on board; his dress is a black gown furred, and red vest and sleeves, a gold chain, and a bonnet.’ There is also an engraved portrait of Osborne himself, said to be unique, in a series of wood-cuts in the possession of Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart. They consist of the portraits of forty-three Lord Mayors in the time of Queen Elizabeth, reduced copies of six of which, exclusive, however, of Osborne, one of the most interesting, were, between the years 1794 and 1797, published by Richardson, the print-seller, of Castle-street, and the Strand.
“This gallant action of Osborne has, likewise, been the subject of a graphical record; for there is a small, but rather uncommon, engraving of him leaping from the window, executed for some ephemeral publication, from a drawing by Samuel Wale. As this artist died in 1786, it is of course but little authority as being a representation of the fact, but it is, nevertheless, interesting as giving a portraiture of the dwellings on London Bridge in his time; and with this print I may also mention one designed by the same hand, and engraved by Charles Grignion, of the first Duke of Leeds pointing to a portrait of Hewet’s daughter, and relating to King Charles II. the foregoing anecdote of his ancestor. You will find it in William Guthrie’s ‘Complete History of the Peerage of England,’ having ‘vignettes at the conclusion of the history of each family,’ London, 1742, quarto, volume i., page 246.”
“Before you pass on to any other event, Mr. Postern,” said I, as the old gentleman came to a period, “let me say a word or two of the fortunate hero of this anecdote. Sir Edward Osborne was the son of Richard Osborne, of Ashford, in Kent, a person certainly in a most respectable situation in life, if not immediately of gentilitial dignity. He became Sheriff of London in 1575, and Lord Mayor in 1583-84, the 25th of Queen Elizabeth, when he received the honour of Knighthood at Westminster. ‘He dwelled,’—says a manuscript in the Heralds’ College, to which I have already referred, Pb. No. 22, folio 18 a,—‘in Philpot Lane, in Sir William Hewet’s house, whose da: and heire he married, and was buried’—in 1591,—‘at St. Dennis in fanchurch Streete.’ His Armorial Ensigns, according to the same authority, were Quarterly, 1st and 4th. Quarterly, Ermine and Azure, a Cross Or; for Osborne: 2nd. Argent, 2 bars Gules, on a Canton of the second, a Cross of the first; 3rd. Argent, a Chevron Vert, between three annulets Gules. To these we may add the coat of Hewet on an Escutcheon of Pretence, it being Parted per pale, Argent and Sable, a chevron engrailed between three rams’ heads erased, horned Or; all counterchanged, within a bordure engrailed Gules, bezantée. On the 15th of August, 1675, Sir Thomas Osborne, the great-grandson of Sir Edward, was raised to the Peerage by the titles of Viscount Latimer, and Baron Kiveton, in the County of York, by Patent from King Charles the Second; on the 27th of June, in the year following, he was created Earl of Danby; on April the 20th 1680, he was advanced to the dignity of Marquess of Caermarthen; and he became First Duke of Leeds on May the 4th, 1694. So much then, Mr. Postern, for an historical and genealogical illustration of the anecdote of the gallant apprentice of London Bridge.”