“I have not, Mr. Barnaby, found the musical notation of this song, though I am almost inclined to think it was sung to the very common tune of ‘Flying Fame,’ so familiar to every body under the name of ‘Chevy Chace;’ for in volume iv., page 1, of Tom D’Urfey’s collection of Songs called ‘Wit and Mirth,’ London, 1719, 12mo., you may see this very ballad on London Bridge, entitled ‘Three children sliding on the Thames. Tune, Chevy chace.’ Listen then, my good Sir, whilst, with my very unmelodious voice, I attempt to give you some idea of it;—the music I have alluded to, runs thus:—
‘Some Chris-tian peo-ple all give ear,
Un-to the grief of us:
Caused by the death of three Chil-dren dear.
The which it hap-pened thus.’”
“Thank ye, thank ye, honest Master Geoffrey Barbican,” said my visitor, as I concluded; “my thanks to you, both for your music and poetry; for I verily think as you do, that the verses which you have repeated relate to this conflagration of 1633, although there was the difference of a month between the actual fact, and your rhyming record of it. It appears to me, too, as if I recognized in the 16th stanza,—where the last words of the drowning victim are uttered by his head in broken accents,—the original of Gay’s description of the death of Doll, the Pippin-woman, contained in the 2nd book of his ‘Trivia,’ since she died in much the same place and manner.
“The rental of the Bridge House was, doubtless considerably lessened by this destructive fire; but in the printed document of the Bridge-Masters’ Accounts, there is not any notice of the amount of rents for some years after it. In 1636, however, we are informed that the salaries, horsekeeping, and liveries, of John Potter, and David Bourne, the Wardens, amounted to £71. 3s. 4d. each; and in the following year the rental is stated to have been only £1836. 7s. 6d., whilst the fees, &c. of John Hawes and Noadiah Rawlins amounted to £72. In that Manuscript treatise on the payment of Tythes, which I have mentioned to you as being in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, Cornelius Burgess, the then Rector of St. Magnus, observes that ‘the best third part of the Parish was consumed by the late fire on London Bridge: yet no part of the annual charges lying on the Parsonage is abated. And it is yet capable of a large improvement, by reason that a good part of it being Citty land, provisions have been accordingly made to keepe downe the tithes generally throughout the Parish to vnreasonable low proportions, some very few houses excepted.’ According to Newcourt, in his ‘Repertorium Ecclesiasticum,’ volume i., page 396, these tythes before this conflagration amounted to £109. for 90 houses, of which about 40 houses were destroyed; though, in the Manuscript valuation of 1638, they are reduced to £81. 12s. 8d.
“The destruction of London Bridge, however, was not allowed to pass without a more appropriate memorial than the song which you have repeated; for in the parochial records of the Church adjoining, it is stated, that Susanna Chambers by her will, dated the 28th day of December, 1640, left ‘unto the Parson of the Parish Church of St. Magnus, on, or near, London Bridge, or unto such other Preacher of God’s word as my said son Richard Chambers, his heirs, administrators, and assignees shall yearly appoint, the yearly sum of twenty shillings of lawful English money, for a Sermon to be preached on the 12th day of February, in every year, within the said Parish Church of St. Magnus, London Bridge, or any other near thereunto, in commemoration of God’s merciful preservation of the said Church of St. Magnus from ruin in the late and terrible fire of London Bridge; and also the sum of seventeen shillings and sixpence to the poor of that Parish of St. Magnus; and two shillings and sixpence to the clerk and sexton.’ This gift is mentioned by most of the London Historians; and I would observe to you that I am informed, with regard to the present state of this bequest, that the money for the Sermon, the Clerk, and the Sexton, has not been claimed within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the Parish: but that the poor have, ever since, duly received their legacy. Whilst I am speaking of St. Magnus’ Church, I may also remark, that in consequence of the dissolution of the Fraternity belonging to it, which I have before mentioned, there has been a perpetuity of £21. 6s. 8d. paid by the Exchequer ever since the time of Queen Mary.
“In the 43rd volume of that most extraordinary collection of Tracts, which the late excellent King George III. presented to the British Museum, there is a pamphlet of four leaves commemorating a remarkable flow of the Thames at London Bridge, the title to which is given by Gough in his ‘British Topography,’ volume i., page 731: and it bears the same proportion to its contents, as the show-cloth of a travelling menagerie does to the actual exhibition. ‘A Strange Wonder, or the Citie’s Amazement. Being a Relation occasioned by a wonderfull and vnusuall accident, that happened in the River of Thames, Friday, Feb. 4, 1641. There flowing Two Tydes at London Bridge, within the space of an houre and a halfe, the last comming with such violence and hideous noyse, that it not onely affrighted, but even astonished above 500 watermen that stood beholding it on both sides the Thames. Which latter Tyde rose sixe foote higher then the former Tyde had done, to the great admiration of all men.’ London, 1641. Small quarto. This tract is subsequently named ‘True Newes from Heaven,’ and the author takes occasion, from the event which he records, to lament the vices and confusion of his time. The fact itself occupies but a small portion of his text; and he relates it thus.—‘Fryday, Februarie 4, 1641, it was high water at one of the clocke at noone, a time—by reason so accommodated for all imployments by water or land,—very fit to afford witnesse of a strange and notorious accident. After it was full high water, and that it flowed its full due time as all Almanacks set downe; and water-men, the vnquestionable prognosticators in that affaire, with confidence mainetaine it stood a quiet still dead water, a full houre and halfe, without moving or returning any way never so litle: Yea, the water-men flung in stickes to the streame, as near as they could guesse, which lay in the water as vpon the earth, without moving this way or that. Dishes likewise, and wodden buckets, they set a swimming, but it proved a stilling, for move they would not any way by force of stream or water; so that it seemed the water was indeed asleepe or dead, or had changed or borrowed the stability of the earth. The water-men not content with this evidence, would needs make the vtmost of the tryall, that they might report with the more boldnesse the truth of the matter: and with more credible confidence they tooke their boates and lanched into the streame or very channell: but the boates that lay hailed up on the shore moved as much, except when they used their oares; nay,—a thing worthy the admiration of all men,—they rowed under the very arches, tooke up their oares and slept there, or, at least, lay still an houre very neare, their boates not so much as moved through any way, either upward or downeward: the water seeming as plaine, quiet, even, and stable as a pavement under the arch, where, if any where in the Thames, there must be moving by reason of the narrownesse of the place. In this posture stood the water a whole houre and halfe, or rather above, by the testimony of above five hundred water-men, on either side the Thames, whom not to believe in this case were stupiditie, not discretion. At last, when all men expected its ebb, being filled with amazement that it stood so long as hath been delivered, behold a greater wonder, a new Tyde comes in! A new Tyde with a witnesse, you might easily take notice of him; so lowde he roared, that the noise was guessed to be about Greenwich when it was heard so, not onely clearly, but fearfully to the Bridge; and up he comes tumbling, roaring, and foaming in that furious manner, that it was horror unto all that beheld it. And as it gave sufficient notice to the eare of its comming, so it left sufficient satisfaction to the eye that it was now come; having raised the water foure foote higher then the first Tyde had done, foure foote by rule! as by evident measure did appear, and presently ebbed in as hasty, confused, unaccustomed manner. See here, Reader! a wonder, that—all things considered,—the oldest man never saw or heard of the like.’
“Lord Clarendon, in his ‘History of the Rebellion,’ volume i., part ii., book iv. page 521, Oxford, 1819, 8vo., states that when John Hampden and the four other members of Parliament were accused of High Treason, and were, by their own party, brought back in triumph from the City, January the 11th, 1641-42, ‘from London-Bridge to Westminster, the Thames was guarded with above a hundred lighters and longboats, laden with small pieces of ordnance, and dressed up with waistclothes and streamers, as ready for fight,’ These forces, together with the City Trained-bands under Major General Skippon, were not less to honour, than to defend, the return of the accused Members. The same noble Historian tells us farther, in the same volume and part, book v. page 661, that about the end of March in the same year, the Justices, and principal gentlemen of the County of Kent, prepared a Petition to the two Houses of Parliament, that the Militia might not be otherwise exercised in that County than according to Law, and that the Common Prayer Book might still be observed. This was construed by the Parliament into a commotion in Kent; the Earl of Bristol and Judge Mallet were committed to the Tower only for having seen it; and strong guards were placed at London Bridge, where the petitioners approaching the City were disarmed, and forced to return, and only a very few permitted to proceed with the petition to Westminster.
“That it was the unhappy custom, even late in the seventeenth century, to erect heads over the South Gate on London Bridge, we have, Alas! too many proofs; though, indeed, it seems to have been only the case with such as were considered traitors, as were those unfortunate Romish Priests executed under the Statutes of Elizabeth and James I. When Bishop Challoner is speaking, in his work already cited, volume iii., page 112, of the death of Bartholomew Roe, a Priest of the Order of St. Benedict, in January, 1642, he states that, on the morning of his execution, he exhorted the Catholics who were present at his Mass in the prison, and desired them ‘that as often as in passing through the City, they should see that hand of his fixed on one of the Gates, or in crossing the water, should see his head on London Bridge, they would remember those lessons which he had preached to them, of the importance of holding fast the Catholic faith, and of leading a Christian and holy life.’ In October, 1642, the head of Thomas Bullaker, a Priest of the Order of St. Francis, was also set up on London Bridge. See Bishop Challoner, page 132, in the same volume: and another unhappy instance of a similar execution is to be found in Dr. Challoner’s life of Henry Heath, a Father of the Order of St. Francis, contained on pages 141, 143, of the same volume of his work. Having left Douay and landed in England, this Priest travelled to the metropolis in the greatest poverty. ‘At London he arrives wearied, as well he might, having travelled barefoot forty miles that day, and it being the Winter season. It is now time to take up his quarters, and give some little rest and refreshment to the body. But how shall this be done, for money he has none, nor acquaintance? however, he ventures to call at the Star Inn, near London Bridge, but the people of the house finding that he had no money, turned him out of doors at eight o’clock in a cold winter night.’ In this distress, he laid down to rest at a Citizen’s door, where the owner of the house had him seized for a shoplifter, and, when examined by the watch, some writings in defence of the Romish faith being found in his cap, he owned himself to be a Priest. He was then tried and convicted upon the Statute of Elizabeth, and was executed on April the 17th, 1643, at Tyburn, and his head erected upon London Bridge.