“One of the last notices of London Bridge which occurs in the days of King Ethelred, and I place it here because it is without date, is in his Laws, as they are given in the ‘Chronicon’ of John Brompton, Abbot of Jorvaulx, in the City of York, who lived about the year 1328. His work was printed in Twysden’s Scriptores, which I last quoted; and at column 897, in the xxiii. Chapter of the Statutes there given, is the following passage.
“‘Concerning the Tolls given at Bylyngesgate.
‘If a small ship come up to Bilynggesgate, it shall give one halfpenny of toll: if a greater one which hath sails, one penny: if a small ship, or the hulk of a ship come thereto, and shall lie there, it shall give four pence for the toll. For ships which are filled with wood, one log of wood shall be given as toll. In a week of bread’—perhaps a festival time, ‘toll shall be paid for three days; the Lord’s day, Tuesday, and Thursday. Whoever shall come to the Bridge, in a boat in which there are fish, he himself being a dealer, shall pay one halfpenny for toll; and if it be a larger vessel, one penny.’
“Concerning Brompton’s translation of these laws, Bishop Nicolson, in his ‘English, Scotch, and Irish Historical Libraries,’ London, 1736, folio, page 65, says that they are pretty honestly done, and given at large: but they may be seen with several variations and additions very fairly written in the collections of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, preserved with the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, No. 596. John Brompton, however, at column 891 of his Chronicle, tells us one circumstance more concerning London Bridge before the Invasion of Knute; for he says, under the year 1013, ‘After this, many people were overthrown in the Thames, at London, not caring to go by the Bridge;’ that is to say, because it had been broken in the two recent battles as I have already told you, and there were also erected several fortifications about the City.’
“Perhaps it was the error of Sweyn in getting his Fleet foul of London Bridge, which made Knute the Dane, his Son, go so laboriously to work with the Thames, upon his Invasion in 1016; and I shall give you this very wonderful story in the words of the Saxon Chronicle, page 197. ‘Then came the ships to Greenwich, and, within a short interval, to London; where they sank a deep ditch on the South side, and dragged their ships to the West side of the Bridge. Afterwards they trenched the City without, so that no man could go in or out, and often fought against it; but the Citizens bravely withstood them.’ There are some who doubt this story, but honest William Maitland, who loved to get to the bottom of every thing, as he went sounding about the river for Cæsar’s Ford, also set himself to discover proofs of Knute’s Trench: and you may remember that he tells us, in his work which I have already cited, volume i. page 35, that this artificial water-course began at the great wet-dock below Rotherhithe, and passing through the Kent Road, continued in a crescent form to Vauxhall, and fell again into the Thames at the lower end of Chelsea Reach. The proofs of this hypothesis were great quantities of fascines of hazels, willows, and brushwood, pointing northward, and fastened down by rows of stakes, which were found at the digging of Rotherhithe Dock in 1694; as well as numbers of large oaken planks and piles, also found in other parts.
“Florence of Worcester, who, you will recollect, wrote in 1101, and died in 1119, in his ‘Chronicon ex Chronicis,’ best edition, London, 1592, small 4to. page 413; and the famous old Saxon Chronicle, page 237; also both mention the easy passage of the rapacious Earl Godwin, as he passed Southwark in the year 1052. The tale is much the same in each, but perhaps the latter is the best authority, and it runs thus. ‘And Godwin stationed himself continually before London, with his Fleet, until he came to Southwark; where he abode some time, until the flood came up. When he had arranged his whole expedition, then came the flood, and they soon weighed anchor and steered through the Bridge by the South side.’ This relation is also supported by Roger Hoveden, in his Annals, Part I. in ‘Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam,’ by Sir H. Savile, folio 253b, line 41.
“And now, worthy Mr. Barbican, before we enter upon the conjectures and disputes relating to the real age and founders of the first Wooden Bridge over the Thames at London, let me give you a toast, closely connected with it, in this last living relique of old Sir John Falstaff. You must know, my good Sir, that when the Church-Wardens and vestry of St. Mary Overies, on the Bankside yonder, meet for conviviality, one of their earliest potations is to the memory of their Church’s Saint and the patroness who feeds them, under the familiar name of ‘Old Moll!’ and therefore, as we are now about to speak of them and their pious foundation most particularly, you will, I doubt not, pledge me heartily to the Immortal Memory of Old Moll!”