Over it, Feb. 21, 1432, young King Henry VI. came, and made a magnificent entry after his coronation at Paris.
But we must forbear. Even a portion of remarkable events, that might be related, would more than fill this book.
The Thames, as before mentioned, has been aptly termed the Silent Highway. For centuries boating and ferriage have been important here. The watermen, as they were called, formed a numerous and somewhat influential body. In our day the horse-railroad companies are thought to be powerful, and Temple Place, narrow Tremont Street, and wide Scollay Square are said to be under their control. The railroad wars of our day (e. g., between the Union and Charles River railways) only remind us of the London conflicts of eight hundred years ago. Bridgemen and watermen were then in opposition, as representatives of elevated and surface railways are at odds now. Great opposition was made by the watermen to the building of bridges over the Thames. "Othello's occupation," they thought, would be gone, and that was, in their estimation, enough to condemn the project. John Taylor, a waterman, lauded the river as follows:—
But noble Thames, whilst I can hold a pen
I will divulge thy glory unto men;
Thou in the morning, when my corn is scant,
Before the evening doth supply my want.
Soon came a new trouble, for then, as now, misfortunes did not come singly. Coaches came into use, and coaches and a new bridge at the same time threatened large invasions on the realm of the watermen, and Taylor was not slow to complain of this. In a poem entitled "Thief," published in 1622, he says:—
When Queen Elizabeth came to the crown
A coach in England was then scarcely known.
He could tolerate coaches for royalty, but their use by common people was more than he could well endure, and so he continues in the following strain:—
'T is not fit that
Fulsome madams, and new scurvey squires,
Should jolt the streets at pomp, at their desires,
Like great triumphant Tamberlaines each day,
Drawn with pamperèd jades of Belgia,
That almost all the streets are choked outright,
Where men can hardly pass, from morn till night,
While Watermen want work.