This Tower or Castle being thus destroyed, stood, as it may seem, in Place where now standeth the House called Bridewell. For notwithstanding the Destruction of the said Castle or Tower the House remained large, so that the Kings of this Realm long after were lodged there, and kept their Courts. For in the Ninth Year of Henry the Third, the Courts of Law and Justice were kept in the King’s House, wheresoever he was Lodged, and not elsewhere.
More (as Matthew Paris hath) about the Year 1210, King John, in the Twelfth Year of his Reign, summoned a Parliament at S. Brides in London; where he exacted of the Clergy, and Religious Persons, the sum of One Hundred Thousand Pounds: And besides all this, the White Monks were compelled to cancel their Privileges, and to pay 40,000l. to the King, etc. This House of S. Brides (of later Time) being left, and not used by the Kings, fell to Ruin; insomuch that the very Platform thereof remained (for great part) waste, and, as it were, but a Lay-stall of Filth and Rubbish, only a fair Well remained there. A great part whereof, namely on the West, as hath been said, was given to the Bishop of Salisbury; the other Part toward the East remained waste, until King Henry the Eighth builded a stately and beautiful House thereupon, giving it to Name Bridewell, of the Parish and Well there. This House he purposely builded for the Entertainment of the Emperor Charles the Fifth; who in the Year 1522 came into this City, as I have showed in my Summary, Annals, and large Chronicles.” (Stow, vol. i. p. 63.)
The Tower Royal, whose name is still preserved in the City, was one of the King’s houses; Stephen is said to have lodged there; the Princess of Wales, mother of Richard II., fled here during Wat Tyler’s rebellion. The King’s Wardrobe, a name also surviving, was a house of the King. And in Bucklersbury there was another house, Serne’s Tower, also called the King’s House. On the south side of London, besides Greenwich and Eltham, was the Palace of Kennington.
As for the site of the last-named palace, if you walk along the Kennington Road from Bridge Street, Westminster, you presently come to a place where four roads meet, Upper Kennington Lane on the left, and Lower Kennington Lane on the right; the road goes on to the Horns Tavern and Kennington Park. On the right-hand side stood the palace. In the year 1636 a plan of the house and grounds was executed; but by that time the mediæval character of the place was quite forgotten. It was a square house, probably Elizabethan.
Of this last once magnificent palace not a stone remains and not a memory or tradition; it is entirely forgotten. The reason of this strange oblivion is very simple. When it was pulled down, which was some time before 1667, for then, Camden says, there was not a stone remaining, there were no houses within half a mile in every direction. Even a hundred and fifty years later there were no cottages or houses near the spot. The moat, however, remained, and a long stone barn.
In this house Harold Harefoot crowned himself. In this house his half-brother Hardacnut drank himself to death.
Forty years after this event, when Domesday Book was compiled, the place was in the possession of a London citizen, Theodric by name and a goldsmith by trade. It was still a royal manor, because the goldsmith held it of Edward the Confessor. It was then valued at three pounds a year.
We next hear of Kennington in 1189, when King Richard granted it on lease, or for life, to Sir Robert Percy with the title of Lord of the Manor. Henry III. came here on several occasions; here he held his Lambeth Parliament. He kept his Christmas here in 1231. Great was the feasting and boundless the hospitality of this Christmas, at which the King lavished the treasures of the State.
