The year 1390 saw yet another queer event. Probably most of you understand what is meant by a tournament. Well, at this time, there was much rivalry between the English and Scottish knights, and a tilt was proposed between two champions, Lord Wells of England and Earl Lindsay of Scotland. The Englishman, granted choice of ground, chose by some strange whim London Bridge for the scene of action rather than some well-known tournament ground. On the appointed day the Bridge was thronged with folk who had come to witness this unusual contest in the narrow street. Great was the excitement as the knights charged towards each other. Three times did they meet in the shock of battle, and at the third the Englishman fell vanquished from his charger, to be attended immediately by the gallant Scottish knight.
London Bridge in Modern Times.
The Bridge, as the only approach to the city from the south, was the scene of many wonderful pageants and processions, as our victorious Kings came back from their wars with France, or returned to England with their brides from overseas. Such a magnificent spectacle was the crossing in state of Henry V. after the great victory of Agincourt in the year 1415. The battle, as most of you know, took place in October of that year, and at the end of November the King passed over the Bridge at the head of his most distinguished prisoners and his victorious soldiers, amid the tumultuous rejoicing of London’s jubilant citizens.
Yet another strange scene was enacted when Wat Tyler, at the head of his tens of thousands, passed over howling and threatening, after being temporarily held back by the gates which stood at the south end of the Bridge.
So the old Bridge lasted on, living through momentous days, till, in the year 1832, it was removed to give place to the new London Bridge which had been erected sixty yards to the westwards.
CHAPTER SIX
How the City grew (in the Middle Ages)
London in that period which we speak of as the Middle Ages was indeed a remarkable city. Dotted about all over it, north and south, west and east, were great monasteries and nunneries and churches, for in those days the Church was a tremendous power in the land; while huddled together within its confines were shops, houses, stores, palaces, all set down in a bewildering confusion. Of palaces there was indeed a profusion; in fact, London might well have been called a City of Palaces. But they were not arranged in long lines along the banks of canals, as were those of Venice, nor round fine stately squares, as in Florence, Genoa, and other famous cities of the Continent. London’s palaces nestled in the city’s narrow, muddy lanes, between the warehouses of the merchants and the hovels of the poor. They paid little or no attention to external beauty, but within they were splendid structures.