The lord mayor gave a grand dinner in the Egyptian-hall, at the Mansion-house, to 376 guests; the duke of York, being engaged to dine with the king, could not attend. The present lord mayor has won his way to the hearts of good livers, by his entertainments, and the court of common council commenced its proceedings on the following day by honourable mention of him for this entertainment especially, and complacently received a notice to do him further honour for the general festivity of his mayoralty.
His lordship’s name is Garratt; he is a tea-dealer. Stow mentions that one of similar name, and a grocer, was commemorated by an epitaph in our lady’s chapel, in the church of St. Saviour’s, Southwark; which church the first pier of the proposed bridge adjoins. He says,
Upon a faire stone under the Grocers’ arms, is this inscription:—
Garret some cal’d him, but that was too hye,
His name is Garrard, who now here doth lye;
Weepe not for him since he is gone before
To heaven, where Grocers there are many more.[168]
It is supposed that the first bridge of London was built between the years 993 and 1016; it was of wood. There is a vulgar tradition, that the foundation of the old stone bridge was laid upon wool-packs: this report is imagined to have arisen from a tax laid upon wool towards its construction. The first stone-bridge began in 1176, and finished in 1209, was much injured by a fire in the Borough, in 1212, and three thousand people perished. On St. George’s day, 1395, there was a great justing upon it, between David, earl of Crawford, of Scotland, and lord Wells of England. It had a drawbridge for the passage of ships with provisions to Queenhithe, with houses upon it, mostly tenanted by pin and needle-makers: there was a chapel on the bridge, and a tower, whereon the heads of unfortunate partisans were placed: an old map of the city, in 1597, represents a terrible cluster; in 1598, Hentzner the German traveller, counted above thirty poles with heads. Upon this bridge was placed the head of the great chancellor, sir Thomas More, which was blown off the pole into the Thames and found by a waterman, who gave it to his daughter; she kept it during life as a relic, and directed at her death it should be placed in her arms and buried with her.
Howel, the author of “Londinopolis,” in a paraphrase of some lines by Sannazarius, has this—
Encomium on London-bridge.