end of the Bridge – women had to stand in the cage; there were stocks for feet wandering and trespassing; there were pounds for stray animals.
Markets were held in the churchyard of St. Margaret's; in the precinct of Bermondsey Abbey; and along the street called 'Long Southwark' – now High Street – from the Bridge to St. Margaret's Hill. But we must not suppose that the markets of Southwark presented the same crowded appearance, and were carried on with the same noise and bustle, as those of Chepe and Newgate on the other side.
Everything, in those days, was quiet and dignified in Southwark. The Princes of the Church arrived and departed, each with his retinue of chaplains and secretaries, gentlemen and livery. Kings and ambassadors rode up from Dover through Long Southwark and across the Bridge. The mayor and aldermen in new cloaks of red murrey and gold chains sallied forth to meet the King returning from abroad. Cavalcades of pilgrims for Canterbury, Compostella, Seville, Rome, and Jerusalem rode out of Southwark when the spring returned; and every day there arrived and departed long lines of packhorses laden with the produce of the country and with things imported for sale in London City. Pilgrims, merchants, travellers, all put up at the Southwark inns. The place was nothing but a collection of inns; the ecclesiastics stayed here for a few weeks and then went away; the great lords came here when they had business at Court and then went away again; the merchants came and went: by itself the place had, as yet, no independent life or character of its own at all.
There were two Monastic Houses. Both were stately; both are full of history. Let us consider the House of Bermondsey, because it is less generally known than the other of St. Mary Overy or Overies.
The Abbey of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, was the Westminster of South London. Like Westminster, Bermondsey stood upon a low islet in the midst of a marsh; at the distance of half a mile on the north ran the river; half a mile on the west was the Causeway; half a mile on the south was the Dover road. It is significant of the seclusion in which the House lay that the only road which connected it with the world was that lane called Bermondsey or Barnsie or Barnabie Lane, which ran from the Abbey to St. Olave's and so to London Bridge. It was not, like Westminster, a place of traffic and resort. It lay alone and secluded, separated from the noise and racket of life. When the marsh had been gradually drained and the Embankment continued through Rotherhithe to Deptford and beyond the Greenwich levels, the Abbey lands round the islet became extremely fertile and wooded and covered with sheep and cattle.
The House was founded in the year 1182 by one Ailwin Childe, a merchant of the City, an Alderman also and one of the ruling families of London. He was the son of an elder Ailwin, who was a member of that 'Knighten Guild' which, with all its members and all its property – the land which now forms the Ward of Portsoken – went over to the Priory of the Holy Trinity. Religion of a practical and real kind was therefore hereditary in the family. The elder Ailwin became a monk, the younger founded a monastery; his son, the third of the family of whom we know anything, became the first Mayor of London, and remained Mayor for twenty-four years – the rest of his life.
The whole of history from the ninth to the fifteenth century is full of a pathetic longing after a religious Order, if that could be found, of true and proved sanctity. One Order after the other arises; one after the other challenges respect for reputed holiness of a new and hitherto unknown kind: in fact, it commands the respect of the people who always admire voluntary privation of what they value so much – food and drink; it receives endowments, gifts, foundations of all kinds; it then departs from the ancient rule, and quickly loses its hold upon the people. This is the simple history of Benedictine, Franciscan, Cistercian, and all the rest. However, at the close of the eleventh century the Cluniac was in the highest repute for a rigid Rule, strictly kept: and for an austerity strictly enforced. It was a Cluniac House which Ailwin Childe set up in Bermondsey, and which Earl de Warren, who also founded the Cluniac House of Lewes, enriched.
This Priory, with thirty-seven other Houses, was an Alien owing obedience to the Abbot of Cluny. A large part of its revenues, therefore, was sent out of the country, and it received its Priors from abroad. In the reign of Henry the Fifth the growing dissatisfaction on account of the Alien Priories came to a head, and they were all suppressed, or at least cut off from obedience to the Mother Convent. The Priory of Bermondsey was therefore raised to the dignity of an Abbey, with an English Abbot, and so continued until the Dissolution.
The Abbey was one of the many places of pilgrimage dotted about round London – places accessible in a single day's journey. Thus there were the three shrines of Willesden, Muswell Hill, and Gospel Oak, each possessing an image of the Virgin to which miraculous powers were attributed. At Blackheath there was another holy shrine; at Bermondsey there was a Holy Rood which was daily visited in the summer by pious pilgrims from London. The Rood had been fished up from the Thames, and no one knew its history; but the merit of a pilgrimage to the Abbey and of prayers said before the shrine was considered very precious. It was, moreover, an easy pilgrimage. A boat taken below the Bridge would take the pilgrim over to the opposite shore in a few minutes, where a cross standing before a lane leading out of 'Short Southwark' showed him the way. It was but half a mile to the Abbey of St. Saviour and the Holy Rood.
'Go,' writes John Paston in 1465 to his mother, 'visit the Rood of North door and St. Saviour in Bermondsey among while ye abide in London; and let my sister Margery go with you to pray to them that she may have a good husband or she come home again.'
One can hardly expect that the Abbot of Cluny should resign this valuable possession without a remonstrance. He made, in fact, the strongest possible remonstrance. In 1457 he sent over three monks with orders to lay the case before the King, and to invite his attention especially to the papers showing the clear and indisputable right of the Mother Convent to the House of Bermondsey. These monks, in fact, did present their case to the King, with the documents. But no one heeded them; they could hardly get a hearing; no one replied to their arguments. This neglect was perhaps the cause why one of them died while in this country. The other two went home again, having accomplished nothing. One of them on the eve of their departure wrote a piteous letter to the Abbot of St. Albans: —
For the rest, be it known to you, my Lord, that after having spent four months and a half on our journey, and following our Right with the most serene Lord the King and his Privy Council, we have obtained nothing: nay, we are sent back very disconsolate, deprived of our Manors, our Pensions alienated, and, what is still worse, we are denied the obedience of all our Monasteries which are 38 in number: nor did our Legal Deeds, nor the Testimonies of your Chronicles avail us anything, and at length, after all our pleading and expenses, we return home moneyless, for in truth, after paying for what we have eaten and drunk, we have but five crowns left, to go back about 260 leagues. But what then? We will sell what we have: we will go on: and God will provide. Nothing else occurs to write to your Paternity: but that as we entered England with joy, so we depart thence with sorrow: having buried one of our Companions – viz. the Archdeacon, the youngest of our company. May he rest in Peace! Amen.
There is not at the present moment a single stone of this stately House visible, though there were many remains above ground one hundred years ago. It is a pity, because there is the association of two Queens, not to speak of many great Lords of state Functions, and of Parliaments, connected with this House secluded in the Marsh.
The first of the two Queens is Katharine of Valois, widow of Henry the Fifth. The story is the most romantic, perhaps, of all the stories connected with our line of sovereigns and Queens and Royal Princes. It is not a new story, and yet it is not so well known that any apology is needed for telling it once more.
Henry died August 31, 1422. His widow, Katharine, began to live in the seclusion fitted for her sorrow and her widowhood. Among her household, the office of Clerk to the Wardrobe was filled by a young and handsome Welshman named Owen Tudor, or Theodore. He was the son of a plain Welsh gentleman of slender means, if any, who was in the service of the Bishop of Chester. He distinguished himself at Agincourt in the following of some nobleman unknown. It has been said, with singular ignorance of the time, that he was a private soldier
