the banks of the Thames at Dagenham. It is first mentioned in a record of the ensuing year, when the convent petitioned that it might be excused from contributing in aid to the King at the time of a threatened invasion, on account of the expenses they had incurred in endeavouring to repair their damages. The plea was allowed, and the same reasons were generally pleaded with success, as an exemption from contributions of a like nature. In 1380 and 1382 the abbess and convent stated that their

income was then diminished by inundations, and that they had scarcely sufficient left to maintain them. In 1409. they stated that they expended two thousand pounds to no purpose, in endeavouring to repair their banks. The next year it was set forth that the revenues of the convent were sunk so low, that none of the ladies had more than fourteen shillings per annum for clothes and necessaries. In consequence of these several petitions, they obtained frequent exemptions from taxes and other burdens, writs to impress labourers to work at their banks, and licenses to appropriate certain churches to the use of

the convent. Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester, retired to Barking Abbey, after the murder of her husband in 1397, and died there in 1399. During the time of the Queen dowager, Catherine de la Pole, Edmund and Jasper Tudor, her sons by Owen Tudor, were sent to be educated at this abbey, a certain salary being allowed to the abbess for their support.

Thus the funds of the abbey were liable to be depleted at any moment by the ravages of the water, for a portion of the possessions of the community were entirely at the mercy of wind, tide, and floods. Fuller says the income was well over a thousand pounds per annum, so that its endowment in ordinary seasons was ample. The Abbey surrendered to Henry VIII. in November, 1539, when an annual pension of two hundred marks was granted to Dorothy Barley, the last Abbess, and several smaller pensions to the nuns, then thirty in number.

The Abbey Church and conventual buildings occupied an extensive plot of ground, although hardly any remains are now standing. The site of the former was just outside the north wall of the present churchyard. Mr. Lethieullier, by digging among the ruins, obtained a ground plan of this edifice, from which it appears to have been constructed on the general plan of cathedral churches.

Other excavations were made at a later period by Mr. Joshua King, and some interesting relics and remains were discovered. Amongst those was a tomb containing a skeleton in a fair state of preservation, evidently appertaining to a person of distinction, maybe a former ruler here.

Every visible sign of the abbey has gradually vanished away; the wall of the kitchen garden and a picturesque gateway were among the last reminders of this stately and important edifice. Nothing remains to mark the notable spot; unless the Fire-bell tower, at the entrance of the grounds at St. Margaret's church, can be called a reminiscence. The iconoclast is always abroad, seeking to pull down, to improve, to renovate, to modernize, to renew, to destroy those links with byegone days which are the delight of the antiquary. Piles of bricks and mortar, resembling the pyramids, but without elegance or beauty; straight streets, along which the wind howls; these supersede the picturesque historical records of the past.

Even the curfew bell which rang out its evening peal, and the matin bell to call the workman to his task, which have been continued here for eight centuries, are now discontinued. The children were started up the wooden hill when the curfew commenced, and as time went on they in the same way enforced the ancient custom on their little ones. We may truly say: Mute is the matin bell whose early call,

Warned the grey fathers from their humble bed; s

No midnight taper gleams along the wall,

Or round the sculptured saint a radiance sheds.

Thus monks and nuns fade out of sight, and Henry VIII. and his courtiers divide the spoil, of which quaint Fuller and others have somewhat to say.

The Roding gradually gained a an extensive fishery emanated, and known in the annals of the time. fishermen confined their peregrinations down the river as far as Sea Reach and the Leigh Middle; but later on they became more adventurous, built larger smacks, and went out of the estuary of

the Thames, across the North Sea, in vessels that could face any weather, with masters who knew no fear either of storm or the King's enemies, and whose craft became most useful as tenders and transports in time of war.

In the Liber Albus, of the city of London (H. T. Riley's translation pp. 441–444), there is an interesting story of the Fishery and its regulation, which relates to the Roding and the adjoining localities. It is called: "A Record of Process and Judgment as to Nets taken in the Thames, before the Council of his Lordship the King, at Westminster, in the Seventh Year of the reign of King Henry the Fourth. Of Kidels, Trinks, and Nets. Judgment as to sixteen Nets."

It would appear from this record that in 1406 there was almost a riot in the vicinity of and up the Roding with these fishermen, who rebelled against the jurisdiction of the Thames Conservators about the size of the mesh of their nets. The nets were seized by Alexander Bonner, a sub-conservator, and brought to Barking, where the mob rescued them from the custody of the constable. The crowd consisted of fishermen and friends who were interested in the industry. They either ascended the Roding with the flood tide to arrive at Barking, or they landed at the mouth of the same river and traversed the marshes to the town.

The trouble was speedily settled, for the Corporation of London, who then controlled the Thames and its tributaries, complained to the Lords of the Council. Whereupon the order went forth that these offenders against the law should be arrested, and command was given to one Simon Blackborne to bring the parties implicated before the Council. Several fishermen were thereupon taken by force to Westminster, apparently from "Erehithe, Prattys Ferye, Berkyng, and Wulwiche," probably representative men from each place. "The culprits were found guilty, and upon this report being made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Winchester, Durham, and Bath, and the other Lords of the Council, the prisoners submitted themselves unto the mercy and grace of the King, for that they had in this case offended against him; humbly entreating the Mayor, Aldermen, and commonalty to pardon them their trespasses and offences, so against them in this behalf perpetrated, promising lawfully and in good faith to abstain from further offence.

The Mayor benignly hearkened unto the said supplication, and did pardon the said transgressors their trespasses and offences aforesaid; and allowed them by mediation of the said Lords to fish with those nets until the Feast of Easter then next ensuing." The nets were brought to the Lord Mayor the next Sunday, who delivered them again to the owners, who were bound to cause new nets to be made by the Feast of Easter, according to the Standard of London; and then the new nets

and old should be brought to the Mayor, the good to be proved, examined, and sealed, the defective to be burnt.

Thus ended a dispute which threatened at one time to cause serious trouble to the fishery of the Roding, and which was settled amicably by the good temper and prudence of the Lords of the Council. What might have caused a blaze on the river and its tributaries was arranged, the offenders submitted to authority, and the dignity of the Lord Mayor and Corporation was upheld. Strange that to-day the fishermen of Leigh and Gravesend near the estuary of the Thames complain against the bye-law which