as heartily in the anathema pronounced on all those who opposed it. The monks of Westminster were sorely moved at this; for the wealthy Londoners lavished their gifts upon St. Paul's, and, thanks to the progress of free opinion, many of the inhabitants of Westminster thought proper to do the same. Hence arose that wellknown proverb-the spiteful ebullition of the monks of Westminster Robbing Peter to pay Paul." But this is a digression, and a very wide one; for, when the unpretending church on Thorney Island was built, we doubt whether the Chapter of St. Paul's even heeded its erection, for these were the early days of the Saxon kingdoms, and beyond the walls of London little toward the westward, save uncultivated land, met the eye. Few notices can we find of our river during the earlier period of Saxon rule. We think it probable that our Saxon forefathers used it far more than the Romans, for the Saxon, like the Dane, was almost "to the water born;" and difficult must have been the navigation, and perilous the shores, along which their long boats would not find out a way. Was it to protect the city from these more enterprising foemen that the wall by the river's side was built? Ineffectual enough it proved, if so; and the Saxons, ere long, let it sink into ruin. It is now that we find settlements near, although not exactly "by, the River's-side;" and deeds and charters even thus early give us the names-genuine Saxon-of the villages founded by them. Meanwhile, Londinum Augusta had fallen upon evil days, and been reduced from the metropolis of Roman Britain to a mere third-rate city, the capital of the little tributary kingdom of the East Saxons. Subsequently, London became the capital of the more important kingdom of Mercia; but little account have we save that, "in this year there was great slaughter at London ;" "now there was war against the Pagans;" and eventually, in 851, we are told it was attacked, and the Mercian king forced to flee. Convenient enough did the fierce Vikings find the river-way; and from the mouth of the Thames to Southwark their tall ships," the dragons of the ocean," swept in triumph. On Alfred's accession, all the eastern portion of England was subjugated by the Danes; but by battle and by treaty he regained Mercia, and often was resident in London. With his illustrious grandson, however, the history of London and her noble river begins. Of all our kings, Athelstan alone has bequeathed his name to pos terity in two important localities of the ancient city. "King Adel Street," now "Addle Street," has told, for more than nine centuries, where the great Saxon monarch convened the "good men of London, " and gave them their highly-prized "Customs;" while "Addle Hill" still marks the chief approach to the palace-stronghold where be dwelt. Many blunders have been made about King Athelstan s palace. The Scalds, when they celebrated the prowess of their Vikings, frequently refer to the Castle or Tower of London; and t has been hastily concluded that this was the Tower. But the Tower was a much later erection, built by Gundulph, the great engineer as well as architect of his day; but not to "guard" London, as some writers have sillily thought, but to overawe the Mercian city, which never yielded more than a sullen homage to the Norman sovereigns. A hearty and spontaneous homage, however, was yielded by the fathers of the city to Athelstan; for he quitted royal Winchesterthen and for two centuries after the chief city of the land-to dwell among them; and he elevated the Mercian capital to an equality with Winchester by appointing for London an equal number of mint-masters, and regulated their civic proceedings; and, above all, enacted that law which gave the right to every merchant who had made three successful voyages to claim the dignity of Thane. A proud eminence this: to wear the golden bracelet, and sit, as of right, in the King's halls, and drain the mead-cup with the hereditary nobles of the land. No wonder Athelstan was long remembered in London, for from his days "the port of London" became a recognized phrase, and each year saw the Thames more crowded with vessels, and the barques of the enterprising trader spreading their sails to more distant regions, until, even in the twelfth century, Fitzstephen could boast that luxuries from all parts of the world found a mart in London. But disastrous days, ere the close of that century, drew on; for the feebleness of the later Saxon monarchs disgusted a haughty people, and during the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the Saxons, who sought in their king a "Bretwalda "--a leader in war and a legislator in peace-but had found only a slave of the priesthood, or a glutton and wine-bibber, invited over the gallant "Svend of the forked beard" to oppose their despised king. That the Danes, however unwelcome to Ethelred, were welcome enough to the inhabitants of London, seems proved by the fact that Svend entered the city without opposition, and his fleet quietly anchored just below. We must bear in mind that the inhabitants, as "Angles," were more closely allied to the Danish race than the West Saxons. But Ethelred, however cowardly, could not see the greater part of his kingdom wrested from him without a struggle; and he invited the aid of King Olaf of Norway, and retook the city. But Svend was not to be baffled. Unable to pass "the bridge," which we now read of for the first time, "he came with his ships to Greenwich, and from thence to London," says the venerable Saxon chronicle, "and there they sunk a deep ditch on the south, and dragged their ships to the west side of the bridge." A very creditable piece of engineering for the beginning of the eleventh century, for King Olaf's Saga informs us that it was "a great work, of large ditches with bulwarks of stone, timber, and turf." Ethelred again fled away, and Svend's fleet sailed in, and, passing up the Fleet, anchored just on the site of King's Cross. How strange this reads! Some writers have supposed that the Danish vessels must have been very small to have anchored there, but the narrators of this incident give us no reason to believe that they were other than the vessels that had brought his army from Denmark; and we know that their ordinary ships were of very large size, often with forty, and sometimes even sixty, banks of rowers. But from early notices of that hapless river-so different in its fate to all the other Thames' tributaries, treated as a mere sewer in later times, and now absolutely buried out of sight, from its mouth even to its source-it appears to have been a stream, not merely possessing a very rapid current (whence its name), but to have been probably as wide near its junction with the Thames as the River Lea. But the bridge, now for the first time noticed in the venerable Saxon Chronicle: by whom could it have been built? Such a work could scarcely have been undertaken by the Saxons. Was it a remain of Roman London-built, not across a strongly flowing stream, and with lofty arches, but a mere, long, raised causeway, to connect the city with Southwark, and with no regard to the waterway ? We think this was the case, not only from the fact of Svend digging the trench because his vessels could not pass the bridge, but from the more important fact that when, on the death of Svend, Ethelred with King Olaf laid siege to London, Olaf actually pulled the bridge down to force a way. Here is the story from King Olaf Haraldson's Saga, as Snorro Sturleson has preserved it in his spirited "Heimskringla.' Ethelred and Olaf steered to London, and sailed into the Thames with their fleet. "Then King Ethelred ordered a great assault, but the Danes fought bravely, so he could make nothing of it. Between the castle and Southwark there was a bridge, broad enough for two waggons to pass; and on the bridge were towers and wooden parapets breast high, and underneath piles driven into the bottom of the river. Now the troops stood there, and defended themselves; and then King Olaf said he would lay his fleet alongside of it, to break it down. King Olaf ordered great platforms of floating wood to be tied together with hazel-bands, and with these, as a roof, he covered over his ships. . . . Now, when all were ready, they rowed up the river; but when they came near the bridge there were cast down upon them so many stones, and arrows, and spears, that neither helmet nor shield could hold out against it, and many ships retreated. But King Olaf, and the Northmen's fleet with him, rowed quite up under the bridge, laid their cables round the piles that supported it, and then rowed off with all the ships as hard as they could down the stream. The piles were thus shaken in the bottom, and were loosened under the bridge. Now, as the armed troops stood thick upon the bridge, and there were likewise many heaps of stones on it, and the piles under being loosenel and broken, the bridge gave way; and a great part of the men upon it fell into the river, and all the others fled, some into Southwark and some into the castle. Now, when the men in the castle saw that the Thames was mastered, and that they could not hinder the passage of ships, they became afraid, and surrendered the Tower, and took Ethelred for their king; and, therefore, sang Ottar Swarte:: "London Bridge is broken down--- Mail-coats ringing, Odin makes our Olaf win!" " A spirited verse;-would that the whole song had been preserved to us! The reader will, however, perceive from this account, that the Thames could not have flowed with the rapid current of later times. Ethelred did not long enjoy his triumph-he soon after died in London; while King Olaf, after "taking scott (tribute) of the English, and plundering where it was refused," passed over to France, from whence, having fought his twentieth battle, he returned to Norway. Olaf subsequently became a Christian, and was so liberal to the clergy that although he seems to have ever been a most fierce and rapacious Viking-he received the doubtful honour of canonization. Olaf certainly was a muscular Christian" of the first order; and perhaps this was the reason why, although he had so sorely plundered England, and done such grievous damage both to London and her bridge, no less than three parish churches in the city were, and are still, dedicated to his honour-for our belligerent forefathers heartily loved a good fighter. 66 Edmund Ironside, who succeeded his father, also dwelt in London, in King Athelstan's castle, which, as we have seen, was viewed as London's stronghold. But Svend had bequeathed his claim of sovereignty to his son Knut, that "noble barbarian," as he has truly been called, and he, after a fierce fight, took the castle; and then his grand fleet" passed on, as his father's had done, up the Fleet River, and anchored at Battle Bridge. A goodly sight must that fleet have been-picturesque indeed, moored in those bright waters, just at the foot of the uplands-where now the north-western suburbs of London extend-but then rising in slopes, thickly clustered over with the oaks and the beeches of the old forest of Middlesex. And there, against that fair background of foliage fading into the blue distance, lay "the dragon-ships," with carved and gilded prows, glittering in the sunshine, and with sails "striped red, blue, and green," for gorgeous were the vessels of those searovers, and proud were they of the barques that bore them to wealth and renown-proud as the knight of his war-steed-proud almost as themselves were of the snow-white maidens for whose smiles they encountered the perils of the deep. No reason had London to regret the accession of Knut; her commerce increased under his sway, and perhaps more rapidly while the river continued unspanned by any bridge. Probably during the interval previous to the Norman Conquest we must place that pretty legend of the Maiden of the Ferry, whose father, unable longer to ply his calling, committed the charge of the ferry-boat to her; and how she plied the oar, and ferried the passengers over in safety, while many marvelled that so fair and so delicate a maiden should so toilsomely earn her daily bread; and how, putting her trust in Heaven, she toiled right willingly for her aged parents, while "Our Ladye" smiled upon her pious endeavours; until, at length, every duty fulfilled, and age drawing nigh, she relinquished the ferry, and built a convent on the farther side of the river, dedicating it to "Our Lady of the Ferry," and peacefully closed her days as its prioress. Often, in childhood, was this legend told us, and with no common interest did we gaze upon the fair towers of the church that now occupies the site of the lowly convent; and ever as the pleasant chime of the bells of St. Mary Overies flung their sweet melody across the river, did the vision of the fair and pious maiden guiding her little boat across the wide waters rise vividly before us. Ere long, the bridge, though but a rude structure, was built again. There are no records to tell by whom, and it was destroyed by tire ere the close of the century. Still, London's commerce increased. and in the reign of the Confessor we meet with a list of duties paid at the port of London, which would rather surprise the reader. All kinds of spices are named, silken goods, as though of compara tively common use, and the precious gold-wrought stuffs from the East. It is difficult to account for the attachment expressed by London toward the Confessor, Norman as he was by long residence with his mother's relations, and still more Norman in tastes and habits. We have the testimony of Ingulf that his court was as Norman, even to the language spoken there, as the Conqueror's. And then he was not content to dwell in the palace of Athelstan ; but far up the river, all among the swamps, and morasses, and scarcely-drained islands, sought to build his new palace of hewn stone. His life-long devotion to the chief Apostle, however, and his long-expressed determination to build him a fitting minster on the site of the little church of Thorney Island, were probably excuse enough to the devout Saxons. Of this palace we have scarcely any contemporary notices; it seems doubtful whether it was finislied at his death; but we know that succeeding monarchs largely added to it, and also repaired it. This circumstance, together with that of the neighbouring Abbey and Church being twenty years building. seems to prove that the ground was, even then, scarcely settled enough to bear so ponderous a structure. It is corroborative, too, of this view to remember that this church, built by the chief Norn.an architects, actually was in ruins ere two hundred years had passed. Now, the Norman work of our cathedrals, executed only a few years later, is firm even to the present time. On Holy Innocents D„ș, 1065, St. Peter's Minster was consecrated with royal pomp: tat eight days after King Edward was no more, and the body, crown i and arrayed in regal garments, lay with folded hands before the altar where so lately he had knelt. A legacy of strife and bloodshed did the superstitious Confessor |