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posed:-Et tu, Brute! So, after one gallant struggle in the enemy's own quarters in 1755, when they obtained a favourable committee of the Common Council, who reported that the construction of a new bridge would prejudice the navigation, and be very injurious to the interests of the City, but whose report was condemned by a majority of 132 to 106, their movements were but of a faint and melancholy character. They appear to have been led on this occasion by the Company of Watermen, who, when the proposed Act was before Parliament, once more mustered the West-country bargemen, now re-inforced by the market-gardeners, and a number of other witnesses, in order to make as goodly a show as possible in support of the allegations of its petition; which declared, as in the previous instances (with a constancy of purpose we cannot too much admire when we consider how peculiarly vexatious the facts had since proved), that all sorts of dangers to the navigation were to be apprehended. But the opposition had little of the warmth that had characterised the previous case: the Company was, in all probability, shrewd enough to see that the measure would be successful, but then another and more valuable Sunday ferry was about to be destroyed; so, as it was also shrewd enough to see the utility of a bold front, it demanded more than was expected, and was thus enabled to retire from the contest with a very handsome compensation. The Act passed in 1756. One of the reasons which induced the City to adopt this unexpected course was the dangerous condition of London Bridge, and the possibility of its being shut up for a considerable period, of course to great and general inconvenience and loss. Another reason was the advantages anticipated from the increase of good houses, and consequent improvement in the value of the land around the extremities of the proposed bridge, which would tend to enable it the better to bear its quota of the land-tax (onesixteenth the assessment of the whole kingdom). But the moving impulse, we suspect, is to be found in the jealousy of the growing prosperity of Westminster. In an able scheme for the general improvement of the City published in the year 1754, and which is given at large in Maitland, the writer, in one part, says, “ Many well-wishers to the City, by way of retaliation, or rather of self-preservation, begin to think no less than an absolute necessity" the business of erecting a new stone bridge; and, in another part, in enumerating the advantages of such a structure, says, "At present the City have the justest grounds for being alarmed at the schemes already laid or laying for new and magnificent streets, new inns, stagecoaches, livery-stables, and trades of all kinds in the neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge. And it is of the last importance for the city of London seriously to reflect that when these schemes, which are now little more than embryos, shall come to maturity, it will be too late to hope for bringing back those advantages into the City which may now be affected by their proposed bridge, if very speedily resolved on." The citizens determined that no blame for want of speed should apply to them; a few weeks after the appearance of this document proceedings were commenced. The spot chosen was a memorable one in the history not only of London, but of our country generally. Often, no doubt, has the question arisen in the minds of persons unversed in metropolitan historical lore, as the appellation of the bridge they were crossing struck their attention, whence the nature of the connection between things raising ideas so strangely constrasted as monasteries and friars, and bridges, omnibuses and cabs? We can only answer

that here was one of the most magnificent of the great religious establishments which formed, at one period, so marked a feature of London; and that it has left to the locality a long train of the most interesting and important recollections, of which the name given to the district, the bridge, and the adjoining road, is now the only existing memorial.

The order of Black Friars came into England in 1221, the year of their founder Dominic de Guzman's death. Their first house was at Oxford, their second in London at Holborn, or Oldbourne, on the site now occupied by Lincoln's Inn. The cause of their removal from thence does not appear; but in 1276 Gregory Rocksley, then mayor, in conjunction with the barons of the city, gave to Robert Kilwarby, Archbishop of Canterbury, a cardinal of Rome and an ecclesiastic, eminent not merely for his rank, "two lanes or ways next the street of Baynard's Castle, and also the tower of Montfichet, to be destroyed " for the erection of a house and church for the Black Friars; and there they settled. The materials of the Castle of Montfichet, which had been built by and derived its name from a relative and one of the followers of the Conqueror, were used for the new church, which Kilwarby made a magnificent structure. A striking instance of the favours shown to the brotherhood was given in the permission of Edward I. for the taking down of the city wall from Ludgate (standing just above the end of the Old Bailey) to the Thames for their accommodation, which had then to be rebuilt so as to include their buildings within its shelter. The expenses of this rebuilding and of a "certain good and comely tower at the bend of the said wall," wherein the king might be "received, and tarry with honour" to his ease and satisfaction in his comings there, were defrayed by a toll granted for three years on various articles of merchandise. Nor did Edward's liberality rest here. Every kind of special privilege and exemption was granted to the house and the precincts. Persons could open shops here without being free of the City; malefactors flying from justice found sanctuary within the walls; and the inhabitants were governed by the prior and their own justices.

A surprising list of names of eminent personages is given by our historians as having been buried in the church of the Black Friars; and the circumstance is not to be wondered at if, as Pennant observes, "to be buried in the habit of the order was thought to be a sure preservative against the attacks of the devil." Here lay the ashes of Hubert de Burgh, the great Earl of Kent, translated from the church at Oldbourne, and his wife Margaret, daughter of the King of Scotland; Queen Eleanor, whose heart alone was interred here, with that of Alphonso her son; John of Eltham, Duke of Cornwall, brother of Edward III.; Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, so distinguished for his intellectual accomplishments, who was beheaded in 1470, one of the victims to the wars of the Roses; Sir Thomas Brandon, 1509, the uncle of the Duke of Suffolk, who took Henry VIII.'s beautiful sister Mary into France as the bride of the French king, and after the death of the latter, a few months later, brought her back as his own; Sir Thomas and Dame Parr, the parents of Henry VIII.'s last wife; and earls, knights, ladies, and other persons of rank too numerous to mention. But historical memories of still greater moment belong to the church of the Black Friars. Here, in 1450, met that famous Parliament of Henry VI., in which his queen's favourite, Suffolk, was impeached, and was about to be tried, when by a manœuvre

previously arranged between him and the weak king, he preferred placing himself at the disposal of Henry, by whom he was banished for five years. Suffolk hugged himself too soon on his escape. Encouraged by the general detestation in which he was held, some of his rivals about the court most probably, (for it was never exactly known who,) caused him to be waylaid as he was crossing from Dover to Calais by a great ship of war, the captain of which greeted his appearance on his deck with the significant salutation "Welcome, traitor!" Three days after he was, as is well known, executed in a cock-boat by the ship's side. It is a startling illustration of a man's character, as well as of a time, to find no inquiry, much less punishment, following such an act. In this church another Parliament made itself noticeable by its daring to have a will of its own in opposition to that of Henry VIII., when that monarch, in 1524, demanded a subsidy of some eight hundred thousand pounds to carry on his unmeaning wars in France, but was obliged to content himself with a grant cut down into much more reasonable limits. Of this Parliament Sir Thomas More was speaker, and to his honour be it said, that although he was a great personal favourite with the court, and treated there with extraordinary marks of respect and affection, he acted with admirable firmness and dignity both towards his overbearing royal master, and that master's equally overbearing servant, the Chancellor Wolsey. In answer to the latter's application, More thought it would not "be amiss" to receive the Chancellor as he desired, who accordingly came into the house with his maces, poleaxes, cross, hat, and great scal, and with a retinue which filled every vacant part of the place. But when Wolsey, after explaining his business, remained silent, expecting the discussion and business to proceed, he was surprised to find the assemblage silent too. He addressed one of the members by name, who politely rose in acknowledgment, but sat down again without speaking: another member was addressed by Wolsey, but with no better success.

At last the great Chancellor became impatient; and looking upon him who was to be his still greater successor, said, "Masters, as I am sent here immediately from the King, it is not unreasonable to expect an answer: yet there is, without doubt, a surprising and most obstinate silence, unless indeed it may be the manner of your House to express your mind by your Speaker only." More immediately rose, and, with equal tact and courage, said the members were abashed at the sight of so great a personage, whose presence was sufficient to overwhelm the wisest and most learned men in the realm; but that that presence was neither expedient nor in accordance with the ancient liberties of the House. They were not bound to return any answer; and as to a reply from him (the Speaker) individually, it was impossible, as he could only act on the instructions from the House. And so Wolsey found himself necessitated to depart. Although much modified, the demands of the King were still so heavy that the people were dissatisfied. They were indeed greatly distressed, and no doubt thought the paying of any taxes to be but a dark piece of business: so, as the Parliament had commenced among the Black Friars, and ended among the Black Monks (at Westminster), they kept the whole affair in their recollection by the name of the Black Parliament.

The next event, in the order of time, is one of the deepest interest in the history

of the place. It was here that, on the 21st of June, 1529, Wolsey and his fellow Cardinal, Campeggio, appointed by the Pope to act with him in the matter of the proposed divorce of Henry and Catherine, sat in judgment, with the King on their right, and Catherine, accompanied by four bishops, on their left. When the King's name was called, he answered "Here!" but the Queen remained silent when hers was pronounced. Then the citation being repeated, the unhappy Queen, rising in great anguish, ran to her husband, and prostrating herself before him, said, in language that would have deterred any less cruel and sensual

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nature from the infamous path he was pursuing, "Sir, I beseech you, for all the love that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman and a stranger, born out of your dominions. I have here no assured friend, much less impartial counsel; and I flee to you as to the head of justice within this realm. Alas! Sir, wherein have I offended you, or on what occasion given you dis

pleasure? Have I ever designed against your will and pleasure, that you should put me from you? I take God and all the world to witness that I have been to you a true, humble, and obedient wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure," &c. At the conclusion of a most admirable, womanly, and yet dignified address, she rose, left the court, and never entered it again. She died at Kimbolton in 1536, heart-broken, but refusing to the last to renounce her rights and title of Queen. Even in that period, which so often awakes the injurer to a sense of the wrongs he has committed, and crowds into a few hours or days a world of unanticipated and then useless anguish, her royal husband remained consistent in cruelty, refusing her permission even to see her daughter once-but once— before she died. One of Catherine's judges had scarcely less reason than herself to remember that eventful day in the Black Friars. Wolsey, unable to prevail with Campeggio to give a decision at the time, seems to have been suspected by Anne Boleyn (then waiting the Queen's degradation to fill her place) to have acted but lukewarmly in the matter. Henry, too, had grown tired of his gorgeous Chancellor, and began to think of the value of his trappings. To sum up shortly the result in that same Black Friars, where he had endeavoured to bully one Parliament, the sentence of premunire was passed against him by another; and the man who had there sat in judgment upon Catherine, and been throughout the chief instrument in Henry's hands to doom that noble and virtuous lady to a lingering death, found that day's proceedings the immediate cause of his own downfall, and still speedier dissolution. The blow which Catherine's innocence, and moral fortitude and pious resignation, enabled her for a time to bear up against, killed Wolsey at once.

Such are the chief historical recollections of the great House of the Black Friars. There are some minor matters connected with its history, which are also deserving of notice, as bearing indirectly on the subject of our paper. The privileges before mentioned, it appears, produced continual heart-burnings between the city and the inhabitants of the favoured part, and violent quarrels were the consequences. We have an illustration of the feelings which prevailed in the circumstance that one of the priors having found himself obliged to pave the streets without the wall joining to the precinct, and a cage or small prison being afterwards there set up by the city, the prior pulled it down, saying, "Since the city forced me to pave the place, they shall set no cage there on my ground." At the dissolution, Bishop Fisher, who held it in commendam, resigned the house to the king. The revenues were valued at the very moderate sum of 1007. 15s. 5d. The prior's lodgings and the hall were granted to Sir Francis Bryan in 1547. We need scarcely add that these, with the church, and all the old privileges, have long since been swept away; although in 1586 a protracted, and for a time successful, struggle was maintained for the latter, by the inhabitants both of the Black and the White Friars (adjoining) in the courts of law in opposition to the city. Two or three passages of the statements made on this occasion will not be without interest for our readers. The city claimed the liberties, on the ground that the precincts were in London, offering, as a kind of proof that their right had been acknowledged, the circumstance that divers felons had been tried by the city for crimes committed within the precincts during the friars' time. Accordingly they now claimed from the crown all waifs, strays, felons' goods, amercements, escheats,

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