“The only historical notice which I find connected with London Bridge, immediately succeeding the last unhappy story, is of a light and even trivial nature, being nothing greater than a dispute in the Bridge-Street, between Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence, and John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, the second and third sons of Henry IV., their followers and the Citizens. Stow, in relating this circumstance, in his ‘_Annals_,’ page 338, makes no farther mention of the place than that they ‘being in East-Cheape, in London, at supper, after midnight, a great debate hapned betweene their men and men of the Court, lasting an houre, till the Maior and Sheriffs, with other Citizens, ceased the same:’ and Maitland adds, in volume i., of his ‘_History_,’ page 185, that these Officers were, in consequence, summoned before Sir William Gascoigne, the Chief Justice, to submit themselves to the King’s mercy on behalf of the Citizens. Richard Marlow, however, the then Lord Mayor, and John Law and William Chicheley, the Sheriffs, with the Aldermen, strenuously asserted their innocence, alleging that they had only done their duty in preserving the peace of the City; and the King being fully satisfied with this answer, the Corporation returned to London. I have only farther to remark, that Prince Thomas of Clarence was engaged in a similar fray in East-Cheap in the year previous to the present, namely 1407-8; and that it is to him that Shakspeare makes the dying King Henry deliver that noble speech in the ‘_Second Part of King Henry IV._,’ Act 4, Scene 4. We derive, however, such a character of John of Lancaster from Falstaff, that we wonder to find him either in East-Cheap or Bridge-Street; for in that very same dramatic history, and in the preceding scene, he says of him: ‘Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;--but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine.’ Here, then, close all the events of London Bridge which have come under my reading, in the year 1409.