“We learn, also, from a very interesting history of King Henry V. in
English, contained in the Harleian Manuscripts, No. 35, folio 138 a,
that when the funeral ‘should enter the Cittye, ten Bishopps, w^{th}
their pontificall adornments revested, and many Abbotts mytored, and
other men of the Church in greate number, with a right great multitude
of Cittizens of the same Cittie, went out thereof to meet the Corps,
and receaued it with due honnour. And all y^e saide Spiritualls
singinge, the officers accustomed in like case, conveyed the same Corps
by London Bridge, and by Lumbart Streete, thoroughe the Cheape vnto
y^e Cathedrall Churche of Saint Paule.’ This life of King Henry is
partly a translation from the Latin of Titus Livius, an Historian of
his reign, who called himself by that name, and the French Chronicles
of Enguerrant. The other particulars you will find set down in Stow,
as I have already cited him, and in two Manuscript volumes of Heraldic
ceremonies, in the Harleian Library, No. 2076, folio 6 b, and No. 6079,
folio 23 b; and in finishing our imperfect notices of this reign, let
me close with almost the very words of the good old London Historian to
whom we are so much indebted--‘Thus this most victorious and renowned
King entred the way decreed for every creature, in the flower and most
lusty time of his age, to wit, when he was six and twenty years old,
when he had reigned nine years, and five months with glory.’
“You must, doubtless, worthy Mr. Barbican, well remember the discord
which Shakspeare represents to have existed between the Protector,
Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester; and Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop
of Winchester: and the fray which takes place between their serving-men
in blue coats and tawny coats, on Tower-hill. This is in his ‘_First
Part of Henry the Sixth_,’ Act I, Scene 3; but we learn from Fabyan’s
‘_Chronicle_,’ page 413, that they once disturbed London Bridge with
a brawl that wore a much darker aspect. It was customary in the more
ancient days of this City, that the Lord Mayor should be elected on
the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, on the 28th of October; and that
on the day following he should be sworn in at Westminster. It was
then, during the subsequent banquet of Sir John Coventry, Citizen and
Mercer, that the Protector sent for him in great haste, and commanded
him to watch the City securely during the night following; and on
Tuesday, the 30th of October,--for, in 1425, St. Simon and St. Jude’s
day happened on a Sunday, and therefore the Lord Mayor was elected the
day after,--about nine in the morning, some of the Bishop’s servants
came from his Palace on the Bankside, to enter at the Bridge Gate, when
the warders, as they were commanded, kept them out by force. Upon which
repulse, they retired in great discontent, and, gathering together a
larger body of Archers and men-at-arms than that which kept the gate,
assaulted it as a hostile City. All London was immediately alarmed;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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