“Before I leave speaking of this King Olaf, however, I wish you to observe the paction which he made with the English King Ethelred, for we shall find him hereafter closely connected with the history of London Bridge. The same authority, and under the same year and page, tells you that, after gaining the battle of Maldon, and the death of Alderman Britnoth, peace was made with Anlaf, ‘and the King received him at Episcopal hands, by the advice of Siric, Bishop of Canterbury, and Elfeah of Winchester.’ On page 171, in the year 994, you also find this peace more solemnly confirmed in the following passage. ‘Then sent the King after King Anlaf, Bishop Elfeah, and Alderman Ethelwerd, and hostages being left with the ships, they led Anlaf with great pomp to the King, at Andover. And King Ethelred received him at Episcopal hands, and honoured him with royal presents. In return Anlaf promised, as he also performed, that he never again would come in a hostile manner to England.’ I quote, as usual, from the best edition of this invaluable record by Professor Ingram, London, 1823, 4to. It is generally believed, however, that the year following Anlaf’s invasion, namely 994, there was built a low Wooden Bridge, which crossed the Thames at St. Botolph’s Wharf yonder, where the French passage vessels are now lying; and a rude thing enough it was, I’ll warrant; built of thick rough-hewn timber planks, placed upon piles, with moveable platforms to allow the Saxon vessels to pass through it Westward. A Bridge of any kind is not so small a concern but what one might suppose you could avoid running against it, and yet William of Malmesbury, the Benedictine Monk, who lived in the reign of King Stephen, and died in 1142, says, that, in 994, King Sweyn of Denmark, the Invader, ran foul of it with his Fleet. This you find mentioned in his book, ‘_De Gestis Regum Anglorum_,’ the best edition, London, 1596, folio:--though, by the way, the preferable one is called the Frankfurt reprint of 1601, as it contains all the errata of the London text, and adds a good many more of its own; for I am much of the mind of Bishop Nicolson, and Sir Henry Spelman, who observe that the Germans committed abundance of faults with the English words. In this record, which is contained in Sir Henry Savile’s ‘_Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores Post Bedam_,’ of the foregoing date and size, at folio 38^b, is the passage beginning ‘_Mox ad Australes regiones_,’ _&c._ of which this is the purport.