Falconbridge.’ When he lost this employment, as he was a man alike devoid of morals and of money, he saw, says Rapin, with a very singular expression, ‘no other way to subsist than turning Pirate;’ for which, however, he probably required very little transmutation. As Edward was, at this time, engaged in pursuit of Elizabeth, his Queen, Falconbridge collected some ships, and a number of persons of desperate fortunes, and landing on the coast of Kent, intended no less than to surprise London, and enrich himself with the plunder of the City. He arrived in Southwark in May, giving out that he came to free King Henry from his captivity, and soon becoming possessed of that place, on Tuesday, the 14th, he ordered 3000 of his followers to cross the river in boats, and assault Ald-Gate and Bishops-Gate, whilst he himself attempted to force the Bridge. This he endeavoured to effect by firing it, by which he destroyed sixty houses standing upon it; though the Citizens were so well provided with ordnance, that even if the passage had been entirely open, says an ancient Chronicler, ‘they should have had hard entering that way.’ It is singular, however, that in this account of the number of the houses burned on London Bridge, Stow should be so greatly at variance with the earlier Historians; since they state it to be sixty, whilst, in his ‘_Survey_,’ he says only that Falconbridge ‘burned the Gate and all the houses to the Draw-Bridge, being at that time _thirteen_ in number.’ It is, perhaps, possible that the old Citizen is in the right; and that the other Annalists include some of those buildings which were destroyed in the suburbs of Southwark. “One of the bravest defenders of London Bridge was Ralph Joceline, Alderman and Draper, afterwards made a Knight of the Bath, and Lord Mayor, in 1464 and 1476; since he not only manfully resisted Falconbridge and his party, when they attacked the Draw-Bridge, but upon their retiring, as they were at last forced to do, as well from the City as from the Bridge, he sallied forth upon them, and following them along the water-side beyond Ratcliffe, slew and captured very many of them. The Arms of this worthy were Azure, a mullet within a circular wreath Argent and Sable, having four hawk’s bells joined thereto in quadrature, Or. I have given you these particulars from Stow’s ‘_Annals_,’ page 424; from Holinshed’s ‘_Chronicle_,’ volume ii., page 690; and from Fabyan’s ‘_Chronicle_,’ page 590; in which last authority it is added that ‘the Bastarde, with his shipmen, wer chased vnto their shippes lying at Blackewall, and there in the chase many slaine. And the saied Bastarde, the night followyng, stale out his shippes out of the riuer and so departed, and escaped for that tyme.’