“‘Some time after, the Southern parts, with the inhabitants of Oxford and Winchester, were brought to honour his’--that is to say King Sweyn’s--‘laws: the Citizens of London alone, with their lawful King’--Ethelred the Second--‘betook themselves within the walls, having securely closed the gates. Against their ferocious assailants, the Danes, they were supported by their virtue, and the hope of glory. The Citizens rushed forward even to death for their liberty; for none could think himself secure of the future if the King were deserted, in whose life he committed his own: so that although the conflict was valiant on both sides, yet the Citizens had the victory from the justness of their cause; every one endeavouring to shew, throughout this great work, how sweet he estimated those pains which he bore for him. The enemy was partly overthrown; and part was destroyed in the River Thames, over which, in their precipitation and fury, they never looked for the Bridge.’ “I know very well that the truth of this circumstance is much questioned by Master Maitland, at page 43 of his ‘_History of London_,’ continued by the Rev. John Entick, London, 1772, folio, volume i.; wherein he denies that any historian mentions a Bridge at London, in the incursion of Anlaf or Sweyn; and asserts that the loss of the army of the latter was occasioned ‘by his attempting to pass the River, without enquiring after Ford, or Bridge.’ He affirms too, that Stow mistakes the account given by William of Malmesbury; and that the Monk himself distorts his original authority in saying that the invaders had not a regard to the Bridge. Now, if, as the margin of Maitland’s History states, the Saxon Chronicle were _that_ authority, the Library-keeper of Malmesbury had no greater right to speak as Maitland does, than he had for using those words which I have already translated,--‘part were destroyed in the River Thames, over which, in their precipitation and fury, they never looked for the Bridge:’ for the words of the Saxon Chronicle, at page 170, are, in reality,--‘And they closely besieged the City and would fain have set it on fire, but they sustained more harm and evil than they ever supposed that the Citizens could inflict on them. The Holy Mother of God’--for the Invasion took place on her Nativity, September the 8th,--‘on that day considered the Citizens, and ridded them of their enemies.’ Here then is no word of a Bridge, nor, indeed, does any Historian record the event as William of Malmesbury does. _Lambarde_--whom I shall quote anon,--when he relates it, cites the ‘_Chronicle of Peterborough_,’ and the ‘_Annals of Margan_,’ but neither of them have the word Bridge upon their pages. He, most probably, took this circumstance from Marianus Scotus, a Monk of Mentz, in Germany, who wrote an extensive History of England and Europe ending in 1083, but, of this, only the German part has been printed, although it was amazingly popular in manuscript.