“I have hardly less regret in stating our absolute want of information relating to the Bridge Chapel at the Dissolution, than I have to speak of that concerning the Common Seal belonging to the officers of London Bridge. Stow tells us, as you may remember, in volume ii., page 25, of his ‘_Survey_,’ that ‘at a Common Council, July 14th, Anno 33, Henry VIII.--1540,--it was ordered, that the Seal of the Bridge-House should be changed; because the image of Thomas Becket, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, was graven therein; and a new Seal to be made, devised by Mr. Hall, to whom the old Seal was delivered. _Note_, this was occasioned by a Proclamation, which commanded the names of the Pope, and Thomas of Becket, to be put out of all books and monuments; which is the reason you shall see them so blotted out in all old Chronicles, Legends, Primers, and Service-books, printed before these times.’ Of these erasures, the best account is in Bishop Burnet’s ‘_History of the Reformation of the Church of England_,’ London, 1681, folio, volume i., book iii., page 294; where it is asserted that such alterations were but slight, and that the old Mass-books were still in use, until the time of Queen Mary, when the castrated volumes were every where brought in, and destroyed; all Parishes being compelled to furnish themselves with new copies of the Church Offices: and Stow, on page 191 of the second volume of his ‘_Survey_,’ states that in the book marked D of the City Records, the name of St. Thomas was omitted, in pursuance of the King’s edict.