“I thank you,” replied my narrator, “I thank you, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, for recalling me to the subject of our conversation; for this is the very point at which I would proceed with my history. You know, Sir,” continued he, in a much brisker tone, “I have already observed to you, that the First Wooden Bridge was erected much farther to the East than yonder stone bulwark; for when King William I. granted a Charter to the foundation of St. Peter’s Abbey, at West-Minster, in the second year of his reign, A. D. 1067, he confirmed to the Monks serving God in that place, a Gate in London, then called Butolph’s Gate, with a Wharf which stood at the head of London Bridge. This has ever been received as a well-established fact; for Stow relates it in his ‘_Survey_,’ volume i., pages 22 and 58; and Mr. John Dart, in his ‘_History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster_,’ London, 1723, folio, volume i., page 20, supports it, in his List of Benefactors to the Abbey, in the time of King Edward the Confessor. “The record is also given at length, by Stow, in English; but you may see it in the original Latin, in a curious Manuscript in the Cotton Library, marked _Faustina_, A. iii., which is entitled, ‘_A Registry of the Regal and Pontifical Charters, Privileges, Agreements, and Covenants, of the Bishops and Abbots of the Church of the blessed Peter of Westminster; many whereof are Saxon ones, written in the Norman-Saxon characters._’ This volume is a little stout quarto, written in a small fair Church text, on parchment; adorned with many vermillion initial letters, and rubrics, or heads of chapters. The Charter to which I have now referred you, chapter xliv., is the last but one in the reign of King William I., folio 63, b, of the modern pagination; and, put into English, is as follows:-- “‘Concerning the lands of Almodus, of St. Butolph’s Gate, and of the Wharf at the head of London Bridge. “‘William, King of England, to the Sheriffs and all Ministers, as, also, to his faithful subjects of London, French and English, greeting: Know ye, that I have granted unto God and to St. Peter of Westminster, and to the Abbot Vitalis, the House which Almodus, of the Gate of St. Botolph, gave to them when he was made a Monk; that is to say, his Lord’s Court, with his Houses, and one Wharf which is at the head of London Bridge, and others of his lands in the same City, like as King Edward more fully and beneficially granted them: and I will and command that they shall enjoy the same well, and quietly, and honourably, with sake and soke, and shall hold all the customs and laws of the aforesaid. And I defend them that none shall do them any injury. Witness, Walkeline, Bishop of Winchester, and William, Bishop of Durham, and R., Earl of Mell., and Hugh, Earl of Warwick.’