us that the Baronial party in London was composed of the meanest and most worthless, whom the wisest and eldest endeavoured to controul. During the fight, therefore, some of the Royalists, and especially one John Gisors, a Norman, perceiving that the City was in motion to assist De Montfort, locked up the Bridge Gates, and threw the keys into the Thames. So prompt an action had nearly proved fatal to the Earl of Leicester, who had approached the Bridge with only a few soldiers, lest his designs should be discovered; but at length the Gates were broken open, the Citizens rushed out in multitudes to his rescue; King Henry was obliged to retreat, and De Montfort entered the City. By this event we are informed that there certainly _did_ exist a Bridge Gate in the year 1264; and the historians by whom the fact is related, are Matthew of Westminster, whose ‘_Flowers of Histories_’ I have already quoted, of which book, see page 317; and the ‘_Chronicon_’ of Thomas Wikes, a Canon Regular of Osney, near Oxford, which concludes with the year 1304. “It would seem almost certain that, at this period, the keeping of London Bridge, with all its emoluments, was in the possession of the Brethren of St. Thomas of the Bridge; and the idea is somewhat supported by the Protection to which I referred you but a short time since. There is, however, in the Patent Rolls preserved in the Tower of London, of the 50th of Henry III.--1265,--Membrane the 43rd, the following instrument. “‘For the Hospital of St. Catherine, concerning the Custody of London Bridge, with all the rents thereof for the space of five years. ‘The King to the Brethren and Chaplains ministring in the Chapel of St. Thomas upon London Bridge, the other inhabitants upon the same Bridge; and to all others to whom these letters shall come, Greeting: Know ye, that we commit unto the Master and Brethren of the Hospital of Saint Catherine near to our Tower of London, the Custody of the aforesaid Bridge with all its appurtenances, as well the rents and tenements thereof, as of others which belong to the aforesaid Bridge, within and without the City: to have and to hold by the said Master and Brethren for the space of five years. Yet so that out of the aforesaid rents, tenements, and other goods of the aforesaid Bridge, the repair and support of the Bridge is to be looked for, and to be done, from henceforth from that place as it shall be able, and as it hath been accustomed. And therefore we command you, that to the said Master and Brethren, as well as to the keepers of the aforesaid Bridge, all things belonging to that custody be applied, permitted, and paid, until the term aforesaid. Witness the King at Westminster, on the sixteenth day of November.’ The Latin of this writ you find printed in Hearne’s ‘_Liber Niger_,’ which I have before quoted, volume i. page *471; and it affords us certain proof of the early existence of dwellings on London Bridge.