For all that is known to the contrary, Billingsgate has been a fish-market from the time when the ancient British inhabitants of the proud hill on which the City of London stands put off in their coracles to seek the means of livelihood in the broad waters which dock and warehouse and wharf now confine in the comparatively narrow channel of the Thames. There was a toll on fishing at Billingsgate when the Saxon Æthelstan reigned. William III. made the market open and free for all sorts of fish in 1699. Since that day many attempts have been made to establish fish-markets elsewhere in London, but up to this time with uniform non-success. It is not yet quite a score of years since the present Billingsgate Market was completed. You may still read, in even recent books, of "the elegant Italian structure" of Mr. Bunning, with its towering campanile, its fine arcades, and its picturesque blending of brick and stone. Mr. Bunning's market, however, was too small for its purposes; and in 1874 the present building was begun, and, in spite of vast difficulties, was finished without disturbance of the business of the day. It preserves much of the old "elegance" of structure, and is partly Italian in style, but the smoke of the steamers clings to it, and has blackened it so that, between the grey buildings above Freshwater Wharf and the shining walls of the Custom House, it looks like a patch of shadow in a field of light. Fish was once indifferently delivered at Billingsgate or at Queenhithe, on the other side of London Bridge. Henry III., at a loss how to furnish pin-money for his wife, gave to her a tax on the fish landed at Queenhithe Pier. It was a tax, too, which the fishmongers were very reluctant to pay, and many were the fines inflicted on shipmasters who tarried at Billingsgate instead of making their way to the royal quay. Billingsgate fought that hard battle against royalty with great resolution, and ultimately won. Since then it has become obstructive on its own account, and has, in turn, successfully resisted any invasion of its own exceptional privileges. The dealers at Billingsgate must in those early days have been as rich, and quite as exclusive and privileged, as are their successors of this latter part of the nineteenth century, for it is recorded how, when the news was brought to London of the victory which Edward I. had obtained over the Scots, they paraded the city with over a thousand horsemen, accompanied by the sound of trumpets, and the streaming of banners, and all the fine pageantry of a picturesque time.