The government of the place as a whole was difficult, or rather impossible. There were several 'Liberties;' the Liberty of Bermondsey; that of the Bishop of Winchester; that of the King; that of the Mayor. The last contained the part of the Borough lying between St. Saviour's Dock on the west and Hay's Dock on the east, with a southern limit just including St. Margaret's Church. This very small district was called the Gildable Manor: it was conceded by the King to the City of London in the thirteenth century in order to prevent the place from becoming the home and refuge of criminals from the City. As the other liberties remained outside the jurisdiction of the City, the alleviation gained was not very great: criminals still dropped across the river, finding shelter on the Lambeth Marsh or the marsh between Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. It was from this unavoidable hospitality to persons escaping from justice that Southwark received a character which has stuck to it till the present day. In the centuries which include the twelfth to the fifteenth, however, South London, so far as it was populated at all, was the residence of great lords and the place of sojourn for merchants from the country. As yet the reputation of Southwark was spotless and its dignity enviable. London itself had no such collection of palaces gathered together so closely. As for the land, that lay low, but was protected by the Embankment from the river. Many rivulets flowed slowly across the misty meadows; many ponds lay about the flats; there was an abundant growth of trees everywhere, so that parts of the land were dark at midday by reason of the trees growing so close together. The rivulets were pretty little streams; willows grew over them; alders grew beside them; they were coloured brown by the peaty soil; on their banks grew wild flowers--the marsh mallow, the anemone, the hedgehog grass, the frogbit, the crowfoot, and the bitter-wort; orchards flourished in the fat and fertile soil. The people had almost forgotten the special need of their Embankment. Yet when, in the year 1242, the Embankment at Lambeth was broken down, the river rushed in and covered six square miles of country, including all that part which is now called Battersea. Remember, however, that as yet there was not a single house upon the whole of Lambeth Marsh, nor upon the whole of Bermondsey Marsh. The houses began near what is now the south end of Blackfriars Bridge; they faced the river, having gardens behind them. On the other side of the Bridge the houses extended farther, going on nearly opposite to Wapping.