In a petition presented to Parliament at the end of the fourteenth century, the landholders who were taxed for the repairs of the bridge were represented as having been nearly reduced to ruin in consequence, and that the bridge at the same time was very unsafe for passengers. Under these circumstances, Sir Robert Knowles and Sir John de Cobham built at their joint expense the present bridge, thereby relieving private individuals from an oppressive tax, and conferring a lasting benefit on the public. In the reign of Richard II. a patent was obtained from the crown, which was afterwards confirmed by the Parliament, for constituting the proprietors a body corporate, under the title of Wardens and Commonalty, and a license granted enabling them to receive, and hold in mortmain, lands and tenements to the amount of two hundred pounds per annum. Sir John Cobham was the first and greatest benefactor, and his example was followed by such liberal donations from others that the estates usually termed proper, became in process of time justly adequate to the repairs of the bridge, without levying any assessment on the contributory lands.[146] [Illustration] Until the erection of that at Westminster, Rochester Bridge was justly considered the second in the kingdom; and even now, after the splendid structures which have sprung up in recent times, it is still an object of great elegance and beauty. Its original length was four hundred and sixty feet by fifteen in breadth. It consisted of eleven arches, the largest of which had a space of forty feet, and the others above thirty. At one of these spaces between the piers was formerly a drawbridge, by means of which the castellan who held command of the fortress could break off all communication with the opposite banks of the river. The greatest water-way is three hundred and forty feet. Joneval,[147] in his Travels, makes a mistake in supposing that this bridge “is founded on a rock;” the piers rest on wooden piles, and to have laid the foundation of so massive a fabric in a river where the flux and reflux of the tide are so strong, must have been an arduous undertaking. Unfortunately the name of the architect has not descended to posterity, but the bridge is a lasting monument to his genius.[148]