The castles and abbeys of England; Vol. 1 of 2: from the national records, early chronicles, and other standard authorsBeattie, William
History
The castles and abbeys of England; Vol. 1 of 2: from the national records, early chronicles, and other standard authors
Beattie, William
Abbeys -- England; Castles -- England
At the east end of the bridge was formerly a chapel, founded by Sir John
Cobham, with an endowment of eighteen pounds a year, payable out of the
bridge lands, for the support of three priests. According to the rules
established by the founder, three masses were to be said daily; the
first between five and six in the morning, the second between eight and
nine, and the third between eleven and twelve o’clock, so that
travellers might have an opportunity of being present at the sacred
offices. But at each mass there was to be a special collect for all the
benefactors to the bridge, living or dead, and for the souls of Sir John
Cobham and others, whose names were to be recited. There was another
chapel at the west end of this bridge, but its exact site is not known.
<g>Memorabilia.</g>--When the Emperor Charles the Fifth made his second visit
to England, in the summer of 1522, he arrived at Rochester on the second
of June, where he was received by Henry the Eighth, and set out on the
following day for London, or rather the royal palace of Greenwich. It
was at Rochester, also, that King Henry had his first interview with
Anne of Cleves, whose reception at Blackheath has been already
described. Her picture, it is said, had been drawn in so flattering a
manner by Holbein, that the amorous monarch, impatient to see the
original, set out incognito for Rochester on the morning of her expected
arrival in that city, and in the evening was among the first to bid her
welcome. The painter, however, was detected in having practised a great
deception: Anne was not the divinity represented on the canvas; Henry
was disappointed, and is recorded to have vented his chagrin in terms
far from complimentary to the Lady Anne, or the minister who had
negotiated the alliance. This, however, he disguised; and before taking
leave presented her with a “suit of sables, as a new year’s gift.”
In April, 1556, Rochester was the theatre of one of those horrid scenes
which disgraced the reign of Queen Mary. John Harpole, of St. Nicholas
parish, and Joan Beach, of Tunbridge, were burnt alive as heretics,
according to the sentence of Maurice Gryffith, bishop of the see, for
denying the authority of the Church, and the transubstantiation of the
sacramental elements.--See History of Rochester, with biographical
notices of the bishops.
Queen Elizabeth, who took great pride in superintending the naval
department, in which she foresaw the only sure bulwark of her empire,
made it her custom to visit, among many other places in Kent, Chatham
Dock-yard. On one occasion she spent four days at the Crown Inn of
Rochester; but on the fifth accepted the hospitality of one of her loyal
subjects, Mr. Watts, at his house at Boley Hill, near the Castle; to
which, according to tradition, she gave the title of _Satis_ as
expressive of her satisfaction with her entertainment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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