The third, and next toward the north, is called Bishopsgate, for that, as it may be supposed, the same was first built by some Bishop of London, though now unknown when, or by whom; but true it is, that the first gate was first built for ease of passengers toward the east, and by north, as into Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, etc.; the travellers into which parts, before the building of this gate, were forced, passing out at Aeldgate, to go east till they came to the Mile’s end, and then turning on the left hand to Blethenhall green[46] to Cambridge heath, and so north, or east, and by north, as their journey lay. If they took not this way, by the east out at Aeldgate, they must take their way by the north out at Aeldersgate, through Aeldersgate street and Goswel street towards Iseldon, and by a cross of stone on their right hand, set up for a mark by the north end of Golding lane, to turn eastward through a long street, until this day called Alder street, to another cross standing, where now a smith’s forge is placed by Sewer’s-ditch church, and then to turn again north towards Totenham, Endfield, Waltham, Ware, etc. The eldest note that I read of this Bishopsgate, is that William Blund, one of the sheriffs of London,[47] in the year 1210, sold to Serle Mercer, and William Almaine, procurators or wardens of London bridge, all his land, with the garden, in the parish of St. Buttolph without Bishopsgate, between the land of Richard Casiarin, towards the north, and the land of Robert Crispie towards the south, and the highway called Berewards lane on the east, etc. Next I read in a charter, dated the year 1235, that Walter Brune, citizen of London, and Rosia his wife, having founded the priory or new hospital of our blessed Lady, since called St. Mary Spittle without Bishopsgate, confirmed the same to the honour of God and our blessed Lady, for canons regular. Also in the year 1247, Simon Fitzmarie, one of the sheriffs of London, the 29th of Henry III., founded the hospital of St. Mary, called Bethlem without Bishopsgate. Thus much for the antiquity of this gate.[48] And now for repairing the same, I find that Henry III. confirmed to the merchants of the Haunce, that had a house in the city called Guildhalla Theutonicorum, certain liberties and privileges. Edward I. also confirmed the same; in the tenth year of whose reign it was found that the said merchants ought of right to repair the said gate called Bishopsgate; whereupon Gerard Marbod, alderman of the Haunce and other, then remaining in the city of London, for themselves, and all other merchants of the said Haunce, granted two hundred and ten marks sterling to the mayor and citizens; and covenanted that they and their successors should from time to time repair the same gate. This gate was again beautifully built in the year 1479, in the reign of Edward IV., by the said Haunce merchants.