Walter Besant

“ All alike are deserted: the tide idly laps the piles of the rotting Bridge; it rolls along the empty wharves, bearing no{21} keel upon its bosom; there is no boat on the river, there is no smoke from any house; there is no life, no sign of life, in the place which had formerly been so crowded and so busy. The timbered face of the embankment gave way and crumbled into the river; the Causeway was eaten by the tides here and there; the low grounds once more became a marsh, and the wild birds returned, undisturbed, to their former haunts. ”

“ Tadmor in the Wilderness would be a mere little wheelbarrow full of stones compared with suburban London given over to decay and wreck.
Two millions of people, most of whom belong to the working class! The brain reels at thinking of this teeming multitudinous life; these armies of men, women, and children living in the slums and in the huge, unlovely barracks. The very number makes it impossible to grasp the enormity of the mass; the vastness of the population makes one feel as if individual effort would be absolutely useless. ”

“ There is the smell of roast meats hanging about the courtyards of the inns. There is a continual calling for the drawers, there is a clinking of hanaps and a murmur of voices.
The strepitus, however, of the High Street is not like that of Bankside. There is no tinkling of guitars: no singing before noon or after noon: no laughing: the country folk do not laugh: they do not understand the wit of the poets and the players. High Street has nothing to do with Bankside: the merchants and the squires know nothing about the Show Folk. ”

“ You may still see, in 1898, if you are lucky, the bows and bowsprit of a ship in one of the old docks, sticking across the street, causing a momentary confusion in the mind between land and water; there are riverside taverns which look as if at a touch they would yield and slide into the mud below. In 1834 this street with these little lanes was the whole of Rotherhithe. Inland—or in-marsh—ponds and ditches and creeping streams lay about; one of the ponds survives to this day; you will find it in the middle of the pretty garden they call Southwark Park, of which it forms the ornamental water. ”

“ As a boy I have walked across the fields in order to get to the embankment or river wall from which one commanded a view of the Thames with its barges and lighters going up and down—pleasant when the sun shone on the river, but a mere shadow of the ancient glory when the pleasure barges and the State barges swept majestically up the river with the hautboys and the trumpets in the bows ”

“ The other part lay on the west of the High Street, stretching along the river nearly as far as Lambeth. This was the disreputable quarter, the place of amusement: the people who lived there, one and all, made the providing of amusement, pleasure and excitement their means of livelihood. It was like a never-ending fair where nothing was sold, and there were no booths except those of Ursula, with roast sucking pig, black puddings, custards, and gingerbread. ”

“ When one talks of Queens and their misfortunes, it may be remembered that few Queens have suffered more than Elizabeth Woodville. In misfortune she sits apart from other Queens, her only companions being Mary Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette. Her record is full of woe. But in that long war it seems impossible to find one single character, man or woman—unless it is King Henry—who is true and loyal. All—all—are perjured, treacherous, cruel, self-seeking. All are as proud as Lucifer. Murder is the friend and companion of the noblest lord ”

“ For twenty years, more or less, the stream of playgoers was turned steadily and continuously to the Theatres in Bankside, and poet and player lived beside the theatre, and the place was the pleasure resort of the people, and the haunt of sporting men, and the school of the citizens, in history at least: and the pride and glory of London for its dramatists, if the people knew: and the sink and shame of London for the iniquities and villanies practised there: the debauchery and the shamelessness of those who lived upon the Bank. ”

“ If the Earl of Suffolk arrived at his town house, it was with a gallant company of gentlemen wearing his livery. If the King kept his Christmas at Eltham, he would be preceded by an endless train of carts groaning and grumbling along the road, filled with household gear and followed by the troops of scullions, cooks, grooms and lavenders whose duty was in the kitchens, stables, laundries, and pantries. He himself rode with a royal regiment, sometimes 4,000 strong, of archers for his bodyguard, besides the nobles, Bishops and Abbots who were with him for the Christmas festivities. ”

“ There remained the tribe of them who made the music and found the dancers and the tumblers, the mummers and the conjurers: there remained the men—a rough and brutal lot—who looked after the bears and the dogs: the men who wielded quarterstaff and showed sword play, a swaggering and bullying company: there remained the young bloods who came over from their peaceful shops and warehouses to enjoy the sport and the conversation and talk of the place: there remained the ribald crew of men and women who naturally belong to such gatherings. ”

“ Palaces, like theatres, have their times of emptiness, during which it is best to keep out of them. For my own part, I think the true way of enjoying a palace is to frequent it as Froissart did: to hear all that was said and to put down all that was done, but not to be an actor in a drama which reeks of blood; not even the splendid mounting can destroy that dreadful reek. How many people are murdered about the court of England from Richard II. to Henry VII.? ”

“ And all night long the bells rang to call the citizens to arms in readiness to take their place on the bridge. And all night the old and the young and the women lay trembling in their beds lest the men of London should be beaten back by the men of Kent, and these should come in with fire and sword to pillage and destroy. ”

“ If you want to form some idea of the South London folk, go stand inside Cannon Street Station and watch the trains come in, each with its freight of those who earn their daily bread within the City. See them pass out—by the hundred—by the thousand—by the fifty thousand. The brain reels at the mere contemplation of this mighty multitude which comes in every morning and goes out every afternoon. As they hurry past you observe on each the same expression, the same set eagerness, with which the day's work is approached. Employer or employé, principal or clerk, it matters nothing. ”

“ Our own is much the same: a simple life: a splendid house: modest wants: a large income: for himself no luxuries: and an open hand. Such a house: such an income: we have always given to an Archbishop, whether of the old or of the Reformed Faith.
The Chapel has at least one memory which will always cling to it. Within its dark and gloomy crypt Anne Boleyn, brought from the Tower, stood to hear her sentence. She was to be burned to death as an adulteress. ”

“ On the river they saw numerous coracles, with fishermen catching salmon and every kind of fish in their nets. No river in the world was more plentifully stocked with fish; overhead flew screaming innumerable birds—geese, ducks, herne—which the trappers trapped, snared, shot with sling and stone by the thousand. On those cliffs overhanging the river, the travellers by the causeway saw the huts of the fisherfolk. Then, perhaps, they remembered the plenty of the markets of Thorney; the abundance of birds, the vast quantities of fish offered on those stalls. ”

“ When the sun grew low the children were taken home, and the real fun of the fair began. Then all the quiet people within hearing stopped their ears: and all the decent people ran away: and the prentices, the rustics, the roughs of the Mint with their correspondencies of the other sex, had their own way until the weary players put out their footlights and lay down to sleep as they could among the properties and scenes of their theatre, and the people of the booths put their wares under the counters and lay down to sleep upon them like the grocers' assistants. ”

“ Isabel's queenship proved a pretence: before she was old enough to be queen, indeed, her husband was in confinement; before she understood that he was a captive, he was murdered, and the splendid extravagant reign was over. The son of the usurper, young Harry of Monmouth himself, desired to take the place of Richard; his father also desired the match, for the sake of the dowry. Isabel, child as she was still, had the heart of a woman; she had learned to love her handsome, courteous, accomplished lord, who died before he could claim her; she refused absolutely to marry the son of his murderer. ”

“ The gardens are grown over, the orchards are neglected, the inns are empty and ruinous.
Before long there falls the silence of death upon the walled City and the Bridge and the settlements of the South. ”

“ London was not London, life was not worth having, without Vauxhall. Like Mrs. Cornelys's masquerades and assemblies, Vauxhall was the great leveller of the eighteenth century. A man might be an earl or a prince: he would get no more enjoyment out of Vauxhall than a 'prentice who had a little money to spare. ”

“ It is difficult, now that the whole country south of London has been covered with villas, roads, streets, and shops, to understand how wonderful for loveliness it was until the builder seized upon it. When the ground rose out of the great Lambeth and Bermondsey Marsh—the cliff or incline is marked still by the names of Battersea Rise, Clapham Rise, and Brixton Rise—it opened out into one wild heath after another—Clapham, Wandsworth, Putney, Wimbledon, Barnes, Tooting, Streatham, Richmond, Thornton, and so south as far as Banstead Downs. ”

“ There was, in fact, no more favourite place of resort for the better sort of citizens of London than Dulwich in the summer. For the poorer sort it was too far off, and cost too much in conveyance. The Dulwich stage ran two or three times a day: it was not too long a drive from the city; the young men rode—in those days the young men could all ride—even John Gilpin thought he could ride; they hired a horse as we now get into a cab. For those who lived in any suburb on the south, Dulwich was an easy walk. ”

“ All the ponds around London, especially those lying on the east side of Tottenham Court Road, were used for this sport. The gallant sportsmen, their hunt over, naturally felt thirsty: they were easily persuaded to stay for the evening when on week days there was music, with dancing, singing, supper, and more drink, and on Sundays the organ, with a choice company of the most well-bred gentlemen and ladies of similar breeding and taste. ”

“ A man might be set in the stocks, or put in pillory, and so made to feel the heinousness of his offence. This punishment was like that which is inflicted on a schoolboy: the thing done, the boy is taken back to favour. The eighteenth century branded him, imprisoned him, transported him, made a brute of him, and then hanged him. Did a woman speak despitefully of authority? Presumptuous quean! Set her up in the cage besides the stoulpes of London Bridge, that everyone should see her there and should ask what she had done. ”

“ The Pleasure Gardens grew out of the old Bear Baiting Gardens. The London citizen loved sport first and above all things: next, he loved the country: to sit under the shade of trees in the summer: to walk upon the soft sward ”

“ Was there any such mighty horror felt in London when Cranmer died in Oxford? Not so much horror, I believe, as when from their own ranks, from their own houses, from their own families, men and women and boys were taken out and led to execution. Violent deaths—by beheading, by hanging, by the flames—were witnessed every day. How many were hanged by Henry VIII.? The deaths of nobles did not touch the people; they looked on unmoved while the most innocent and most holy men in the country—the blameless Carthusians—suffered death as traitors; they looked on at the death of Sir Thomas More ”

“ They shot arrows with red-hot heads over the walls, to strike and set light to the thatch; they shot arrows at the citizens on the walls; they tried to scale the piles of the Bridge. If they could get within the City, these splendid savages, there would be slaughter and pillage, ravishing of women, firing of the thatch, the roar of flames and the clashing of weapons, and next day silence, long teams of slaves and of treasure lifted into the ships, bows turned outward ”

“ It appears to us strange and almost impossible that a great city should be so utterly deserted. Where, however, are the cities of Tadmor, of Tyre, of Carthage? Where are the great cities of Asia Minor? The conqueror not only took the City and killed some of the people; he cut off the supplies, and therefore forced them to go. This was most certainly the case with London. Roger of Wendover, it is true, tells us that in the year 462 the Saxons took possession of London, and then successively of York, Lincoln, and Winchester, committing great devastation. ”