36. of REEVES &
TURNER'S CATALOGUE of BOOKS. SENT FREE on Application to

114. CHANCERY LANE.

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{295}

_LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1854._

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Notes.

KENNINGTON COMMON.

Before all traces be lost of Kennington Common, so soon to be distinguished
by the euphonious epithet of _Park_, let me put a Query to some of your
antiquarian readers in relation thereunto; and suffer me to make the Query
a peg, whereon to hang sundry and divers little notes. And pray let no one
ridicule the idea that Kennington has its antiquities; albeit that wherever
you look, new buildings, new bricks and mortar, plaster and cement, will
meet your eye; yet, does not the manor figure in _Domesday Book?_ Is it not
dignified by the stately name of _Chenintune?_ Was it not held by Theodoric
of King Edward the Confessor? And did it not, in times gone by, possess a
royal residence?

Here, at a Danish marriage, died Hardi Knute in 1041. Here, Harold, son of
Earl Godwin, who seized the crown after the death of the Confessor, is said
to have placed it on his own head. Here, in 1231, King Henry III. held his
court, and passed a solemn and a stately Christmas. And here, says Matthew
Paris, was held a Parliament in the succeeding year. Hither, says good old
Stow, anno 1376, came the Duke of Lancaster to escape the fury of the
populace of London, on Friday, February 20, the day following that on which
Wicliffe had been brought before the bishops at St. Paul's. The Duke was
dining "with one John of Ipres" when the news arrived, borne by a
breathless messenger, that the people sought his life. When the Duke "leapt
so hastily from his oysters, that he hurt both his legges against the
foarme: wine was offered to his oysters, but hee would not drinke for
haste; he fledde with his fellowe Syr Henry Percy, no man following them;
and entring the Thamis, neuer stinted rowing vntill they came to a house
neere the manor of Kenington (besides Lambeth), where at that time the
Princesse was, with the young Prince, before whom hee made his complaint."
Doubtless, Lambeth Marsh was then what its name imports. Hither also came a
deputation of the chiefest citizens to Richard II., June 21, 1377, "before
the old King was departed," "to accept him for their true and lawfull King
and Gouernor." But the royal residence was destroyed before 1607. "The last
of the long succession of royal tenan