ing men in the service of the
Pretender. In the collection of broadsides belonging to the Society of
Antiquaries there is one of great interest, entitled "Perkins against
Perkin, a dialogue between Sir William Perkins and Major Sulliviane, the
two loggerheads upon Temple Bar, concerning the present juncture of
affaires." Date uncertain.

CHAPTER III.

FLEET STREET--GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

Frays in Fleet Street--Chaucer and the Friar--The Duchess of
Gloucester doing Penance for Witchcraft--Riots between Law Students
and Citizens--'Prentice Riots--Oates in the Pillory--Entertainments
in Fleet Street--Shop Signs--Burning the Boot--Trial of Hardy--Queen
Caroline's Funeral.

Alas, for the changes of time! The Fleet, that little, quick-flowing
stream, once so bright and clear, is now a sewer! but its name remains
immortalised by the street called after it.

Although, according to a modern antiquary, a Roman amphitheatre once
stood on the site of the Fleet Prison, and Roman citizens were certainly
interred outside Ludgate, we know but little whether Roman buildings
ever stood on the west side of the City gates. Stow, however, describes
a stone pavement supported on piles being found, in 1595, near the Fleet
Street end of Chancery Lane; so that we may presume the soil of the
neighbourhood was originally marshy. The first British settlers there
must probably have been restless spirits, impatient of the high rents
and insufficient room inside the City walls and willing, for economy, to
risk the forays of any Saxon pirates who chose to steal up the river on
a dusky night and sack the outlying cabins of London.

There were certainly rough doings in Fleet Street in the Middle Ages,
for the City chronicles tell us of much blood spilt there and of many
deeds of violence. In 1228 (Henry III.) we find, for instance, one Henry
de Buke slaying a man named Le Ireis, le Tylor, of Fleet Bridge, then
fleeing to the church of St. Mary, Southwark, and there claiming
sanctuary. In 1311 (Edward II.) five of the king's not very respectable
or law-fearing household were arrested in Fleet Street for a burglary;
and though the weak king demanded them (they were perhaps servants of
his Gascon favourite, Piers Gaveston, whom the barons afterwards
killed), the City refused to give them up, and they probably had short
shrive. In the same reign, when the Strand was full of bushes and
thickets, Fleet Street could hardly ha