Page:VCH Surrey 1.djvu/468

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A HISTORY OF SURREY its name, was really the archbishop's, nor over the Manor of the Maze, which was in private hands, ultimately in those of the Copleys, nor over the Clink Liberty, which belonged to the Bishop of Winchester. Henry IV. in 1406 had given the City further powers, or confirmed those granted by Edward III., allowing them to appoint a clerk of the markets in Southwark and to convey prisoners thence to Newgate. Edward IV. in 1462* and 1466 had given the City the assize of bread, wine, beer and all other victuals in Southwark, with amercements and fines arising from the same, and had commanded the sheriff of Surrey to observe the liberties and jurisdictions granted to the corporation. This obviously the sheriff had not always done. Offenders in Southwark were arrested by London constables and carried off to Newgate, to the dis- content of the sheriff and of the inhabitants of Surrey. But the City was too strong, by reason of its wealth, to be beaten ; and the changes under the Tudors had given the corporation the chance of completing their conquest of the Surrey town. In 1550 they obtained full confir- mation of all previous grants, the possession of the great Liberty Manor which had belonged to Bermondsey, of the King's Manor of Southwark, which had been the Archbishop of Canterbury's till Cranmer sold it to Henry VIII., and of several houses in Southwark, Lambeth and New- ington which had belonged to Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk, and of the site of the dissolved abbey of Bermondsey. For all this they paid 647 2s. id. They further paid 500 marks for the dissolved hospital of St. Thomas, which was refounded by the corporation and the Crown. 2 The whole annexed territory was erected into the ward called Bridge Ward Without ; but the alderman was not chosen by the ward, and the inhabitants were not represented in the Court of Common Council. The disorderly ' sanctuary men,' and the discharged servants of the dispossessed ecclesiastics, were a subject population, ruled over by the adjacent City. Thrust into the middle of this dominion however were the Clink Liberty and the Manor of the Maze. Close upon it was the Paris Garden Manor. These all were still parts of the county of Surrey for all purposes, as even the rest of Southwark was for some, being under the military rule of the lord lieutenant. Southwark also contained the gaols used as county prisons, and was assessed for county rates and levies. But under Elizabeth Southwark seems to have accepted its connexion with London and to have been linvaded by Londoners, as well as annexed to the City. The dramatic development of Elizabeth's reign made the Surrey suburbs the theatrical suburb of London. The rage for the legitimate drama, and for the still more popular and exciting spectacle of bear-baiting, were not viewed at all favourably by the City authorities. London was Protestant as a rule when most of England was Catholic, and London had become Puritanical when most of England was even as Gallic on the subject of religious observances or even of moral strictness. The mass of the inhabitants of a great city are never likely to be very Puritanical, but the respectable and leading 1 Patent Rolls, 2 Ed. IV. November 9. Ibid. 4 Ed. VI. April 23. 396