Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/297

 LONDON IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 275 had something to do with the "royal property." We must go back to a remoter age than that of the first James, and seek a more redoubted owner than the hero of the slouched hat and dark lantern, before the enigma can be solved. "La Sale Faukes" in South Lambeth is mentioned in the charter of Isabella de Fortibus, countess of Aumale and Devon, and lady of the Isle of Wight, dated in 1293, by which she sold her pos- sessions to king Edward the First. Thus we must try earlier than the close of the thirteenth century for its derivation. In the Testa de Nevill we read, under Surrey, — " Baldwin son and heir of the earl of the Isle is in the custody of Fulk de Breaute ; he should be in the ward of the lord the king; also his lands in the hundred of Brixton, and they are worth £18 per annum." Fulke de Breaute, the celebrated mercenary follower of King John, married Margaret, Earl Baldwin's mother, and thus obtained the wardship of her son ; he appears to have built a hall or mansion-house in the manor of South Lambeth during his tenure of it ; and from his time it was called indifferently Faukeshall, or South Lambeth, and is so termed in the lOth year of Edward the First; the capital messuage with its garden, named " Faukeshall," was valued in the 20th of the same reign at 2s. yearly ''. We have, therefore, satisfactory evidence that this famed suburban pleasure ground, the scene of the stately gaieties of the eight- eenth, as of the less dignified amusements of the nineteenth century, owed its origin and name, like the keep of Northampton castle, to an obscure Norman adventurer, who became suddenly enriched during the turbulent reign of John, and was ignominiously driven from the country in the mi- nority of Henry the Third, after withstanding a long siege in his strong castle of Bedford. The adjoining manor of Kennington was a royal seat as early as the times of Henry the Second ; and it was, perhaps, from some traditionary recollection of the estate having been in the hands of the Crown that Jonathan Tyers gave his public garden the distinctive title of the '* royal property," a name which is, we believe, still assumed. It is now time to quit a digression on the as yet unpublished materials for the history of London and its inhabitants, for the purpose of illustrat- ing the curious volume before us, but we would fain hope that the hints we have thrown out may tempt some of our rising antiquaries to under- take this comparatively unworked mine of information. The chronicle long called *' Liber de Antiquis Legibus," contains a list of the mayors and sheriffs of London, with notices of remarkable events which happened in their times from the year 1188"= to the year 1274; but it is not until about 1240 that the occurrences detailed become important. We cannot agree with the editor in thinking that " the original portion of the manuscript will have been written throughout in Latin in the year 1274, •^ Lysons says, erroneously, that the <= We may here remark that in the title- first mention of Faukeshall occurs in this page 1178 is printed for 1188, and we year (20 Edw. I.), quoting as his autho- have 1179 for 1189, in the marginal note rity an Escheat in the Tower. Environs on p. 1 of the Chronicle, of London, vol. i. p. 321.