I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious men,
to observe that St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, contains also the
ashes of that doughty champion, William Walworth, Knight, who so
manfully clove down the sturdy wight, Wat Tyler, in Smithfield--a
hero worthy of honorable blazon, as almost the only Lord Mayor on
record famous for deeds of arms, the sovereigns of Cockney being
generally renowned as the most pacific of all potentates.*
* The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of
this worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great
conflagration.
Hereunder lyth a man of Fame,
William Walworth callyd by name:
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here,
And twise Lord Maior, as in books appere;
Who, with courage stout and manly myght,
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's sight.
For which act done, and trew entent,
The Kyng made him knyght incontinent
And gave him armes, as here you see,
To declare his fact and chivaldrie.
He left this lyff the yere of our God
Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.
An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the
venerable Stow. "Whereas," saith he, "it hath been far spread
abroad by vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully
by Sir William Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named
Jack Straw, and not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this
rash-conceived doubt by such testimony as I find in ancient and
good records.
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