that they shall enjoy the same well and quietly and honourably, with sake and soke, etc."
The next is Bellinsgate, used as an especial port, or harbour, for small ships and boats coming thereto, and is now[1]most frequented, the Queen's hithe being almost forsaken.
How this gate took that name, or of what antiquity the same is, I must leave uncertain, as not having any ancient record thereof, more than that Geoffrey Monmouth writeth, that Belin, a king of the Britons, about four hundred years before Christ's nativity, built this gate, and named it Belin's gate, after his own calling; and that when he was dead, his body being burnt, the ashes, in a vessel of brass, were set upon a high pinnacle of stone over the same gate. But Caesar and other Roman writers affirm, of cities, walls, and gates, as ye have before heard; and therefore it seemeth to me not to be so ancient, but rather to have taken that name of some later owner of the place, happily named Beling, or Biling, as Somar's key, Smart's key, Frosh wharf, and others, thereby took their names of their owners. Of this gate more shall be said when we come to Belin's gate ward.
Then have you a water-gate, on the west side of Wool wharf, or Customers' key,[2] which is commonly called the water-gate, at the south end of Water lane.
One other water-gate there is by the bulwark of the Tower, and this is the last and farthest water-gate eastward, on the river of Thames, so far as the city of London extendeth within the walls; both which last named water-gates be within the Tower ward.
Besides these common water-gates, were divers private wharfs and keys, all along from the east to the west of this city, on the bank of the river of Thames; merchants of all nations had landing-places, warehouses, cellars, and stowage of their goods and merchandises, as partly shall be touched in the wards adjoining to the said river. Now, for the ordering and keeping these gates of this city in the night time, it was appointed in the year of Christ 1258, by Henry III., the 42nd of his reign,[3] that the ports of England should be strongly kept, and that the gates of London should be new repaired, and diligently kept in the night, for fear of French deceits, whereof one writeth these verses:
"Per noctem portae clauduntur Loudoniarum,
Moenia ne forte fraus frangat Francigenarum."
