its name to the Thame, on the other side of Oxford; thence, after
passing by London, and being of the utmost utility, from its
greatness and navigation, it opens into a vast arm of the sea, from
whence the tide, according to Gemma Frisius, flows and ebbs to the
distance of eighty miles, twice in twenty-five hours, and, according
to Polydore Vergil, above sixty miles twice in twenty-four hours.

This city being very large of itself, has very extensive suburbs,
and a fort called the Tower, of beautiful structure. It is
magnificently ornamented with public buildings and churches, of
which there are above one hundred and twenty parochial.

On the south is a bridge of stone eight hundred feet in length, of
wonderful work; it is supported upon twenty piers of square stone,
sixty feet high and thirty broad, joined by arches of about twenty
feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses so
disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all
of a bridge.

Upon this is built a tower, on whose top the heads of such as have
been executed for high treason are placed on iron spikes: we
counted above thirty.

Paulus Jovius, in his description of the most remarkable towns in
England, says all are obscured by London: which, in the opinion of
many, is Caesar's city of the Trinobantes, the capital of all
Britain, famous for the commerce of many nations; its houses are
elegantly built, its churches fine, its towns strong, and its riches
and abundance surprising. The wealth of the world is wafted to it
by the Thames, swelled by the tide, and navigable to merchant ships