MARTYRS 



59 



of St. Edmund the Martyr, a halting-place at which 

 j^ilgrims on their way to Canterbury stopped to pray 

 and to kiss the usual relics. The site was probably 

 where the Dartford Cemeter}^ now stands beside the 

 road, on the border of what is now called Dartford 

 Brent, a wide expanse of common land known in 

 other times as Brent, or Burnt Heath. This place 

 came very near to being the site of a battle between 



DARTFORB BRIDGE. 



the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, for here it was 

 that the rival armies first confronted one another ; 

 but, instead of coming to blows, their leaders held a 

 parley ; and so, fair words on their lips, but with deceit 

 in their hearts, they went up to London. Many years 

 later, on July 19, 1555, to be precise, Dartford Brent 

 reappears in history as the place on which three 

 Protestant martyrs, Christopher Wade, Margaret 

 Pollen, and Nicholas Hall, were burnt at the stake, 

 and since then the annals of the place have been quite 

 uninteresting. The gilt-crested spire of the memorial 

 to them peers up on the skyline of the road-cutting, on 



