In the sixteenth century the place was no longer regarded as a fortress for the defence or the domination of the City. But the old forms were kept up: nobody was admitted who carried arms: the guard kept the gate: a garrison was maintained. Within, there was an armoury, the beginning of the splendid collection which is now shown: there was a Mint for the coining of money: there were collections of tapestry, saddles, bed furniture and robes belonging to the Crown: here were kept the Crown and sceptre and insignia: here was the Royal menagerie. Here were the rooms reserved for state criminals. It was no longer the Royal Palace but the sovereign sometimes occupied the Tower. James the First was here, for instance, in 1604.

Near the outer gate where is now the Refreshment Room were kept the King's lions. Henry I. began this menagerie which was continued until the year 1834. At the entrance of the fortress is the Bell Tower where Queen Elizabeth was once confined. The Water Gate called Traitors' Gate is under St. Thomas's Tower. The Beauchamp Tower has been the prison of, among others, Queen Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. In the Great White Tower Richard II. abdicated in favour of Henry IV. In the vaults are dungeons, once the prison of Guy Fawkes. In the Chapel the newly made Knights of the Bath watched their armour all night long. The collection of arms contains examples of weapons and armour of every age. In the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula you will find the graves of the unfortunate Princes, Queens, and nobles who have been executed for State offences. Nothing, except the Royal tombs of Westminster, so much helps to prove the reality of History, as this collection of graves and slabs and tablets in this little church. And here were kept the Crown jewels about which many a chapter might be written.

But to study the Tower of London one must visit it with the History of England in hand. Hither were brought all the State prisoners: here they were confined: here they were executed. Every tower, every stone reminds one of sufferers and criminals and traitors and innocent victims. Do not, however, forget that this Tower was built for the restriction of the liberties of the people. That purpose has been defeated. The liberties have grown beyond what could ever have been hoped while the privileges of the Crown, which this Tower was built to protect and to enlarge, have been restricted beyond the greatest fears of the mediaeval kings.



18. THE TOWER OF LONDON.

PART II.

Of all the prisoners who suffered death at the termination of their captivity in the Tower, there is none whose fate was so cruel as that of Lady Jane Grey. Her story belongs to English history. Recall, when next you visit the Tower, the short and tragic life of this young Queen of a nine days' reign.



She was not yet eighteen when she was beheaded, not through any fault of her own, but solely because her relationship to the Crown placed her in the hands of men who used her for their own political purposes. She was the second cousin of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Her grandmother was the sister of Henry VIII., widow of Louis XII. of France, and wife of Charles, Duke of Suffolk. The young King on his deathbed was persuaded to name her as his successor. She was sixteen years of age: she was already married to Lord Guilford Dudley, son of the Duke of Northumberland: when she was proclaimed Queen. Nine days after the proclamation she was a prisoner. On the 8th of July she was acknowledged Queen by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen: on the 10th she was taken by water from Greenwich to the Tower, and proclaimed Queen in the City: on the 17th another proclamation was made of Queen Mary, and her reign was over. But the Tower she was never more to leave.

On the 13th of November—after five months of suspense—she was tried for high treason with Cranmer, her husband Lord Guilford, and her husband's brother, Lord Ambrose. They were all four found guilty, and condemned to death—their judges being the very men who had sworn allegiance to her as Queen. It would seem that Mary had no desire to carry out the sentence: Cranmer she reserved for a more cruel death than that of beheading—he was to be burned as a heretic. The other three, two boys and a girl, it would be dangerous to execute on account of the popular sympathy their death would awaken. They were therefore sent back to the Tower. Probably it was intended that Lady Jane, at least, should pass the rest of her life in honourable captivity, as happened later on to Arabella Stuart. But the rebellion of Wyatt showed that her name could still be used as a cry in favour of a Protestant succession. It was therefore resolved to put both husband and wife to death. What further harm the young Lord Guilford Dudley could do is not apparent. Even then the Queen's advisers shrank from exhibiting on Tower Hill the spectacle of a young and beautiful girl, taken forth to be beheaded because certain hot-headed partizans had used her name. She was executed therefore within the verge of the Tower itself, on the so-called 'Green.'

'The Green' is a place where no grass will grow—it used to be said—on account of the blood that had been shed upon it. Among the sufferers here was Hastings, executed by order of King Richard: Anne Boleyn: Katharine Howard: and Lady Jane Grey. A stone marks the spot on which the scaffold was set up.

It was on the morning of the 12th of February that Lady Jane Grey was put to death. She was then confined in the 'Brick' Tower, the residence of the Master of the Ordnance. From her window she saw the headless body of her husband brought back from Tower Hill in a cart. She looked upon it without shrinking. 'Oh! Guilford,' she said, 'the antipast is not so bitter after thou hast tasted, and which I shall soon taste, as to make my flesh tremble: it is nothing compared to the feast of which we shall partake this day in Heaven.' So she went forth with her two gentlewomen, Elizabeth Tylney and Mistress Helen, but she shed no tears. When she was on the scaffold she spoke to the officers of the Tower and the soldiers that stood around. No man or woman, however wise and dignified, could speak more clearly and with greater dignity than this girl of sixteen. They had been trying to make her a Catholic. Therefore, she made confession of the Protestant Faith: 'Good Christian people, bear witness that I die a true Christian woman and that I do look to be saved by no other means but only by the mercy of God, in the blood of his only son, Jesus Christ.'

So she made her gentlewomen bare her neck and bind her eyes and kneeling down laid her head upon the block, and while she was saying, 'Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' the axe fell and she was dead.

She lies buried before the altar of St. Peter's Church, near the bodies of the Queens Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard.

So she died, this poor innocent child of whom all we know is that she was so scholarly that she could read Greek in the original: that she was beautiful: of a grave and sweet disposition: and raised far above the voice of calumny. She had, says Foxe, 'the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the gravity of age: she had the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, and the death of a malefactor for her parents' offences.'



19. THE PILGRIMS.

In the time when the road connecting village with village and town with town was but an uncertain bridle path through woods and over waste places, where in winter horse, man, and wayfarer struggled with bog and quagmire, where robbers lurked in the thickets, and fevers and agues haunted the marsh, where men went armed and every stranger was a foe: it would seem as if most men stayed where they were born and desired not to court the dangers of the unknown world. In many villages, especially in the remote places of the country, this was the case. The men of Somerset abode where they were born, speaking their own language, a race apart: the men of Norfolk abode in their county cut off from the rest of the world by fens in the west and sea on the north and east: their language was not understood by the men of the west or the south country. Had the other conditions of life allowed this isolation to continue undisturbed, the nation could never have been created: we should have remained a scattered collection of tribes speaking each its own language and developing its own customs.

There were three causes which stirred the stagnant waters. The first was War. The Baron, or Feudal Lord, carried off the young men of the village to fight: those of them who returned had things to tell of the outside world. They fired the imagination and awakened the enterprise of the lads. The second was Trade at the trading ports: the lads saw, and continued to talk with, the foreign sailors—the Fleming, the German, the man of Rouen or Bordeaux: some of them went on board the ships of the merchant adventurers and sailed to foreign lands. Lastly, there were the Pilgrimages.

From the tenth to the fifteenth century there was a rage for pilgrimage. Everybody wanted to become a pilgrim. No money was wanted: there would certainly be found every day some monastery at which bed and a supper would be provided for the pilgrim: it was a joyous company which fared along the road, some riding, some on foot, travelling together for safety, all bound to the same shrine where they would hear the masses and make their vows and so return, light-hearted: it was, in fact, the mediaeval way of taking a holiday. Sometimes it was to Canterbury, where was the shrine of Thomas Becket, that the pilgrims were bound: sometimes to Walsingham, where was the miraculous image of the Virgin: sometimes to Glastonbury, hallowed by the thorn miraculously flowering every year on Christmas Day, planted by Joseph of Arimathea himself: sometimes it was farther afield—to Compostella in Spain, Rome, or even Jerusalem—that the pilgrims proposed to go. Chaucer describes such a company all starting together, riding from London to Canterbury on pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket. They are pilgrims, but there is very little piety in their discourse: one can see that, whatever the motive, whether for the expiation of sin, or any other cause, the journey is full of cheerfulness and enjoyment. The Crusades were one outcome of this passion for pilgrimage. Nay, the first Crusade itself was little better than a great pilgrimage of the common people, so ignorant that they asked at the sight of every walled town if that was Jerusalem. It was a pilgrimage from which few, indeed, returned.

In England, the chief gain from pilgrimage was the bringing together of men from the different parts of the country. Remember that the men of the North could not understand the speech of the men of the South: a Norfolk rustic at the present day would hardly understand a man of Devon: there was always danger of forgetting that they all belonged to the same realm, the same nation, and the same race.

But the love of pilgrimage spread so wide that it became a danger. The rustic left the plough: the blacksmith his anvil: the carpenter his bench: all left their wives and their children in order to tramp across the country on pilgrimage to some shrine. By day they marched together: at night they sat round the fire in the strangers' room of the monastery, and took their supper and slept on the reeds. A delightful change from the monotony and hard work of the village! But the Bishops interposed. Let no one go on pilgrimage without his Bishop's license. Let not the monasteries give a bed and supper to any pilgrim who could not show his Bishop's license. Then the rustics and the craftsmen had to remain at home where they have stayed, except when they went out to fight, ever since.

When the pilgrim—especially the pilgrim who had been over the seas—came home, he was able to entertain his friends with stories he had seen all the rest of his life. Thus, the earliest plan of the Holy Sepulchre is one drawn by a pilgrim for the instruction of certain monks who entertained him. The pilgrims were the travellers of the time. They observed foreign manners and customs: they brought home seeds and told of strange food: they extended the boundaries of the world: they prevented the native village from becoming the whole world: they taught and encouraged men to cease from regarding a stranger as an enemy. The world was thus opened out by War, Trade, and Pilgrimage, but most of all by Pilgrimage.



20. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL.

The oldest of the City Hospitals is that great and splendid Foundation which stands in Smithfield—the Smooth Field. It was first founded by one Rahere, of whom we know little or nothing except that he lived in the reign of Henry I., and that he founded the Priory and Monastery of St. Bartholomew. In the church of St. Bartholomew the Great you may see a very beautiful tomb said to be his, but the work is of a later date. It is related that while on a pilgrimage to Rome he fell ill and was like to die. And he vowed that if he were restored to health he would erect and establish a hospital for poor sick people. He did recover and he fulfilled his vow. He built the Priory of St. Bartholomew, whose church still stands in part and beside it established his hospital. The place called Smithfield was then a swampy field used for a horse fair: it was also a place of execution without the City wall. At first the hospital was a very small place. It consisted probably of two large rooms or halls, one for men and one for women—with a chapel. If it had any endowment at all it must have been very small, because the Master or Hospitaller had to go every morning to the Shambles, Newgate, in order to beg meat for the maintenance of the sick. Two hundred years later the hospital was taken in hand by Edward IV. and provided with an establishment of Master, eight brethren, priests, and four sisters, who served the sick. They were all subject to the Rule of St. Austin. After the death of Whittington, the hospital buildings were repaired by his bequests. On the dissolution of the religious houses, the Priory and Hospital of Bartholomew fell with the rest, but five years later the hospital was refounded and endowed by the King and the City.



If you visit a hospital and are taken into a ward, you see a row of clean white beds arranged in orderly position on either side of the long room: the temperature is regulated: the ventilation is perfect: there are means by which the patient can be examined in private: the diseases are apportioned to separate wards: every thing is managed with the greatest cleanliness and order: if an operation is performed the patient is kept under chloroform and feels nothing. The physicians are men of the highest scientific reputation: the nurses are trained assistants: the food is the best that can be procured. The poorest man brought to the hospital is treated with the same care, the same science, the same luxuries as the richest.

Look, however, at the hospital as founded by Rahere.

There is a great hall with a chapel at one end: at which mass is daily sung. The room is narrow and lofty, lit by Norman windows, two or three on a side: there is a lanthorn in the roof: under the lanthorn a fire is burning every day, the smoke rising to the roof: the hall is dark and ill ventilated, the air foul and heavy with the breath of sixty or seventy sick men lying in beds arranged in rows along the wall. There are not separate beds for each patient, but as the sick are brought in they are laid together side by side, in the same bed, whatever the disease, so that he who suffers from fever is placed beside another who suffers from palsy. There are four in a bed, and in times of pressure even more. Sometimes one arrives who develops the plague, when the whole of the patients in the hospital catch the infection and all die together. The surgeons are especially skilled in the dressing of wounds received in battle or in fray: the sisters can tie up a broken limb and stop a bleeding wound. The brethren go about the beds administering the last offices of the Church to the dying. The food is scanty: the appliances are rude: there is small hope of recovery: yet to die in hospital tended and consoled instead of in the hut where life has been passed is something for which to be grateful.



Consider into how great, how noble a Foundation the little hospital of Rahere has grown. The modern hospital contains 676 beds: it receives about 150,000 patients every year, of whom 7,000 are inpatients, 18,000 out patients, and 130,000 casuals. The eight brethren have become 30 physicians and surgeons besides the assistants called clinical clerks and dressers. The four sisters are now 159 sisters and nurses. There is a noble school of medicine: there are museums, libraries, lecture rooms, and there is a residential college for medical students: there is a convalescent hospital in the country. No hospital in the world has a larger or a more noble record than this of St. Bartholomew. And it all sprang from the resolution of one man, who started a humble house for the reception of the sick in a poor and despised place outside the City wall, but near to the Shambles where one could beg for broken victuals and for the pieces of meat that the butchers could not sell. Thus out of one good deed, apparently of small importance, has grown a never-ending stream of refreshment and healing. It has lasted for 700 years already: there seems no reason why it should ever stop.



21. THE TERROR OF LEPROSY.

One mile outside the City walls, on the west, stood for four hundred years the Hospital of St. Giles in the Fields.

Here was a Lazar House, i.e. a Hospital for Lepers. It was founded by Maud, Queen of Henry I. It was dedicated to St. Giles because this saint was considered the protector of cripples. Hence the name Cripplegate, which really means the Little Gate, was applied to the church of St. Giles, and supposed to mean the gate near the church dedicated to the Patron Saint of Cripples. A common result of leprosy was to make the sufferer lame and crippled. Hence the connection. Generally, however, Lazarus, whom our Lord raised from the dead, was esteemed the Saint of Lepers, whence a Leper's Hospital was always called a Lazar House.

In the middle ages the mysterious disease called leprosy was an ever present terror. Other plagues appeared at intervals and disappeared. Leprosy remained. It never left the land. It struck the King on his Throne, the Bishop in his Cathedral, the Abbess in her Nunnery, the soldier in camp, the merchant in his counting house, the sailor at sea. No class could escape it. Robert Bruce died of it; Orivalle, Bishop of London, died of it; Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, died of it. To this day it prevails in India, at the Cape, in the Pacific Islands, while there are occasional cases found in our own hospitals. The disease was incurable: the man, woman, or child, attacked by it would surely and slowly die of it. The leper was unclean: he was thrust out of the town: he had to live apart, or congregated in hospitals with other wretches similarly afflicted: if he walked abroad he wore a grey gown for distinction and carried a clapper as he went along, crying 'Unclean, Unclean,' so that the people might stand aside and not so much as touch his garments. And since he could not work with his hands, he was permitted to carry into the market a 'clap dish,' that is to say, a bowl or basin in which to receive food and alms.[2]

[2] Lacroix, Science, p. 146.

Leprosy is supposed to have had its origin in Egypt: the laws laid down in the Book of Leviticus for the separation of lepers are stringent and precise: it was believed, partly, no doubt, on account of these statutes in the Book of the Jewish Law, that the disease was brought into Western Europe by the Crusaders; but this was erroneous, because it was in this country before the Crusaders. Thus the Palace of St. James stands upon the site of a lazar house founded before the Conquest for fourteen leprous maidens.

This is not the place to describe the symptoms and the results of this dreadful disease. Suffice it to say that the skin thickens, is discoloured and ulcerates: that the limbs swell: that the fingers and toes drop off: that the voice sinks to a whisper: and that the sufferer's mind is weakened by his malady.

The fearful scourge was so prevalent that there was not a town, hardly a village, in any country of Europe which had not, in those centuries, its lepers and its lazar house, great or small. Every effort was made to isolate them: they were not allowed to worship with the rest of the people: they were provided with a separate building or chapel where, through a hole in the wall, they could look on at the performance of mass. And in addition, as you have seen, they lived apart and took their food apart.

As for their houses—the lazar houses—the chief of them all, the place where Abbot possessed some kind of authority over the others, was one built in a village near Melton Mowbray called Burton Lazars. The Hospital of St. Giles, for instance, became shortly after its foundation a 'cell,' or dependency, of this House.

Whatever the cause of this malady, whether it be contagious, i.e. communicated by touch; or infectious, that is, communicated by breathing the same air; or hereditary; it is quite certain that it was greatly aggravated by the habits of the time. Bad food, uncleanly habits, bad air, all contributed to the spread of leprosy. Especially it has been considered that the long fasts during which meat was prohibited encouraged the disease: not because abstinence from meat is in itself a bad thing, but because the people had to eat fish imperfectly cured or kept too long, and unwholesome. Fresh-water fish could not be procured in sufficient quantities and it was impossible to convey fish from the sea more than a certain distance inland.



The dreadful appearance of the lepers, their horrible sufferings, produced loathing more than pity. People were horror stricken at the sight of them: they drove them out of their sight: they punished them cruelly if they broke the rules of separation: they imprisoned any citizen who should harbour a leper: they kept bailiffs at the City gates to keep them from entering. Fourteen of these afflicted persons were required to be maintained in accordance with Queen Maud's Foundation by the Hospital of St. Giles: there was also a lazar house in the Old Kent Road, Southwark: one between Mile End and Bow: one at Kingsland between Shoreditch and Stoke Newington: one at Knightsbridge, west of Charing Cross, and one at Holloway.

On the Dissolution of the Monasteries, all these lazar houses were suppressed. Now, since we hear very little more about lepers, and since no new lazar houses were built, and since the prohibitions to enter churches, towns, &c., are no more renewed, it is tolerably certain that leprosy by the middle of the sixteenth century had practically disappeared. The above will show, however, how great and terrible a thing it was between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries.



22. THE TERROR OF FAMINE.

Suppose that all the ocean traffic were stopped; that there was no communication, or exchange of commodities, between our country and another; suppose that the people of this island depended entirely on their own harvests and their own cattle for their support. You would then easily understand how a single bad year might produce scarcity of food, and a very bad year might produce a famine. That was our condition down to the fifteenth century. Some corn may have been brought over from Prussia or from Hamburg; but there was no regular supply; the country depended on its own harvests. Therefore, the fear of a famine—or of scarcity—was ever present to the people.

Many of these famines are on record. In the year 990 a famine raged over the whole of England; in 1126 there was a terrible scarcity. Wheat was sold at 6s. a horseload. Now, in the twelfth century a shilling meant more than a pound of our money, in purchasing power. It is not stated how much constituted a horseload. It would probably mean the filling of the two baskets hanging on either side of the packhorse. In 1257, after a wet season and a bad harvest, wheat rose to 24s. a quarter, a price which prohibited all but the richest from eating wheaten bread. It is said that 20,000 perished of starvation. In 1316, after the same cause, wheat became so scarce that its price rose to 4l. a quarter. So great was the distress this year, that great nobles had to dismiss their retainers; the roads in the country were crowded with robbers. Robberies were openly committed in the streets for the sake of food: in the prisons the unfortunate criminals, left to starve, murdered and devoured each other. The people ate carrion and dead dogs. In 1335 there was another time of scarcity and suffering; in 1439, the distress was so great that the people made bread of fern roots and ivy berries. Then, for the first time, we read of the famine being assuaged by the arrival of rye from Prussia. In 1527 a threatened famine was checked by the Hanseatic merchants who gave, or sold, a hundred quarters of wheat to the City and sent three ships to Dantzig for more. In 1593 and in 1597 wheat rose to an enormous price. The last time of scarcity was during the long war with France, which lasted, from 1792 to 1815, nearly a quarter of a century. We were then compelled to depend almost entirely upon our own harvests. Wheat went up as high as 103s. a quarter.

At no time did the poorer classes depend much upon wheat. Rye and oats made the bread of the working people. But bad harvests affected rye and oats as much as wheat.

The famine prices of wheat may be explained by the following facts. In the reign of Henry I., at ordinary prices, bread enough for one meal for 100 men could be bought for a shilling and a whole sheep cost fourpence. In the next century, when wheat was at 6s. a quarter, a farthing loaf was to weigh 24 oz. whole meal and 16 oz. white. When it was at 1s. 6d. a quarter the farthing loaf was to weigh 96 oz. whole grain and 64 oz. white. The quartern loaf of 4 lb. or 64 oz. now costs 5d., wheat being very cheap. So that prices in time of plenty being supposed the same, money was worth twenty times in that century as much as it is worth now. In the reign of Edward I. wheat went down to 1s. a quarter.

The food of the craftsmen in London was, in ordinary times, plentiful and cheap. The City, as we have seen, was always remarkable for the great abundance of provision which was brought there. And there is every reason to believe that while the rustic fared poorly and was underfed, the craftsman of the towns always enjoyed good food and enough of it. This made a time of scarcity hard to bear for one who habitually lived well.

Once or twice an attempt was made to provide the City with granaries in case of famine. Thus the origin of Leadenhall, the great City market, was the erecting of a public granary here by Sir Simon Eyre in 1419. Attached to the Hall, after the manner of the time, was a chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity, which the founder endowed for 60 priests who were to prepare service every day for those who frequented the market.

Another public granary was established in 1610 at Bridewell Palace. This was built to contain 6,000 quarters of wheat.

Nothing more is heard about these public granaries. Probably the public mind grew more assured on the subject of famine as it became better understood that the loss of one country might be made up from the superfluous harvests of another. The lesson taught by the Hanseatic merchants in sending to Prussia for corn was not likely to be lost.

At the present moment, with means of transport always in readiness and the electric wire joining the most distant countries, it might seem that famine was a thing no longer to be feared. There cannot be bad harvests all over the world. Not only can we every year import so much wheat that we need grow little in this country, but we import frozen meat in vast quantities: we bring fruit of all kinds from the most distant countries, insomuch that there are some fruits, such as apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, which we can enjoy the whole year round. But famine may yet play a great and a disastrous part in our history. We must not forget that we enjoy our present abundance of all things on one of two conditions; first, that we are strong enough to protect the waterway and keep it open, or, secondly, that we remain at peace. The latter we cannot hope to do always. Therefore it is of vital importance that we maintain a strong fleet, well equipped, ready to fight, at all times and at the shortest notice, superior to any likely combination that may be brought against us. Therefore, again, it behoves every man in these Isles to be jealous of the fleet, for a time may come when the way of the ocean may be closed and when Great Britain, through the neglect of her rulers, may be starved into a shameful and ruinous surrender.



23. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

PART I.

When London was converted to Christianity, in the year 610, the first Bishop of London, Mellitus, built a church on the highest ground within the walls of the City. This church he dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle who first preached to the Gentiles. What kind of church this was—whether great or small—whether of wood or of stone—how often rebuilt or repaired—we know not. Probably it was quite a small church at first. This church, or its successor, was taken down in the year 1087 when Bishop Maurice began to build a new and far more stately Cathedral. Fifty years later most of the church, not yet completed, was burned down. Its building, thus delayed, was continued for nearly two centuries. The steeple was not completed, for instance, till a hundred and fifty years after the commencement of the building. The drawing shows the church as it was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Old St. Paul's was one of the largest churches in Europe: its length was at least 600 feet; the spire reached the height of 460 feet. The church stood in a large walled enclosure, still kept partly open, though the wall has long since been pulled down and there have been encroachments on the north side.



The church in the fourteenth century was not regarded only as a place for public worship. Masses and services of all kinds were going on all day long: the place was bright, not only with the sunlight streaming through the painted glass, but with wax tapers burning before many a shrine—at some, all day and all night. People came to the church to walk about, for rest, for conversation, for the transaction of business—to make or receive payments: to hire servants. The middle aisle of the church where all this was done was called Paul's Walk or Duke Humphrey's Walk. Here were tables where twelve licensed scribes sat writing letters for those who wanted their services. They would also prepare a lease, a deed, a conveyance—any legal document. The church was filled with tombs and monuments, some of these very ancient, some of the greatest interest. Here was one called the tomb of Duke Humphrey—Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, who was really buried at St. Alban's. On May Day the watermen used to come to St. Paul's in order to sprinkle water and strew herbs upon this tomb—I know not why. Those who were out of work and went dinnerless were said to dine with Duke Humphrey: and there was a proverb—'Trash and trumpery is the way to Duke Humphrey.' Trumpery being used in its original meaning—tromperie—deceit. Among other tombs there were those of the Saxon Kings Sebbi and Ethelred. The first of these was King of the East Saxons. He was converted by Bishop Erkenwald. The second was the elder brother of King Alfred. There were tombs or shrines to many saints now forgotten—that of St. Erkenwald, whose fame rivalled that of Edward the Confessor at Westminster, St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury: that of St. Ethelbert: that of St. Roger, Bishop of London—a cope which St. Roger wore is still preserved in the Sacristy: and that of St. Wilford. At every one of these shrines miracles were wrought—or believed to be wrought. There was also a miraculous crucifix said to have been discovered by Lucius, the first Christian King of ancient Britain in the year 140. Great gifts were constantly made to this crucifix.

Under the Cathedral, in the crypt, was a parish church—that of St. Faith's—it is now united with the parish church of St. Augustine's in Watling Street.



Outside the church, almost against the south wall, was the parish church of St. Gregory. In the same way the parish church of St. Margaret's stands outside Westminster Abbey. Within, we can see, in imagination, the people walking about—they have not yet begun to stand bareheaded in church—some dictating to the scribes: some leaning against the tombs: some sitting on the bases of the great round pillars—there were no pews, benches, or chairs in the Cathedral: the chantry priests are saying masses in the chapels: the people are kneeling before the golden shrine of St. Erkenwald, resplendent with lights, jewels, gold, and silver: women lay their offerings before the miraculous crucifix praying for the restoration to health of son or husband: a wedding is celebrated in one chapel: a funeral mass is being said in another: servants gather about a certain pillar waiting to be hired: porters carrying baskets on their heads enter at the north door and tramp through, going out of the south: processions of priests and choir pass up and down the aisles: the organ peals and echoes along the long and lofty roof. See; here comes a troop of men. They carry instruments of music: they are dressed in a livery, a cloak of green: they march together entering at the western doors and tramping through the whole length of the church to the chapel of Our Lady in the East. This is the Guild of the Minstrels. There were many other guilds attached to the Cathedral. You shall learn presently what was the meaning of these guilds.



24. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

PART II.

Such was Paul's in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth the Reformation came. The candles were all put out; the shrines were destroyed; the altars were taken out of the chapels: the miraculous images were taken away: the church, compared with its previous condition, became a shell. The choir was walled off for public worship: the rest of the church became a place of public resort: the poets of the time are full of allusions to Paul's Walk. It was a common thoroughfare even for men leading pack horses and asses. The Cathedral, left to neglect, began to fall into a ruinous condition. An attempt was made at restoration: funds were collected, but they came in slowly. Laud, who became Bishop of London in 1631, gave an impetus to the work: the celebrated Inigo Jones was appointed architect: in order to prevent the church from being turned into an Exchange, he built a West Porch, which is shown in some of the pictures of St. Paul's. In the time of the Commonwealth this portico was let off in shops and stalls: the nave of the church actually became a cavalry barrack.



When King Charles returned it was resolved to repair and restore the cathedral, by this time almost in ruins: but while the citizens were considering what should be done, the Great Fire of London settled the question by burning down all that was left.

Then Christopher Wren began the present building. The first stone was laid on June 21, 1675, nine years after the Fire. Divine service was performed on December 2, 1697, the day of thanksgiving for the Peace of Ryswick. The work was completed in 1710, thirty-five years after its commencement. The present church is 100 feet shorter than its predecessor: its dome is also 100 feet lower than the former spire. The grandeur of the building cannot be appreciated by any near view, because the houses block it in on all sides, and the former view from the bottom of Ludgate Hill is now spoiled by the railway bridge. Those who wish to see what St. Paul's really is—how splendid a church it is—how grandly it stands above the whole City—must cross the river and look at it from Bankside, Southwark.

The dome is three fold: it consists of an outer casing of wood covered with lead: a cone of bricks which supports the lantern and cross: and an inner cupola of brick which supports nothing. The towers at the west end are 222 feet in height.

St. Paul's, especially since the crowding at Westminster Abbey, is becoming the National Burial Church. It is already well filled with monuments of British worthies and heroes of this and the last century. Of men distinguished in Literature, Art, and Science, there are buried here Dr. Johnson, Hallam the historian, Sir Joshua Reynolds the painter, Turner the painter, Rennie the engineer who built Waterloo Bridge, Sir William Jones, the great Oriental scholar, and Sir Astley Cooper, the great surgeon. There is also buried here, as he should be, Sir Christopher Wren himself. But those who visit the Cathedral desire most to see the tombs of Wellington and Nelson. The remains of the former lie in a great sarcophagus worked out of a single piece of Cornish porphyry. Those of the Admiral were placed first in a coffin made from the main mast of the French ship Orient, taken at the Battle of the Nile. This was deposited in a sarcophagus made by Cardinal Wolsey and intended for the burial of King Henry the Eighth. In the Cathedral, too, you will find the monuments of those splendid fighting men, Lord Collingwood, Nelson's friend: Howe and Rodney: Earl St. Vincent, who won the battle of Cape St. Vincent: Lord Duncan of Camperdown, and many others.



In the crypt you will find, if you look for it, the brass tablet which marks the spot where lie the remains of a man whose history should be an encouragement to every boy who reads this book. His name was Edward Palmer. Born without family influence, plainly educated at the grammar school of his town, he taught himself in the teeth of all difficulties—that of bad health especially—Arabic, Persian, and all the languages which belong to that group: at the age of twenty-four he was so splendid an Oriental scholar that the greatest Orientalist at Cambridge declared that he could teach him nothing. He was elected to a Fellowship at St. John's College and became the Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic. He mastered, in addition to his Oriental studies, all the European languages except Russian and the Slavonic group. He explored the Desert of the Exodus and the Peninsula of Sinai. He did a great deal of literary work. But he was not buried in St. Paul's Cathedral for these studies. In the year 1882, when the Egyptian War broke out, he was sent on a secret mission to the tribes of the Desert. He knew them all: he could talk their language as well as his own: he was the equal of any one in his knowledge of Arabic poetry and his power of telling stories: they welcomed him with open arms: the service that he rendered to his country for which he was honoured with a funeral at St. Paul's, was that he prevented these tribes from destroying the Suez Canal. He succeeded in reaching the British camp at Suez in safety, his task accomplished, the safety of the Canal assured. He was murdered in return by a party of Egyptian Arabs sent from Cairo. His bones were recovered by Sir Charles Warren—who further tracked down and hanged every man connected with the murder. The road to possible greatness lies open to all, but the way leads through a difficult and thorny way only to be passed, as Palmer found, by resolution invincible and by long patient industry.



25. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.

St. Paul's Cathedral stood in the centre of an oval-shaped enclosure very much like the present St. Paul's Churchyard, save that the houses now in the north are an encroachment. This open space was surrounded by a wall, in which were six gates embattled. The first was the Great Western Gate, facing Ludgate Hill: the second in Paul's Alley in Paternoster Row: the third at Canon Alley: the fourth, or Little Gate, where is now the entrance into Cheapside: the fifth, St. Augustine's Gate, Watling Street: the sixth at Paul's Chain.



Walking round this enclosure we come first upon the Bishop's Palace, standing on the north side of the Nave. The Palace was provided with a private entrance into the Cathedral. Beyond the Palace was a very beautiful cloister called Pardon Church Haugh. In this cloister stood a chapel built by Gilbert, father of Thomas a Becket. Many monuments and tombs of great persons stood within this cloister, which was also remarkable for its 'Dances of Death.' This was a series of paintings representing Death as a skeleton armed with a dart, leading by the hand men and women of every degree, from the highest to the lowest. There were formerly many examples of such dances. Next to the cloister was the library, the catalogue of which still exists to show what a scholar's collection of books then meant. Next to the library stood the College of the Minor Canons: then came Charnel Chapel, beneath which was a crypt filled with human bones taken from the churchyard. Remember that this has been a burial place ever since the year 610, when a church was first built here. From the year 610 till the year 1840, or for a period of 1,200 years, new graves were continually made in this ground. Who can guess how many thousands lie buried here? Every handful of the dust is a handful of human remains. From time to time, however, the bones were collected and placed in this crypt of Charnel Chapel. The chapel itself was apparently a large building, for when it was pulled down the materials were used by the Duke of Somerset at the Reformation in building Somerset House in the Strand. There are yet standing some portions of the original house, so that the stones of Charnel Chapel may still be seen. As for the crypt, they carried away the bones, which made a thousand cartloads, and laid them over Finsbury Fields, covering them with ground, on which were erected three windmills. The site is marked by the street called Windmill Street.

Next to Charnel Chapel stood the famous Paul's Cross.

This famous place was a Pulpit Cross, from which sermons might be preached in the open air. Several London churches had their open-air pulpits: notably St. Michael's, Cornhill; St. Mary's Spital, without Bishopsgate—at this Cross a sermon was preached every Easter to the Lord Mayor and aldermen. When Paul's Cross was erected is not known: it probably stood on the site of some scaffold or steps, from which the people were anciently harangued, for this was the place of the folk-mote, or meeting of the people. Here were read aloud, and proclaimed, the King's Laws and Orders: here the people were informed of War and Peace: here Papal Bulls were read. There was a cross standing here in the year 1256—very likely it was already ancient. In the year 1387 it was ruinous and had to be repaired. It was again repaired or rebuilt in 1480. Paul's Cross played a very important part in the Reformation. Here the 'Rood' of Bexley, which was a crucifix where the eyes and lips were made to move and the people were taught that it was miraculous, was exposed and broken to pieces: here the famous images of Walsingham and Ipswich, the object of so many pilgrimages, were brought to be broken to pieces before the eyes of the people. Here Latimer preached, a man of the people who could speak to them in a way to make them understand. Had it not been for the preaching of Latimer and others like him in plain language, the Reformation would have been an attempt, and probably a failure, to enforce upon the people the opinions of certain scholars. Paul's Cross did not perish in the Fire: it was taken down in the year 1643, or thereabouts, in order to be rebuilt; but this was not done, and when the Fire destroyed the Cathedral Paul's Cross was forgotten. Its site may be seen in the churchyard at the N.E. corner of the choir, marked by a flat stone, but it must be remembered that the old church was wider but farther south.

On the south side of Paul's Churchyard we pass in succession the beautiful Chapter House: the Church of St. Gregory and the Deanery. Close to the western gate are residences for the Canons, south of the enclosure are the Cathedral Brewhouse and Bakehouse.

Such are some of the buildings in Paul's Churchyard. The Cathedral establishment supported a great army of priests and people. For many of them, perhaps for most, there were residences of some kind either within the enclosure or close beside it. Thus the priests, including Bishop, Dean, Archdeacons and Canons, a hundred and thirty in number: then there were the inferior officers: yet persons of consideration and authority, such as Sacrist, Almoner, Bookbinder, Chief Brewer, Chief Baker, with all their servants: scribes, messengers, bookbinders, illuminators and copyists: singing-men and choir boys, and women to keep the church clean. When we add that the Brewer had to provide 200 gallons of beer a day, it is obvious that there must have been a good many people belonging to the Cathedral who lived in the enclosure called the Churchyard.



26. THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES.

If we take a map of London in the fourteenth century and lay down upon it all the monasteries and religious Houses that then existed we shall find twenty, all rich and splendid Foundations, without counting those of Westminster and the villages within a few miles of London Stone. These were built for the most part either just within or just without the City wall. The reason was that the City was less densely populated near the wall than lower down along the river-side. Every one of these Societies was possessed of estates in the country and streets and houses in the City. Every one then retained, besides the monks or friars and nuns, a whole army of officers and servants. A great monastery provided employment for a very large number of people. In every separate estate which belonged to it, the monastery wanted tenant farmers, foresters and hunters, labourers, stewards and bailiffs, a curate or vicar in charge of the church and all the officers who are required for the management of an estate. For the House itself there were wanted first, the service of the chapel, apart from the singing which was done by the brethren: the school: the library: lawyers and clerks to administer the estates and guard the rights and privileges of the House: the brewhouse, bakehouse, kitchen, cellar, stables, with all the officers and servants required in a place where everything was made in the house; the architects, surveyors, carpenters and people wanted to maintain the buildings. It is not too much to reckon that a fourth part of the population of London belonged in some way or other to the monasteries, while these Houses were certainly the best customers for the wines, silks and spices which were brought to the quays of Queenhithe and Billingsgate.



It is generally believed that the monasteries, besides relieving the sick and poor and teaching the boys and girls, threw open their doors readily to any poor lad who desired to take the vows of the Order.



All this is a misconception: there were the same difficulties about relieving the poor as there are with us at the present moment. That is to say, indiscriminate charity then, as now, turned honest working men into paupers. This the monks and friars understood very well. They were therefore careful about their charities. Also in many Houses the school was allowed to drop into disuse. And as regards the admission of poor boys it was done only in cases where a boy showed himself quick and studious. It has been the glory of the Church in all ages that she has refused to recognise any barrier of birth: but she has also been careful to preserve her distinctions for those who deserve them. Most of the brethren in a rich Foundation were of gentle birth and good family. If a poor boy asked to join a monastery he was lucky if he was allowed to become one of its servants and to wear its livery. Then his livelihood was assured. There is every reason to believe that the rule of the brethren, strict for themselves, was light and easy for their servants. You may find out for yourselves where the London monasteries were, by the names of streets now standing on their sites. Thus, following the line of the wall from the Tower north and west you find St. Katharine's Dock where stood St. Katharine's Hospital: the Minories marks the House of the Minorites or Sisters of St. Clare; Great St. Helens is on the site of St. Helen's Nunnery: Spital Square stands where St. Mary's Spital formerly received the sick: Blackfriars, Charter House and Bartholomew's still keep their name: Austin Friars is the name of a court and the Friars' Church still stands: Whitefriars is still the name of a street: Grey Friars is Christ's Hospital: the Temple is now the lawyer's home; part of the Church of the Knights Hospitallers is still to be seen. Three great Houses, it is true, have left no trace or memory behind. Eastminster or the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary of Grace, which stood north of St. Katharine's, and was a very great and stately place indeed: the Priory of the Holy Trinity, which stood where is now Duke's Place, north of the church of St. Catharine Cree: and St. Mary of Bethlehem, which stood just outside Bishopsgate. The memory of Bermondsey Abbey and St. Mary Overy on the south side of the river has also departed, but the church of the latter still stands, the most beautiful church in London next to Westminster Abbey.



But besides all these religious Houses employing thousands of people, there were in the City of London no fewer than 126 parish churches. Many of the parishes were extremely small—a single street—or half a street: many of the churches were insignificant: but many were rich and costly structures, adorned and beautified by the piety of many generations: all were endowed with funds for the saying of masses for the dead, so that there were many priests to every parish. Consider these things and you will understand that the City was filled with ecclesiastics—priests, friars, servants of the Church: at every corner rose a church: to one standing on the other bank of the river the City presented a forest of spires and towers. The church then occupied a far larger part of the daily life than is now the case even with Catholic countries. All were expected to attend a daily service: the trade companies went to church in state: young men belonged to a guild: the ringing of the bells was never silent: no one could escape, if he desired, from the Church. No one did desire to escape, because every one belonged to the Church. You must understand, not only that the Church was so great and rich that it owned and ruled a very large part of the country, but also that the people all belonged to the Church: it was part of their life as much as their daily work, their daily food, their daily rest.



27. MONKS, FRIARS, AND NUNS.

We must not speak of monks indiscriminately as if they were all the same. There were as many varieties among the Orders as there are sects among Protestants and as much rivalry and even hatred of one with the other. Let us learn some of the distinctions among them.

Monks were first introduced into Western Europe in the year 529. There had long been brotherhoods, hermits, and solitaries in the East, where they existed before the Christian age. St. Benedict founded at Monte Casino in Campania a monastery for twelve brethren in that year. The Benedictines are the most ancient Order: they have also been always the most learned. The Priory of the Holy Trinity in London was Benedictine. Several branches sprang out of this Order, mostly founded with the view of practising greater austerities. Among them were the Carthusians, a very strict Order—in London they had the Charter House, a name which is a corruption of Chartreuse, their original House: and the Cistercians, founded at Citeaux in France—they had Eastminster, or the Abbey of St. Mary of Grace. All these were monks.

The Augustine, or Austin Friars, pretended to have been founded by Augustine, but were not constituted until the year 1256. They had the monastery of Austin Friars in London. There were several branches of this Order.

There were next the three great Mendicant Orders, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Carmelites. These were the popular Orders. The monks remained in their Houses alone, separated from the world. The friars went about among the people. By their vows they were to possess nothing of their own: they were to sleep where they could: they were to beg their food and raiment: they were to preach to the people in the streets and in their houses: they were to bring the rites of the Church to those who would not enter the doors of the Church. None were to be too poor or too miserable for them. In their humility they would not be called fathers but brothers—fratres—friars. In their preaching they used every way by which they could move the hearts of the people; some thundered, some wept, some made jokes. They preached in the midst of the markets, among the sports of the Fair, wherever they could get an audience together.

The Franciscans, who had Grey Friars House, now the Bluecoat School, were founded by St. Francis of Assisi in the beginning of the thirteenth century. They came over to England and appeared in London a few years later. On account of their austerities and the faithfulness with which the earlier Franciscans kept their vows and the earnestness of their preaching they became very popular in this country. Their name—Grey Friars—denotes the colour of their dress. The old simplicity and poverty did not last long. It must, however, be acknowledged that wealth was forced upon them.

The Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic about the year 1215. Sixty years later they came to London and established themselves in the place still known by their name—Blackfriars. Their dress was white with a black cloak. They were never so popular as the Franciscans perhaps because they insisted more on doctrine, and were associated with the Inquisition.

The third of the Mendicant Orders was the Carmelite. They were the Whitefriars, their dress being white with a black hood. Their House was in Fleet Street. Here was a sanctuary whose privileges were not abolished till the year 1697.

Other Orders represented in London were the Cluniacs, a branch of Benedictines—they had the Abbey of St. Saviour in Bermondsey; the Black Canons, established at St. Bartholomew's: the Canons Regular of St. Augustin—who had the Southwark Priory of St. Mary Overie: the Knights Templars; and the Knights of St. John.

As a general rule it is enough to remember that the monks were Benedictines with their principal branches of Carthusians, Cistercians, and Cluniacs: that the friars were those named after Augustine, Dominic, Francis, and Mount Carmel; that the monks remained in their Houses, practising a life of austerity and prayer—so long as they were faithful to their vows: and that the friars went about among the people, preaching and exhorting them.

Of the nunneries some were Benedictine, some Franciscan: that of the Minorites belonged to the latter Order: that of St. Helen's, to the former.

The Religious Houses were dissolved at the Reformation. You must remember that if it had not been for the existence of these Houses, most of the arts, science, and scholarship of the world would have perished utterly. The monks kept alive learning of all kinds: they encouraged painting: they were discoverers and inventors in science: they were the chief agriculturists and gardeners: they offered an asylum to the poor and the oppressed. 'The friendship of the poor,' said Bernard, 'makes us the friends of Kings.' And in an age of unrestrained passions they showed an example of self-restraint and austerity. The friars did more: they were poor among the poor: no one was below their care and affection: they had nothing—they would take nothing—at first: till the love and gratitude of the people showered gifts upon them and even against their will, if they still retained any love for poverty, they became rich.



28. THE LONDON CHURCHES.

Before the Great Fire of London there were 126 churches and parishes in the City. Most of these were destroyed by the Fire, and many were never rebuilt at all. Two or even three and four parishes were united in one church. Of late years there has been a destruction of City churches almost as disastrous as that of the Fire. Those who have learned from this book, and elsewhere, to respect the monuments of the past and to desire their preservation, should do their utmost to prevent the demolition of these churches, in consideration of their history and their association with the past.

Looking at a picture of London after the Fire, you will certainly remark the great number of spires and towers. London, in fact, was then, and much more so before the Fire, a city of churches. Those which are here represented and those which now remain are nearly all the work of Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's. Many of them are very beautiful internally; many have been decorated and adorned with the most splendid carved woodwork. About many there cling the memories of dead men and great men who worshipped here and made gifts to the church and were buried here.

Let us show, by a few examples, how worthy these City churches are of preservation and respect.

First, many of them stand on the sites of the most ancient churches in the history of London. Those about Thames Street, dedicated to St. Peter, St. Paul (the Cathedral), St. James, probably represent Christian temples of Roman London. The church of St. Martin's, Ludgate Hill, was traditionally built by a British prince: that of St. Peter, Cornhill, by a Roman general. The tradition proves at least the antiquity of the churches. St. Augustine's preserves the memory of the preacher who converted the Saxons. St. Olave's and St. Magnus mark the Danish rule: St. Dunstan's, St. Alphege, St. Ethelburga, St. Swithin, St. Botolph, commemorate Saxon saints. Why, for instance, are there three churches all dedicated to St. Botolph just outside City gates? Because this saint—after whom the Lincolnshire town of Icanhoe changed its name to Botolph's town, now Boston—was considered the special protector of travellers. Then the names of churches still commemorate some fact in history. St. Mary Woolnoth, marks the wool market: St. Osyth's—the name exists in Sise Lane, was changed into St. Bene't Shere Hog—or Skin-the-Pig—because the stream called Walbrook which ran close by was used for the purpose of assisting this operation. St. Austin's was the chapel of Austin Friars Monastery. St. Andrew's Undershaft tells that the City May Pole was hung up along its wall. St. Andrew's-by-the-Wardrobe commemorates the existence of the Palace formerly called the King's Wardrobe. In St. Michael's Bassishaw survives the name of an old City family—the Basings. In St. Martin Orgar's—now destroyed—we have another old City name—Orgar.

Or, again, there are the people who are buried or were baptised in these churches.

In All Hallows, Bread Street, now pulled down, was baptised the greatest poet of our country, John Milton. For this cause alone the church should never have been suffered to fall into decay. It was wickedly and wantonly destroyed for the sake of the money its site would fetch in the year 1877. When you visit Bow Church, Cheapside, look for the tablet to the memory of Milton, now fixed in that church. It belonged to All Hallows, Bread Street.

Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn: The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty—in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third she joined the other two.

Christ Church, Newgate, stands on part of the site once occupied by the splendid church of the Grey Friars. Four Queens lie buried here, and an immense number of princes and great soldiers and nobles.

Very few people, of the thousands who daily walk up and down Fleet Street, know anything about the statue in the wall of St. Dunstan's Church. This is the statue of Queen Elizabeth which formerly stood on the west side of Lud Gate. This gate was taken down in the year 1760, and some time after the statue was placed here. One of the sights of London before the old church was pulled down was a clock with the figure of a savage on each side who struck the hours and the quarters on a bell with clubs. London has seldom been without some such show. As long ago as the fifteenth century there was a clock with figures in Fleet Street. Tyndal the Reformer, and Baxter the famous Nonconformist were preachers in this church.

St. Mary le Bow, was so called because it was the first church in the City built on arches—bows—of stone. The church is most intimately connected with the life and history of the City. Bow Bell rang for the closing of the shops. If the ringer was late the prentice boys reminded him pretty plainly.

'Clarke of the Bow Bell with thy yellow lockes: In thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.'

To which the clerk replied:

'Children of Chepe, hold you all stille: For you shall have Bow Bell ring at your will.'

St. Mary's Woolnoth was for many years the church of the Rev. John Newton, once the poet Cowper's friend. He began his life in the merchant service and was for many years engaged in the slave trade.

For these reasons—their antiquity, their history, their associations—the destruction of the City churches ought to be resisted with the utmost determination. You who read this page may very possibly become parishioners of such a church. Learn that, without the consent of the parishioners, no church can be destroyed. A meeting of parishioners must be called: they must vote and decide. Do not forget this privilege. The time may come when your vote and your's alone, may retain for your posterity a church rich in history and venerable with the traditions of the past.



29. THE STREETS.

You have seen how the wall surrounded Roman London. The same wall which defended and limited Augusta defended and limited Plantagenet London. Outside the wall on the east there continued to extend wide marshes along the river; moorlands and forest on the north; marshes with rising ground on the west; marshes on the south. Wapping was called Wapping in the Wose (Wash or Ouze), meaning in the Marsh: Bermondsey was Bermond's Island, standing in the marsh: Battersea was Batter's Island, or perhaps Island of Boats: Chelsea was the Island of Chesel or Shingle: Westminster Abbey was built on the Isle of Thorns. The monasteries standing outside the wall attracted a certain number of serving people who built houses round them: some of the riverside folk—boat-builders, lightermen, and so forth—were living in the precinct of St. Katharine, just outside the Tower: all along the Strand were great men's houses, one of which, the Somerset House, still stands in altered form, and another, Northumberland House, was only pulled down a few years ago. Southwark had a single main street with a few branches east and west: it also contained several great houses, and was provided with many Inns for the use of those who brought their goods from Kent and Surrey to London Market. It was also admitted as a ward. On either side of the High Street lay marshes. The river was banked—hence the name Bank Side—but it is not known at what time.

That part of the wall fronting the river had long been pulled down, but the stairs were guarded with iron chains, and there was a river police which rowed about among the shipping at night.



The streets and lanes of London within the walls were very nearly the same as they are at present, except for the great thoroughfares constructed within the last thirty years. That is to say, when one entered at Lud Gate and passed through Paul's Churchyard, he found himself in the broad street, the market place of the City, known as Chepe. This continued to the place where the Royal Exchange now stands, where it broke off into two branches, Cornhill and Lombard Street. These respectively led into Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, which united again before Aldgate. Another leading thoroughfare crossed the City from London Bridge to Bishopsgate, and another, Thames Street, by far the most important, because here the merchant adventurers—those who had ships and imported goods—met for the transaction of business. The rough cobbled pavement of Thames Street was the Exchange of Whittington and the merchants of his time, who all had their houses on the rising ground, among the narrow lanes north of the street. You have seen what splendid houses a London merchant loved to build. What kind of house did the retailer and the craftsman occupy? It was of stone in the lower parts, but the upper storey was generally of wood, and the roof was too often thatched. The window was glazed in the upper part, but had open work and shutter for the lower half: this half, with the door, stood open during the greater part of the year. The lower room was the living room, and sometimes the work room of the occupant. The upper floor contained the bed rooms. There was but one fireplace in the house—that in the living room. At the back of the house was generally a small garden. But, besides these houses, there were courts dark, narrow, noisome, where the huts were still 'wattle and daub,' that is, built with posts, the sides filled in with branches or sticks and clay or mud, the fire in the middle of the floor, the chimney overhead. And still, as in Saxon times, the great danger to the City was from fire.

Men of the same trade still congregated together for convenience. When all lived together the output would be regulated, prices maintained, and wages agreed upon. Nothing was more hateful to the mediaeval trader than forestalling and regrating. To forestall was to buy things before they arrived at market with intent to sell at a higher price. To regrate was to buy up in the market and sell again in the same market at an advanced price. To undersell your neighbour was then also an unpardonable crime. You discover, therefore, that trade in Plantagenet London was not like trade in Victorian London. Then, all men of the same trade stood by each other and were brothers: now, too often, men of the same trade are enemies.

The names of streets show the nature of the trades carried on in them. Turners and makers of wooden cups and platters, Wood Street: ironmongers, in their Lane: poultry sellers, the Poultry: bakers, Bread Street: and so on. Chepe was the great retail market of the City. It was built over gradually, but in early times it was a broad market covered with stalls, like the market-place of Norwich, for instance; these stalls were ranged in lines and streets: churches stood about among the lines. Then the stalls, which had been temporary wooden structures, were changed into permanent shops, which were also the houses of the tenants: the living room and kitchen were behind the shop: the master and his family slept above, and the prentices slept under the counter.



30 WHITTINGTON.

PART I.

The story of Dick Whittington has been a favourite legend for many generations. The boy coming up to London poor and friendless; lying despairing on the green slope of Highgate; resolved to return to the country since he can find no work in London: the falling upon his ears of the bells of Bow, wafted across the fields by the south wind—every child knows all this. What did the bells say to him—the soft and mellow bells, calling to him across four miles of fields? 'Turn again, Whittington—Turn again, Whittington—Lord Mayor of London—Turn again, Whittington.' He did turn, as we know, and became not once, but four times Lord Mayor of London and entertained kings, and was the richest merchant of his time. And all through a cat—we know how the cat began his fortune.

That is the familiar legend. Now you shall learn the truth.

There was a Dick Whittington: and he was Lord Mayor of London—to be accurate, he was Mayor of London, for the title of Lord Mayor did not yet exist.

He was not a poor and friendless lad by any means. He belonged to a good family, his father, Sir William Whittington, Knight, being owner of an estate in Herefordshire called Soler's Hope, and one in Gloucestershire called Pauntley. The father was buried at Pauntley Church, where his shield may still be seen. Richard was the youngest of three sons of whom the eldest, William, died without children: and the second, Robert, had sons of whom one, Guy, fought at Agincourt. From the second son there are descendants to this day.

Richard, at the age of fourteen, was sent to London, where he had connections. Many country people had connections in London who were merchants. Remember that in those days it would be impossible for a boy to rise from poverty to wealth and distinction by trade. Such a lad might rise in the church, or even, but I know not of any instance, by distinguished valour on the field of battle. Most certainly, he would be prenticed to a craft and a craftsman he would remain all his life. Whittington was a gentleman: that was the first and necessary condition to promotion: he came to London, not to learn a craft at all, but to be apprenticed to his cousin Sir John Fitzwarren, Mercer and Merchant Adventurer. The Mercers were the richest and most important company in London: the merchant adventurers were those—the foremost among the Mercers—who owned ships which they despatched abroad with exports and with which they imported stuffs and merchandise to the Port of London. Whittington's master may have had a shop or stall in Chepe—but he was a great importer of silks, satins, cloth of gold, velvets, embroideries, precious stones, and all splendid materials required for an age of splendid costume.



What is the meaning of the 'cat' story? Immediately after Whittington's death the story was spread about. When his executors repaired Newgate they placed a carven cat on the outside: when Whittington's nephews, a few years later, built a house in Gloucester they placed a carven cat over the door in recognition of the story. All sorts of explanations have been offered. First, that there never was any cat at all. Next, that by a 'cat' is meant a kind of ship, a collier. Thirdly, that the cat is symbolical and means something else. Why need we go out of our way at all? A cat at that time was a valuable animal: not by any means common: in certain countries where rats were a nuisance a cat was very valuable indeed. Why should not the lad entrust a kitten to one of his master's skippers with instructions to sell it for him in any Levantine port at which the vessel might touch? Then he would naturally ever afterwards refer to the sale of the cat, the first venture of his own, as the beginning and foundation of his fortune. But you must believe about the cat whatever you please. The story has been told of other men. There was a Portuguese sailor, named Alphonso, who was wrecked on the Coast of Guinea. He carried a cat safely ashore and sold her to the King for her weight in gold: with this for his first capital he rapidly made a large fortune. Again, one Diego Almagro, a companion of Pizarro, bought the first cat ever taken to South America for 600 pieces of eight. And the story is found in Persia and in Denmark, and I dare say all over the world. Yet I believe in its literal truth.

In the year 1378 Whittington's name first appears in the City papers. He was then perhaps twenty-one—but the date of his birth is uncertain—and was already in trade, not, as yet, very far advanced, for his assessment shows that as yet he was in the lowest and poorest class of the wholesale Mercers.



31. WHITTINGTON.

PART II.

For nearly fifty years after this Whittington leads an active, busy, prosperous life. It was a distracted time, full of troubles and anxieties. A Charter obtained in 1376, two or three years before he began business, was probably the real foundation of Whittington's fortune. For it forbade foreign merchants to sell by retail. This meant that a foreign ship bringing wine to the port of London could only dispose of her merchandise to the wholesale vintners: or one bringing silk could only sell it to wholesale mercers. The merchants, no doubt, intended to use this Charter for the furtherance of their own shipping interests.

This important Charter, presented by the King, was nearly lost a little after, when there was trouble about Wycliffe. The great scholar was ordered to appear at St. Paul's Cathedral before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, to answer charges of heresy. He was not an unprotected and friendless man, and he appeared at the Cathedral under the protection of the powerful John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of King Edward III. The Bishop of London rebuked the Duke for protecting heretics, so the Duke, enraged, threatened to pull the Bishop out of his own church by the hair of his head. The people outside shouted that they would all die before the Bishop should suffer indignity. John of Gaunt rode off to Westminster and proposed that the office of Mayor should be abolished and that the Marshal of England should hold his court in the City—in other words, that even the liberties and Charters of the City should be swept clean away. Then the Londoners rushed to the Savoy, the Duke's palace, and would have sacked and destroyed it but for the Bishop. This story indicates the kind of danger to which, in those ages, the City was liable. There were no police; a popular tumult easily and suddenly became a rebellion: no one knew what might happen when the folk met together and wild passions of unreasoning fury were aroused.

Another danger of the time for the peaceful merchant. For some years the navigation of the North Sea and the Channel was greatly impeded by a Scottish privateer or pirate named Mercer. In vain had the City made representations to the King. Nothing was done, and the pirate grew daily stronger and bolder. Then Sir John Philpot, the Mayor, did a very patriotic thing. He built certain ships of his own, equipped them with arms, went on board as captain or admiral, and manned them with a thousand stout fellows. He found the pirate off Scarborough, fell upon him, slew him with all his men and returned to London Port with all his own ships and all the pirate's ships—including fifteen Spanish vessels which had joined Mercer.

The King pretended to be angry with this private mode of carrying on war, but the thing was done, and it was a very good thing, and profitable to London and to the King himself, therefore when Sir John Philpot gave the King the arms and armour of a thousand men and all his own ships and prize ships, the Royal clemency was not difficult to obtain. I wish that I could state that Whittington had sailed with Sir John on this gallant expedition.

A third trouble arose in the year 1381 on the rebellion of the peasants under John Ball, Wat Tyler, Jack the Miller, Jack the Carter, and Jack Trewman. The rebels held possession of the City for awhile. They destroyed the Savoy, the Temple and the houses of the foreign merchants (this shows that they had been joined by some of the London people). They murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prior of St. John's Hospital. Then the citizens roused themselves and with an army of 6,000 men stood in ranks to defend the King.

Then there happened the troubles of John of Northampton, Mayor in 1382. You have learned how trades of all kinds were banded together each in its own Company. Every Company had the right of regulating prices. Thus the Fishmongers sold their fish at a price ordered by the Warden or Master of the Company. It is easy to understand that this might lead to murmurs against the high price of fish or of anything else. This, in fact, really happened. It was a time of great questioning and doubt; the rising of Wat Tyler shows that this spirit was abroad. The craftsmen of London, those who made things, grumbled loudly at the price of provisions. They asked why the City should not take over the trade in food of all kinds and sell it to the people at lower prices. John of Northampton being Mayor, took the popular view. He did not exactly make over the provisioning of the City to the Corporation, but he first obtained an Act of Parliament throwing open the calling of fishmonger to all comers; and then another which practically abolished the trade of grocers, pepperers, fruiterers, butchers, and bakers. Imagine the rage with which such an Act would now be received by London tradesmen!

The next Mayor, however, obtained the rescinding of these Acts. In consequence, fish went up in price and there was a popular tumult, upon which one man was hanged and John of Northampton was sent to the Castle of Tintagel on the Cornish Coast, where he remained for the rest of his life.



32. WHITTINGTON.

PART III.

In the year 1384, being then about twenty-six years of age, Whittington was elected a member of the Common Council. In the year 1389 he was assessed at the same sum as the richest citizen. So that these ten years of his life were evidently very prosperous. In the year 1393 he was made Alderman for Broad Street Ward. In the same year he was made Sheriff. In the year 1396, the Mayor, Adam Bamme, dying in office, Whittington succeeded him. The following year he was elected Mayor.

In the year 1401, water was brought from Tyburn (now the N.E. corner of Hyde Park) to Cornhill in pipes, a great and important boon to the City.

In the year 1406 he was again elected Mayor. The manner of his election is described in the contemporary records. After service in the chapel of the Guildhall, the outgoing Mayor, with all the Aldermen and as many as possible of the wealthier and more substantial Commoners of the City, met in the Guildhall and chose two of their number, viz., Richard Whittington and Drew Barentyn. Then the Mayor receiving this nomination retired into a closed chamber with the Aldermen and made choice of Whittington.

In the year 1419 he was elected Mayor for the third and last time, but, counting his succession to Bamme, he was actually four times Mayor. In 1416 he was returned Member of Parliament for the City.

It was not a new thing for a citizen to be made Mayor more than once. Three during the reign of Edward III. were Mayor four times; two, three times; seven, twice.

In Whittington's later years began the burning of heretics and Lollards. It is certain that Lollardism had some hold in the City, but one knows not how great was the hold. A priest, William Sawtre, was the first who suffered. Two men of the lower class followed. There is nothing to show that Whittington ever swerved from orthodox opinions.

In 1416, the City was first lighted at night: all citizens were ordered to hang lanterns over their doors. How far the order was obeyed, especially in the poorer parts of the City, is not known.

In 1407 a plague carried off 30,000 persons in London alone. If this number is correctly stated it must have taken half the population.

Many improvements were effected in the City during these years: it is reasonable to suppose that Whittington had a hand in bringing these about. Fresh water brought in pipes: lights hung out after dark: the erection of a house—Bakewell Hall—for the storage and sale of broadcloth: the erection of a store for the reception of grain, in case of famine—this was the beginning of Leadenhall—the building of a new Guildhall: and an attempt to reform the prisons—an attempt which failed.

In his last year of office Whittington entertained the King, Henry V. and his Queen.

There was as yet no Mansion House: every Mayor made use of his own private house.

The magnificence of the entertainment amazed the King. Even the fires were fed with cedar and perfumed wood. When the Queen spoke of this costly gift the Mayor proposed to feed the fire with something more precious still. He then produced the King's bonds to the value of 60,000l. which he threw into the fire and burned. This great sum would be a very considerable gift even now. In that time it represented at least six times its present value. The Mayor therefore gave the King the sum of 360,000l.

This is, very shortly, an account of Whittington's public life.

He lived, I believe, on the north side of St. Michael's Paternoster Royal. I think so because his College was established there after his death, and as he had no children it is reasonable to suppose that his house would be assigned to the College. There is nothing to show what kind of house it was, but we may rest assured that the man who could entertain the King and Queen in such a manner was at least well housed. There is a little court on this spot which is, I believe, on the site of Whittington's house. They used to show a house in Hart Street as Whittington's, but there was no ground for the tradition except that it was a very old house.

Whittington married his master's daughter, Alice Fitzwarren. He had no children, and he died in 1423 when he was sixty-five years of age.

Such was the real Whittington. A gentleman by birth, a rich and successful man, happy in his private life, a great stickler for justice, as a magistrate severe upon those who cheat and adulterate, a loyal and patriotic man, and always filled with the desire to promote the interests of the City which had received him and made him rich.



33. GIFTS AND BEQUESTS.

The stream of charity which has so largely enriched and endowed the City of London began very early. You have seen how Rahere built and endowed Bartholomew's, and how Queen Maud founded the Lazar House of St. Giles. The fourteenth century furnishes many more instances. Thus William Elsinge founded in 1332 a hospital for a hundred poor blind men: in 1371 John Barnes gave a chest containing 1,000 marks to be lent by the City to young men beginning trade. You have heard how one Mayor went out to fight a pirate and slew him and made prizes of his vessels. Another when corn was very dear imported at his own expense a great quantity from Germany. Another gave money to relieve poor prisoners: another left money for the help of poor householders: another provided that on his commemoration day in the year 2,400 poor householders, of the City should have a dinner and every man two pence. This means in present money about L600 a year, or an estate worth L20,000: another left money to pay the tax called the Fifteenth, for three parishes: another brought water in a conduit from Highbury to Cripplegate.

But the greatest and wisest benefactor of his time was Whittington. In his own words: 'The fervent desire and busy intention of a prudent, wise, and devout man, should be to cast before and make secure the state and the end of this short life with deeds of mercy and pity, and especially to provide for those miserable persons whom the penury of poverty insulteth, and to whom the power of seeking the necessaries of life by act or bodily labour is interdicted.'

With these grave words, which should be a lesson to all men, rich or poor, Whittington begins the foundation of his College. If a man were in these days to found a College he would make it either a school for boys or a technical school—in any case a place which should be always working for the world. In those days, when it was universally believed that the saying of masses was able to lift souls out of punishment, a man founded a College which should pray for the world. Whittington's College was to consist of a Master and four Fellows—who were to be Masters of Arts—with clerks, choristers, and servants. They were every day to say mass for the souls of Richard and Alice Whittington in the church of St. Michael's Paternoster Royal—which church Whittington himself had rebuilt. Behind the church he founded and built an almshouse for thirteen poor men, who were to have 16d. each per week, about 7s. of our money, with clothing and rooms on the condition of praying daily for their founder and his wife. Part of the ground for the building was granted by the Mayor and Corporation.

The College continued until the Dissolution of the Religious Houses—that is, for one hundred and fifty years: the almshouse continues to this day: but it has been removed to Highgate: on its site the Mercers' Company has established a school.

Whittington, further, built a library for the Franciscan House; part of the building still remains at Christ's Hospital. It was 129 feet long and 31 feet broad. He also gave the friars 400l. to buy books. He restored and repaired the Hospital of St. Bartholomew's, to which he gave a library. He paved and glazed the new building of Guildhall: he gave large sums for the bridge—and the chapel on the bridge—at Rochester—as a merchant he was greatly interested in keeping this important bridge in order: he repaired Gloucester Cathedral—the cathedral church of his native diocese: he made 'bosses,' i.e. taps of water, to the great aqueduct: he rebuilt and enlarged Newgate Prison; and he founded a library at Guildhall.

Many of these things were done after his death by his executors.

Such were the gifts by which a City merchant of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries sought to advance the prosperity of the citizens. Fresh water in plenty by 'bosses' here and there: the light of learning by means of libraries: almshouses for the poor: mercy and charity for the prisoners: hospitals for the sick: help for the young: prayers for the dead. These things he understood.

We cannot expect any man to be greatly in advance of his age. Otherwise we should find a Whittington insisting upon cleanliness of streets: fresh air in the house: burial outside the City: the abolition of the long fasts which made people eat stinking fish and so gave them leprosy: the education of the craftsmen in something besides their trade: the establishment of a patrol by police: and the freedom of trade.

He did not found any school. That is a remarkable omission. One of his successors, Sir William Sevenoke, founded a school for lads of his native town Sevenoaks: another, Sir Robert Chichele, founded a school, an almshouse, and a college in his native town of Higham Ferrers. A friend of his own, Sir John Niel, proposed to establish four new grammar schools in the City. And yet Whittington left no money for a school. We may be quite sure that there was a reason for the omission. Perhaps he was afraid of the growing spirit of doubt and inquiry. Boys who learn grammar and rhetoric may grow into men who question and argue; and so, easily and naturally, get bound to the stake and are consumed with the pile of faggots. Everything was provided except a school for boys. Libraries for men; but not a school for boys. The City of London School was founded by Whittington's executor, John Carpenter. There must have been reasons in Whittington's mind for omitting any endowment of schools. What those reasons were I cannot even guess.



34. THE PALACES AND GREAT HOUSES.

When you think of a great city of the thirteenth or fourteenth century you must remember two things. First, that the streets were mostly very narrow—if you walk down Thames Street and note the streets running north and south you will be able to understand how narrow the City streets were. Second, that the great houses of the nobles and the rich merchants stood in these narrow streets, shut in on all sides though they often contained spacious courts and gardens. No attempt was made to group the houses or to arrange them with any view to picturesque effect.

It has been the fashion to speak of mediaeval London as if it were a city of hovels grouped together along dark and foul lanes. This was by no means the case. On the contrary, it was a city of splendid palaces and houses nearly all of which were destroyed by the Great Fire. You have seen how the City was covered with magnificent buildings of monasteries and churches. Do not believe that the nobles and rich merchants who endowed and built these places would be content to live in hovels.



The nobles indeed wanted barracks. A great Lord never moved anywhere without his following. The Earl of Warwick, called the King Maker, when he rode into London was followed by five hundred men, wearing his colours: all of these had to find accommodation in his town house. This was always built in the form of a court or quadrangle. The modern Somerset House, which is built on the foundations of the old house, shows us what a great man's house was like: and the College of Heralds in Queen Victoria Street, is another illustration, for this was Lord Derby's town house. Hampton Court and St. James's, are illustrations of a great house with more than one court. Any one who knows the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge will understand the arrangement of the great noble's town house in the reign of Richard II. On one side was the hall in which the banquets took place and all affairs of importance were discussed. The kitchen, butteries and cellars stood opposite the doors of the hall; at the back of the hall with a private entrance were the rooms of the owner and his family: the rest of the rooms on the quadrangle were given up to the use of his followers.

Baynard's Castle—the name yet survives—stood on the river bank not far from Blackfriars. It was a huge house with towers and turrets and a water gate with stairs. It contained two courts. It was at last, after standing for six hundred years, destroyed in the Great Fire, and was one of the most lamentable of the losses caused by that disaster. The house had been twice before burned down, and that which finally perished was built in 1428. Here Edward IV. assumed the Crown: here he placed his wife and children for safety before going forth to the Battle of Barnet. Here Buckingham offered the Crown to Richard. Here Henry VIII. lived. Here Charles II. was entertained.

Eastward, also on the river bank and near the old Swan Stairs, stood another great house called Cold Harbour. It belonged to Holland, Dukes of Exeter, to Richard III. and to Margaret, Countess of Richmond.

North of Thames Street near College Hill was the Erber, another great house which belonged successively to the Scropes and the Nevilles. Here lived the King-maker Earl of Warwick. His following was so numerous that every day six oxen were consumed for breakfast alone. His son-in-law, who had the house afterwards, was the Duke of Clarence—'false, fleeting, perjured Clarence.'

If you would know how a great merchant of the fifteenth century loved to be housed, go visit Crosby Hall. It is the only specimen left of the ancient wealth and splendour of a City merchant. But as one man lived so did many. We cannot believe that Crosby was singular in his building a palace for himself.

London with its narrow streets, its crowded courts, and the corners where the huts and hovels of wood and daub and thatch stood among their foul surroundings, a constant danger to the great houses of fire and plague, was a city of great houses and palaces, with which no other city in Europe could compare. Venice and Genoa had their Crosby Halls—their merchants' palaces; but London had in addition, the town houses of all the nobles of the land. In the City alone, without counting the Strand and Westminster, there were houses of the Earls of Arundel, Northumberland, Worcester, Berkeley, Oxford, Essex, Thanet, Suffolk, Richmond, Pembroke, Abergavenny, Warwick, Leicester, Westmoreland. Then there were the houses of the Bishops and the Abbots. All these before we come to the houses of the rich merchants. Let your vision of London under the Plantagenets be that of a city all spires and towers, great churches and stately convents, with noble houses as great and splendid as Crosby Hall scattered all about the City within the walls and lining the river bank from Ludgate to Westminster.



35. AMUSEMENTS.

We have heard so much of the religious Houses, Companies, Hospitals, quarrels and struggles that we may have forgotten a very important element in the life of the City—the amusements and pastimes of the citizens. Never was there a time when the City had more amusements than in these centuries. You have seen that it was always a rich town: its craftsmen were well paid: food was abundant: the people were well fed always, except in times of famine, which were rare. There were taverns with music and singing: there were pageants, wonderful processions representing all kinds of marvels, devised by the citizens to please the King or to please themselves: there were plays representing scenes from the Bible and from the Lives of the Saints: there were tournaments to look at. Then there were the Festivals of the year, Christmas Day, Twelfth Day, Easter, the Day of St. John the Baptist, Shrove Tuesday, the Day of the Company, May Day, at all of which feasting and merriment were the rule. The young men, in winter, played at football, hockey, quarterstaff, and single stick. They had cock fighting, boar fights, and the baiting of bulls and bears. On May Day they erected a May-pole in every parish: they chose a May Queen: and they had morris-dancing with the lads dressed up as Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, Little John, Tom the Piper, and other famous characters.



Then they shot with the bow and the cross-bow for prizes: they had wrestlings and they had foot races.

The two great festivals of the year were the Eve of St. John the Baptist and the Day of the Company.



On the former there took place the March of the Watch. Bonfires were lit in the streets, not for warmth but in order to purge and cleanse the air of the narrow streets: at the open doors stood tables with meat and drink, neighbour inviting neighbour to hospitality. Then the doors were wreathed with green branches, leaves, and flowers: lamps of glass were hanging over them with oil burning all the night: some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought with hundreds of hanging lights. And everywhere the cheerful sounds of music and singing and the dancing of the prentice lads and girls in the open street. Through the midst of this joyousness filed the Watch. Four thousand men took part in this procession which was certainly the finest thing that Mediaeval London had to show. To light the procession on its way the City found two hundred cressets or lanterns, the Companies found five hundred and the constables of London, two hundred and fifty in number, each carried one. The number of men who carried and attended to the cressets was two thousand. Then followed the Watch itself, consisting of two thousand captains, lieutenants, sergeants, drummers and fifers, standard bearers, trumpeters, demilances on great horses, bowmen, pikemen, with morris-dancers and minstrels—their armour all polished bright and some even gilded. No painter has ever painted this March: yet of all things, mediaeval, it was the most beautiful and the most mediaeval.

On the day of the Company, i.e. the Company's Saint's Day, all the members assembled in the Hall, every man in a new livery, in the morning. First they formed in procession and marched to church, headed by priests and singing boys, in surplices: after these walked the servants, clerks, assistants, the chaplain, the Mayor's sergeants, often the Lord Mayor himself. Lastly came the Court with the Master and Wardens followed by the Livery, i.e. the members.

After church they returned in like manner to the Hall, where a great banquet awaited them, music played in the gallery: the banners of the Company were hung over their heads: they burned scented wood: they sat in order, Master and Wardens and illustrious guests at the high table: and the freemen below, every man with his wife or some maiden if he were unmarried. After dinner the loving cup went round: the minstrels led in the players: and they had dramatic shows, songs, dances and 'mummeries' for the rest of the day.

Do not think of mediaeval London as a dull place—it was full of life and of brightness: the streets were narrow perhaps, but they were full of colour from the bright dresses of all—the liveries of the Companies—the liveries of the great nobles—the splendid costume of the knights and richer class. The craftsman worked from daylight till curfew in the winter: from five or six in the summer: he had a long day: but he had three holidays: he had his evenings: and his Sundays. A dull time was going to fall upon the Londoners, but not yet for two hundred years.



36. WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Hitherto our attention has been confined to the City within the walls. It is time to step outside the walls.

All this time, i.e. ever since peaceful occupation became possible, a town had been growing up on the west side of London. You have seen that formerly there spread a broad marsh over this part. Some rising ground kept what is now the Strand above the river, but Westminster, except for certain reed-grown islets, was nothing but a marsh covered over twice in the day by the tide. The river thus spreading out over marshes on either bank was quite shallow, and could in certain places be forded. The spot where any ford existed afterwards became a ferry. Lambeth Bridge spans the river at one such place, the memory of which is now maintained in the name of the Horseferry Road. The largest of these islets was once called Thorney, i.e. the Isle of Thorns. If you will take a map of Westminster, shift the bank of the river so as to make it flow along Abingdon Street, draw a stream running down College Street into the Thames; another running into the Thames across King Street, and draw a ditch or moat connecting the two streams along Delahaye Street and Princes Street you will have Thorney, about a quarter of a mile long, and not quite so much broad, standing just above high water level. This was the original Precinct of Westminster.