Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed

[Transcriber's Note: The following conventions are used in this text:
~bold text~, _italic text_, [=i]--i with a macron over it.]

[Illustration: THE NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: DESIGNED BY BARRY, OPENED
1852.]

THE

HISTORY OF LONDON

BY

WALTER BESANT

AUTHOR OF 'LONDON' 'CHILDREN OF GIBEON' ETC.

_SECOND EDITION_

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

1894

_All rights reserved_

CONTENTS.

LESSON                                                              PAGE

 1. The Foundation of London (I)                                       7

 2. The Foundation of London (II)                                     10

 3. Roman London (I)                                                  13

 4. "     "    (II)                                                   16

 5. After the Romans (I)                                              19

 6. "     "   "     (II)                                              23

 7. "     "   "     (III)                                             26

 8. The First Saxon Settlement                                        29

 9. The Second Saxon Settlement                                       32

10. The Anglo-Saxon Citizen                                           34

11. The Wall of London                                                38

12. Norman London                                                     42

13. FitzStephen's Account of the City (I)                             45

14. FitzStephen's Account of the City (II)                            50

15. London Bridge (I)                                                 54

16. "       "    (II)                                                 57

17. The Tower of London (I)                                           60

18. "    "        "    (II)                                           63

19. The Pilgrims                                                      67

20. St. Bartholomew's Hospital                                        70

21. The Terror of Leprosy                                             74

22. The Terror of Famine                                              78

23. St. Paul's Cathedral (I)                                          82

24. "    "         "    (II)                                          86

25. Paul's Churchyard                                                 91

26. The Religious Houses                                              95

27. Monks, Friars, and Nuns                                          100

28. The London Churches                                              103

29. The Streets                                                      106

30. Whittington (I)                                                  110

31. "      (II)                                                      115

32. "      (III)                                                     118

33. Gifts and Bequests                                               121

34. The Palaces and Great Houses                                     124

35. Amusements                                                       127

36. Westminster Abbey                                                131

37. The Court at Westminster                                         134

38. Justice and Punishments                                        137

39. The Political Power of London                                    140

40. Elizabethan London (I)                                           144

41. "        "    (II)                                               147

42. "        "    (III)                                              151

43. Trade (I)                                                        155

44. "    (II)                                                        158

45. "    (III)                                                       164

46. Plays and Pageants (I)                                           168

47. "    "     "     (II)                                            170

48. "    "     "     (III)                                           173

49. "    "     "     (IV)                                            177

50. The Terror of the Plague (I)                                     180

51. The Terror of the Plague (II)                                    183

52. The Terror of Fire (I)                                           187

53. "   "        "   (II)                                            192

54. Rogues and Vagabonds                                             197

55. Under George the Second (I)                                      201

56. Under George the Second (II)                                     206

57. Under George the Second (III)                                    210

58. Under George the Second (IV)                                     214

59. Under George the Second (V)                                      218

60. The Government of the City (I)                                   222

61. The Government of the City (II)                                  226

62. The Government of the City (III)                                 228

63. London                                                           230

Notes                                                                235

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

                                                                    PAGE

 1. The New Houses of Parliament: designed by Barry, opened 1852  _Frontispiece_

 2. Early British Pottery                                              9

 3. Roman London                                                      15

 4. Remains of a Viking Ship, from a Cairn at Gokstad                 22

 5. Martyrdom of St. Edmund by the Danes                              31

 6. Saxon Horsemen                                                    33

 7. Saxon Church at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts                           36

 8. City Gates                                                        39

 9. Remains of the Wall                                               40

10. Part of the Roman Wall at Leicester                               41

11. Tower in the Earlier Style. Church at Earl's Barton               44

12. A Norman Ship                                                     46

13. Building a Church in the later Style                              47

14. Lay Costumes in the Twelfth Century                               50

15. Costume of Shepherds in the Twelfth Century                       51

16. Ecclesiastical Costume in the Twelfth Century                     52

17. Royal Arms of England from Richard I. to Edward III. 54

18. Old London Bridge                                                 57

19. The Tower of London                                           61, 64

20. A Bed in the Reign of Henry III. 67

21. Interior of the Hall at Penshurst, Kent                           71

22. The Upper Chamber or Solar at Sutton Courtenay Manor-house        73

23. The Lepers Begging                                                77

24. London before the Spire of St. Paul's was burned; showing
    the Bridge, Tower, Shipping, &c. 83

25. Old St. Paul's, from the East                                     85

26. Old St. Paul's on Fire                                            87

27. West Front of St. Paul's Cathedral
    Church. (Built by Sir Christopher Wren)                           89

28. Paul's Cross                                                      92

29. Bermondsey Abbey                                                  96

30. Ruins of Gateway of Bermondsey Abbey                              97

31. Christ's Hospital                                                 99

32. Chepe in the Fifteenth Century                                   108

33. Large Ship and Boat of the Fifteenth Century                     111

34. A Sea-Fight                                                      113

35. Durham, Salisbury, and Worcester Houses                          125

36. Bear-baiting                                                     128

37. Shooting at the Butts with the Long-bow                          129

38. Tomb of Edward III. in Westminster Abbey                         132

39. The Embarkation of Henry VIII. from Dover, 1520                  141

40. Coaches in the Reign of Elizabeth                                148

41. The City from Southwark                                          150

42. South-east Part of London in the Fifteenth Century,
    showing the Tower and Wall                                       153

43. King Edward VI. 159

44. Sir Thomas Gresham                                               161

45. First Royal Exchange                                             162

46. Shipping in the Thames, _circa_ 1660                        166

47. Sir Francis Drake, in his Forty-third Year                       167

48. The Globe Theatre                                                179

49. Civil Costume about 1620                                         181

50. Costume of a Lawyer                                              181

    Ordinary Civil Costume; _temp._ Charles I.:

51. A Countryman                                                     185

52. A Countrywoman                                                   185

53. A Citizen                                                        187

54. A Citizen's Wife                                                 187

55. A Gentleman                                                      189

56. A Gentlewoman                                                    189

57. Lud-gate on Fire                                                 190

58. Paul Pindar's House                                              191

59. London, as Rebuilt after the Fire                                193

60. Coach of the latter half of the Seventeenth Century              195

61. Waggon of the second half of the Seventeenth Century             195

62. Ordinary Dress of Gentlemen in 1675                              197

63. Dress of Ladies of Quality                                       199

64. Ordinary Attire of Women of the Lower Classes                    199

65. Group showing Costumes and Sedan Chair, about 1720               202

66. Temple Bar, London                                               203

67. Fleet Street and Temple Bar                                      205

68. A Coach of the Middle of the Seventeenth Century                 207

69. View of School connected with Bunyan's Meeting House             209

70. Grenadier in the time of the Peninsular War                      211

71. Uniform of Sailors, about 1790                                   213

72. Costumes of Gentlefolk, about 1784                               215

73. Vessels unloading at the Customs House, at the beginning
    of the Eighteenth Century                                        217

74. The Old Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, 1803         221

LONDON

1. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON.

PART I.

'In the year 1108 B.C., Brutus, a descendant of Æneas, who was the son
of Venus, came to England with his companions, after the taking of Troy,
and founded the City of Troynovant, which is now called London. After a
thousand years, during which the City grew and flourished exceedingly,
one Lud became its king. He built walls and towers, and, among other
things, the famous gate whose name still survives in the street called
Ludgate. King Lud was succeeded by his brother Cassivelaunus, in whose
time happened the invasion of the Romans under Julius Cæsar. Troynovant,
or London, then became a Roman city. It was newly fortified by Helena,
mother of Constantine the Great.'

This is the legend invented or copied by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and
continued to be copied, and perhaps believed, almost to the present day.
Having paid this tribute to old tradition, let us relate the true early
history of the City, as it can be recovered from such documents as
remain, from discoveries made in excavation, from fragments of
architecture, and from the lie of the ground. The testimony derived
from the lie of the ground is more important than any other, for several
reasons. First, an historical document may be false, or inexact; for
instance, the invention of a Brutus, son of Æneas, is false and absurd
on the face of it. Or a document may be wrongly interpreted. Thus, a
fragment of architecture may through ignorance be ascribed to the Roman,
when it belongs to the Norman, period--one needs to be a profound
student of architecture before an opinion of value can be pronounced
upon the age of any monument: or it may be taken to mean something quite
apart from the truth, as if a bastion of the old Roman fort, such as has
been discovered on Cornhill, should be taken for part of the Roman wall.
But the lie of the ground cannot deceive, and, in competent hands,
cannot well be misunderstood. If we know the course of streams, the
height and position of hills, the run of valleys, the site of marshes,
the former extent of forests, the safety of harbours, the existence of
fords, we have in our hands a guide-book to history. We can then
understand why towns were built in certain positions, why trade sprang
up, why invading armies landed at certain places, what course was taken
by armies, and why battles have been fought on certain spots. For these
things are not the result of chance, they are necessitated by the
geographical position of the place, and by the lie of the ground. Why,
for instance, is Dover one of the oldest towns in the country? Because
it is the nearest landing ground for the continent, and because its hill
forms a natural fortress for protecting that landing ground. Why was
there a Roman station at Portsmouth? On account of the great and
landlocked harbour. Why is Durham an ancient city? Because the steep
hill made it almost impregnable. Why is Chester so called? Because it
was from very ancient times a fort, or stationary camp (L. _castra_),
against the wild Welsh.

[Illustration: EARLY BRITISH POTTERY.]

Let us consider this question as regards London. Look at the map called
'Roman London' (p. 15). You will there see flowing into the river Thames
two little streams, one called Walbrook, and the other called the Fleet
River. You will see a steep slope, or cliff, indicated along the river
side. Anciently, before any buildings stood along the bank, this cliff,
about 30 feet high, rose over an immense marsh which covered all the
ground on the south, the east, and the west. The cliff receded from the
river on the east and on the west at this point: on either side of the
Walbrook it rose out of the marsh at the very edge of the river at high
tide. There was thus a double hill, one on the east with the Walbrook on
one side of it, the Thames on a second side, and a marsh on a third
side, and the Fleet River on the west. It was thus bounded on east,
south, and west, by streams. On the north was a wild moor (hence the
name Moorfields) and beyond the moor stretched away northwards a vast
forest, afterwards called the Middlesex forest. This forest covered,
indeed, the greater part of the island, save where marshes and stagnant
lakes lay extended, the haunt of countless wild birds. You may see
portions and fragments of this forest even now; some of it lies in Ken
Wood, Hampstead; some in the last bit left of Hainault Forest; some at
Epping.

The river Thames ran through this marsh. It was then much broader than
at present, because there were no banks or quays to keep it within
limits: at high tide it overflowed the whole of the marsh and lay in an
immense lake, bounded on the north by this low cliff of clay, and on the
south by the rising ground of what we now call the Surrey Hills, which
begin between Kennington and Clapham, as is shown by the name of Clapham
Rise. In this marsh were a few low islets, always above water save at
very high tides. The memory of these islands is preserved in the names
ending with _ea_ or _ey_, as Chelsea, Battersea, Bermondsey. And
Westminster Abbey was built upon the Isle of Thorns or Thorney. The
marsh, south of the river, remained a marsh, undrained and neglected for
many centuries. Almost within the memory of living men Southwark
contained stagnant ponds, while Bermondsey is still flooded when the
tide is higher than is customary.

2. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON.

PART II.

On these low hillocks marked on the map London was first founded. The
site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it
overlooked the river, which here was at its narrowest, it was protected
by two other streams and by the steepness of the cliff, and it was over
the little port formed by the fall of one stream into the river. Here,
on the western hill, the Britons formed their first settlement; there
were as yet no ships on the silent river where they fished; there was no
ferry, no bridge, no communication with the outer world; the woods
provided the first Londoners with game and skins; the river gave them
fish; they lived in round huts formed of clay and branches with thatched
roofs. If you desire to understand how the Britons fortified themselves,
you may see an excellent example not very far from London. It is the
place called St. George's Hill, near Weybridge. They wanted a hill--the
steeper the side the better: they made it steeper by entrenching it;
they sometimes surrounded it with a high earthwork and sometimes with a
stockade: the great thing being to put the assailing force under the
disadvantage of having to climb. The three river sides of the London
fort presented a perpendicular cliff surmounted by a stockade, the other
side, on which lay the forest, probably had an earthwork also surmounted
by a stockade. There were no buildings and there was no trade; the
people belonged to a tribe and had to go out and fight when war was
carried on with another tribe.

The fort was called Llyn-din--the Lake Fort. When the Romans came they
could not pronounce the word Llyn--Thlin in the British way--and called
it Lon--hence their word Londinium. Presently adventurous merchants from
Gaul pushed across to Dover, and sailed along the coast of Kent past
Sandwich and through the open channel which then separated the island of
Thanet from the main land, into the broad Thames, and, sailing up with
the tide, dropped anchor off the fishing villages which lay along the
river and began to trade. What did they offer? What Captain Cook offered
the Polynesians: weapons, clothes, adornments. What did they take away?
Skins and slaves at first; skins and slaves, and tin and iron, after the
country became better known and its resources were understood. The taste
for trading once acquired rapidly grows; it is a delightful thing to
exchange what you do not want for what you do want, and it is so very
easy to extend one's wants. So that when the Romans first saw London it
was already a flourishing town with a great concourse of merchants.

How long a period elapsed between the foundation of London and the
arrival of the Romans? How long between the foundation and the
beginnings of trade? It is quite impossible even to guess. When Cæsar
landed Gauls and Belgians were already here before him. As for the
Britons themselves they were Celts, as were the Gauls and the Belgians,
but of what is called the Brythonic branch, represented in speech by the
Welsh, Breton and Cornish languages (the last is now extinct). There
were also lingering among them the surviving families of an earlier and
a conquered race, perhaps Basques or Finns. When the country was
conquered by the Celts we do not know. Nor is there any record at all of
the people they found here unless the caves, full of the bones which
they gnawed and cut in two for the marrow, were the homes of these
earlier occupants.

When the Romans came they found the town prosperous. That is all we
know. What the town was like we do not know. It is, however, probable
that the requirements of trade had already necessitated some form of
embankment and some kind of quay; also, if trade were of long standing,
some improvement in the huts, the manner of living, the wants, and the
dress of the people would certainly have been introduced.

Such was the beginning of London. Let us repeat.

It was a small fortress defended on three sides by earthworks, by
stockades, by a cliff or steeply sloping bank, and by streams; on the
fourth side by an earthwork, stockade, and trench. The ground was
slightly irregular, rising from 30 to 60 feet. An open moor full of
quagmires and ponds also protected it on the north. On the east on the
other side of the stream rose another low hill. The extent of this
British fort of Llyn-din may be easily estimated. The distance from
Walbrook to the Fleet is very nearly 900 yards; supposing the fort was
500 yards in depth from south to north we have an area of 450,000 square
yards, i.e. about 100 acres was occupied by the first London, the
Fortress on the Lake. What this town was like in its later days when the
Romans found it; what buildings stood upon it; how the people lived, we
know very little indeed. They went out to fight, we know so much; and if
you visit Hampstead Heath you may look at a barrow on the top of a hill
which probably contains the bones of those citizens of London who fell
in the victory which they achieved over the citizens of Verulam when
they fought it out in the valley below that hill.

3. ROMAN LONDON.

PART I.

The Romans, when they resolved to settle in England, established
themselves on the opposite hillock, the eastern bank of the Walbrook.
The situation was not so strong as that of the British town, because it
was protected by cliff and river on two sides only instead of three. But
the Romans depended on their walls and their arms rather than the
position of their town. As was their habit they erected here a strong
fortress or a stationary camp, such as others which remain in the
country. Perhaps the Roman building which most resembles this fort is
the walled enclosure called Porchester, which stands at the head of
Portsmouth Harbour. This is rectangular in shape and is contained by a
high wall built of rubble stone and narrow bricks, with round, hollow
bastions at intervals. One may also see such a stationary camp at
Richborough, near Sandwich; and at Pevensey, in Sussex; and at
Silchester, near Reading, but the two latter are not rectangular. One
end of this fort was on the top of the Walbrook bank and the other, if
you look in your map, on the site of Mincing Lane. This gives a length
of about 700 yards by a breadth of 350, which means an enclosure of
about 50 acres. This is a large area: it was at once the barrack, the
arsenal, and the treasury of the station; it contained the residences of
the officers, the offices of the station, the law court and tribunals,
and the prisons; it was the official residence. Outside the fort on the
north was the burial place. If we desire to know the character of the
buildings we may assure ourselves that they were not mean or ignoble by
visiting the Roman town of Silchester. Here we find that the great Hall
of Justice was a hall more spacious than Westminster Hall, though
doubtless not so lofty or so fine. Attached to this hall were other
smaller rooms for the administration of justice; on one side was an open
court with a cloister or corridor running all round it and shops at the
back for the sale of everything. This was the centre of the city: here
the courts were held; this was the Exchange; here were the baths; this
was the place where the people resorted in the morning and lounged about
to hear the news; here the jugglers and the minstrels and the acrobats
came to perform; it was the very centre of the life of the city--as was
Silchester so was London.

[Illustration: _Walker & Boutallse._

ROMAN LONDON.]

Outside the Citadel the rude British town--if it was still a rude
town--disappeared rapidly. The security of the place, strongly
garrisoned, the extension of Roman manners, the introduction of Roman
customs, dress, and luxuries gave a great impetus to the development of
the City. The little ports of the rivers Walbrook and Fleet no longer
sufficed for the shipping which now came up the river; if there were as
yet no quays or embankments they were begun to be erected; behind them
rose warehouses and wharves. The cliff began to be cut away; a steep
slope took its place; its very existence was forgotten. The same thing
has happened at Brighton, where, almost within the memory of living man,
a low cliff ran along the beach. This embankment extended east and
west--as far as the Fleet River, which is now Blackfriars, on the west,
and what is now Tower Hill on the east. Then, the trade still
increasing, the belt of ground behind the embankment became filled with
a dense population of riverside people--boatmen, sailors, boat-builders,
store-keepers, bargemen, stevedores, porters--all the people who belong
to a busy mercantile port. As for the better sort, they lived round the
Citadel, protected by its presence, in villas, remains of which have
been found in many places.

The two things which most marked the Roman occupation were London Wall
and Bridge. Of the latter we will speak in another place. The wall was
erected at a time between A.D. 350 and A.D. 369--very near the end of
the Roman occupation. This wall remained the City wall for more than a
thousand years; it was rebuilt, repaired, restored; the scanty remains
of it--a few fragments here and there--contain very little of the
original wall; but the course of the wall was never altered, and we know
exactly how it ran. There was first a strong river wall along the
northern bank. There were three water gates and the Bridge gate; there
were two land gates at Newgate and Bishopsgate. The wall was 3 miles and
205 yards long; the area enclosed was 380 acres. This shows that the
population must have been already very large, for the Romans were not
accustomed to erect walls longer than they could defend.

4. ROMAN LONDON.

PART II.

We must think of Roman London as of a small stronghold on a low hill
rising out of the river. It is a strongly-walled place, within which is
a garrison of soldiers; outside its walls stretch gardens and villas,
many of them rich and beautiful, filled with costly things. Below the
fort is a long river wall or quay covered with warehouses, bales of
goods, and a busy multitude of men at work. Some are slaves--perhaps
all. Would you like to know what a Roman villa was like? It was in plan
a small, square court, surrounded on three sides by a cloister or
corridor with pillars, and behind the cloister the rooms of the house;
the middle part of the court was a garden, and in front was another and
a larger garden. The house was of one storey, the number and size of the
rooms varying according to the size of the house. On one side were the
winter divisions, on the other were the summer rooms. The former part
was kept warm by means of a furnace constructed below the house, which
supplied hot-air pipes running up all the walls. At the back of the
house were the kitchen, stables, and sleeping quarters of the servants.
Tesselated pavements, statues, pictures, carvings, hangings, pillows,
and fine glass adorned the house. There was not in London the enormous
wealth which enabled some of the Romans to live in palaces, but there
was comparative wealth--the wealth which enables a man to procure for
himself in reason all the things that he desires.

The City as it grew in prosperity was honoured by receiving the name of
Augusta. It remained in Roman hands for nearly four hundred years. The
Citadel, which marks the first occupation by the Romans, was probably
built about A.D. 43. The Romans went away in A.D. 410. During these four
centuries the people became entirely Romanised. Add to this that they
became Christians. Augusta was a Christian city; the churches which
stand--or stood, because three at least have been removed--along Thames
Street, probably occupied the sites of older Roman churches. In this
part of the City the people were thickest; in this quarter, therefore,
stood the greater number of churches: the fact that they were mostly
dedicated to the apostles instead of to later Saxon saints seems to show
that they stood on the sites of Roman churches. It has been asked why
there has never been found any heathen temple in London; the answer is
that London under the Romans very early became Christian; if there had
been a temple of Diana or Apollo it would have been destroyed or
converted into a church. Such remains of Augusta as have been found are
inconsiderable: they are nearly all in the museum of the Guildhall,
where they should be visited and examined.

The history of Roman London is meagre. Seventeen years after the
building of the Citadel, on the rebellion of Boadicea, the Roman general
Suetonius abandoned the place, as unable to defend it. All those who
remained were massacred by the insurgents. After this, so far as we
know, for history is silent, there was peace in London for 200 years.
Then one Carausius, an officer in command of the fleet stationed in the
Channel for the suppression of piracies, assumed the title of emperor.
He continued undisturbed for some years, his soldiers remaining faithful
to him on account of his wealth: he established a Mint at London and
struck a large amount of money there. He was murdered by one of his
officers, Allectus, who called himself emperor in turn and continued to
rule in Britain for three years. Then the end came for him as well. The
Roman general landing with a large force marched upon London where
Allectus lay. A battle fought in the south of London resulted in the
overthrow and death of the usurper. His soldiers taking advantage of the
confusion began to plunder and murder in the town, but were stopped and
killed by the victors.

Constantine, who became emperor in 306, was then in Britain, but his
name is not connected with London except by coins bearing his name.

Tradition connects the name of Helena, Constantine's mother, with
London, but there is nothing to prove that she was ever in the island at
all.

Late in the fourth century troubles began to fall thick upon the
country. The Picts and the Scots overran the northern parts and
penetrated to the very walls of London. The general Theodosius, whose
son became the emperor of that name, drove them back. About this time
the wall of London was built; not the wall of the Roman fort, but that
of the whole City. From the year 369, when Theodosius the general landed
in Britain, to the year 609 we see nothing of London except one brief
glimpse of fugitives flying for their lives across London Bridge. Of
this interval we shall speak in the next chapter. Meanwhile it is
sufficient to say that the decay of the Roman power made it necessary to
withdraw the legions from the outlying and distant portions of the
Empire. Britain had to be abandoned. It was as if England were to give
up Hong Kong and Singapore and the West Indies because she could no
longer spare the ships and regiments to defend them. The nation which
abandons her possessions is not far from downfall. Remember, when you
listen to those who advocate abandonment of our colonies, the example of
Rome.

5. AFTER THE ROMANS.

PART I.

The Romans left London. That was early in the fifth century; probably in
the year 410.

Two hundred years later we find the East Saxons in London.

What happened during this long interval of seven generations? Not a word
reaches us of London for two hundred years except once when, after a
defeat of the British by the Saxons at Crayford in the year 457, we read
that the fugitives crossed over London Bridge to take refuge within the
walls of the City. What happened during this two hundred years?[1]

We know what happened with other cities. Anderida, now called Pevensey,
was taken by the Saxons, and all its inhabitants, man, woman and child,
were slaughtered, so that it became a waste until the Normans built a
castle within the old walls. Canterbury, Silchester, Porchester,
Colchester--all were taken, their people massacred, the walls left
standing, the streets left desolate. For the English--the Saxons--loved
not city walls. Therefore, we might reasonably conclude that the same
thing happened to London. But if it be worthy of the chronicler to note
the massacre of Anderida, a small seaport, why should he omit the far
more important capture of Augusta?

[1] On this subject, see the author's book _London_ (Chatto & Windus).

Let us hear what history has to tell. Times full of trouble fell upon
the country. Long before the Romans went away the Picts and Scots were
pouring their wild hordes over the north and west, sometimes getting as
far south as the Middlesex Forest, murdering and destroying. As early as
the year 368, forty years before they left the country, the Romans sent
an expedition north to drive back these savages. Already the Saxons, the
Jutes and the Angles were sending piratical expeditions to harry the
coast and even to make settlements. The arm of the Roman was growing
weak, it could not stretch out so far: the fleets of the Romans, under
the officer called the 'Count of the Saxon Shore'--whose duty was to
guard the eastern and southern coasts--were destroyed and their
commander slain. So that, with foes on the eastern seaboard, foes in the
Channel, foes in the river, foes in the north and west, it is certain
that the trade of Augusta was declining long before the City was left to
defend itself.

What sort of defence were the people likely to offer? For nearly four
hundred years they had lived at peace, free to grow rich and luxurious,
with mercenaries to fight for them. Between the taking of the City by
Boadicea and the departure of the Romans, a space of three hundred and
fifty years, the peace of the City was only disturbed by the lawlessness
of Allectus's mercenaries. Their attempt to sack the City was put down,
it is significant to note, not by the citizens but by the Roman soldiers
who entered the City in time. The citizens were mostly merchants: they
were Christians in name and in form of worship, they were superstitious,
they were luxurious, they were unwarlike. Many of them were not Britons
at all, but foreigners settled in the City for trade. Moreover, for it
is not true that the whole British people had grown unfit for war, a
revolt of the Roman legions in the year 407 drew a large number of the
young men into their ranks, and when Constantine the usurper took them
over into Gaul for the four years' fighting which followed, the country
was drained of its best fighting material. The City, then, contained a
large number of wealthy merchants, native and foreign; it also contained
a great many slaves who were occupied in the conduct of the trade, and
few, since the young men went away with Constantine, who could be relied
upon to fight.

One more point may be made out from history. Since London was a town
which then, as now, lived entirely by its trade and was the centre of
the export and import trade of the whole country, the merchants, as we
have seen, must have suffered most severely long before the Romans went
away. We are, therefore, in the year 410, facing a situation full of
menace. The Picts and Scots are overrunning the whole of the north, the
Saxons are harrying the east and the south-east, trade is dying, there
is little demand for imports, there are few exports, it is useless for
ships to wait cargoes which never arrive, it is useless for ships to
bring cargoes for which there is no demand.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF A VIKING SHIP, FROM A CAIRN AT GOKSTAD.

(_Now in the University at Christiania._)]

A declining city, a dying trade, enemies in all directions, an unwarlike
population. When the curtain falls upon the scene in the year 410 that
is what we see.

6. AFTER THE ROMANS.

PART II.

Consider, again, the position of London. It stood, as you have seen,
originally on two low hills overlooking the river. A strong wall built
all along the bank from Blackfriars (now so called) to the present site
of the Tower kept the river from swamping the houses and wharves which
sprang up behind this wall. The walls of the City later on, but only
about fifty years before the Romans went away, enclosed a large area
covered over with streets, narrow near the river and broad farther
north, and with residences, warehouses, villas, and workshops. There was
probably a population of 70,000 or even more. On the west, in the
direction of Westminster, the City wall overlooked an immense marsh: on
the south across the river there was a still broader and longer marsh:
on the east there was another great marsh with the sea overflowing the
sedgy meadows at every high tide: on the north there was a wild moor and
beyond the moor there was an immense forest. Four roads not counting the
river-way kept the City in communication with the rest of the island.
The most important of these roads was that afterwards called Watling
Street, which passed out at Newgate and led across the heart of the
country to Chester and Wales, to York and the north. The second,
afterwards called Ermyn Street, left the City at Bishopsgate and ran
through Lincoln to York, a third road called the Vicinal Way ran into
the eastern counties, and by way of London Bridge Watling Street was
connected with Dover.

London, therefore, standing in its marshes had no means of providing for
itself. All the food for its great population was imported. It was
brought on pack asses along these roads. It came from the farms and
gardens of the country inland by means of these high roads, strong,
broad, and splendid roads, as good as any we have since succeeded in
making. In peaceful times these roads were crowded all the way from
Chester and Lincoln and Dover with long trains of animals laden with
provisions for the people of London, as well as with goods for export
from the Port of London. They were met by long trains of animals laden
with imports being carried to their destination. The Thames in the same
way was filled with barges laden with provisions as well as with goods
going down the river to the people and the Port of London. Below Bridge
the river was filled with merchant ships bringing cargoes of wine and
spices and costly things to be exchanged for skins and slaves and
metals. Let us remember that the daily victualling of 70,000 people
means an immense service. We are so accustomed to find everything ready
to hand in cities containing millions as well as in villages of
hundreds, that we forget the magnitude of this service. No mind can
conceive the magnitude of the food supply of modern London, Paris, New
York, or even such towns as Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol. Yet try to
understand what it means to feed every day, without interruption, only a
small town of 70,000 people. So much bread for every day, so much meat,
so much fish, so much wine, beer, mead, or cider--because at no time did
people drink water if they could get anything else--so much milk, honey,
butter, cheese, eggs, poultry, geese and ducks, so much beans, pease,
salad, fruit. All this had to be brought in regularly--daily. There was
salted meat for winter; there was dried fish when fresh could not be
procured; there were granaries of wheat to provide for emergencies. All
the rest had to be provided day by day.

First, the East Saxons, settling in Essex and spreading over the whole
of that county, stopped the supplies and the trade over all the eastern
counties; then the Jutes, landing on the Isle of Thanet, stopped the
ships that went up and down the river; they also spread over the south
country and stopped the supplies that formerly came over London Bridge.
Then the Picts and Scots, followed by more Saxons, harassed the north
and middle of the island, and no more supplies came down Watling Street.
Lastly, the enemy, pressing northward from the south shore, gained the
middle reaches of the Thames, and no more supplies came down the river.

London was thus deprived of food as well as of trade.

This slowly, not suddenly, came to pass. First, one source of supply was
cut off, then another. First, trade declined in one quarter, then it
ceased in that quarter altogether. Next, another quarter was attacked.
The foreign merchants, since there was no trade left, went on board
their own ships and disappeared. Whether they succeeded in passing
through the pirate craft that crowded the mouth of the river, one knows
not. The bones of many lie at the bottom of the sea off the Nore. They
vanished from hapless Augusta; they came back no more.

Who were left? The native merchants. Despair was in their hearts;
starvation threatened them, even amid the dainty appointments of their
luxurious villas; what is the use of marble baths and silken hangings,
tesselated pavements, and pictures, and books, and statues, if there is
no food to be had, though one bid for it all the pictures in the house?
With the merchants, there were the priests, the physicians, the lawyers,
the actors and mimics, the artists, the teachers, all who minister to
religion, luxury, and culture. There were next the great mass of the
people, the clerks and scribes, the craftsmen, the salesmen, the
lightermen, stevedores, boatmen, marine store keepers, makers of ships'
gear, porters--slaves for the most part--all from highest to lowest,
plunged into helplessness. Whither could they fly for refuge? Upon whom
could they call for help?

7. AFTER THE ROMANS.

PART III.

Abroad, the Roman Empire was breaking up. The whole of Europe was
covered with war. Revolts of conquered tribes, rebellions of successful
generals, invasions of savages, the murders of usurpers, the sacking of
cities. Rome itself was sacked by Alaric; the conquest of one country
after another made of this period the darkest in the history of the
world. From over the seas no help, the enemy blocking the mouth of the
river, all the roads closed and all the farms destroyed.

There came a day at length when it was at last apparent that no more
supplies would reach the City. Then the people began to leave the place:
better to fight their way across the country to the west where the
Britons still held their own, than to stay and starve. The men took
their arms--they carried little treasure with them, because treasure
would be of no use to them on their way--their wives and children,
ladies as delicate and as helpless as any of our own time--children as
unfit as our own to face the miseries of cold and hunger and
nakedness--and they went out by the gate of Watling Street, not
altogether, not the whole population, but in small companies, for
greater safety. They left the City by the gate; they did not journey
along the road, but for safety turned aside into the great forest, and
so marching across moors and marshes, past burned homesteads, and
ruined villages, and farm buildings thrown down, those of them who did
not perish by the way under the enemies' sword or by malarious fever, or
by starvation, reached the Severn and the border of the mountains where
the Saxon could not penetrate.

There was left behind a remnant--after every massacre or exodus there is
always left a remnant. The people who stayed in the City were only a few
and those of the baser sort, protected by their wretchedness and
poverty. No one would kill those who offer no defence and have no
treasures; and their condition under any new masters would be no worse.
They shut the gates and barred them: they closed and barred the Bridge:
they took out of the houses anything that they wanted--the soft warm
mantles, the woollen garments, the coverlets, the pillows and hangings,
but they abode in their hovels near the river banks; as for the works of
art, the pictures, statues, and tesselated pavements, these they left
where they found them or for wantonness destroyed them. They fished in
the river for their food: they hunted over the marshes where are now
Westminster, Battersea, and Lambeth: the years passed by and no one
disturbed them: they still crouched in their huts while the thin veneer
of civilisation was gradually lost with whatever arts they had learned
and all their religion except the terror of the Unknown.

Meanwhile the roofs of the villas and churches fell in, the walls
decayed, the gardens were overgrown. Augusta--the proud and stately
Augusta--was reduced to a wall enclosing a heap of ruins with a few
savages huddled together in hovels by the riverside.

For the East Saxon had overrun Essex, the Jute covered Kent and Surrey,
the South Saxon held Sussex, the West Saxon held Wessex. All around--on
every side--London was surrounded by the Conqueror of the Land. Why,
then, did they not take London? Because London was deserted; there was
nothing to take: London was silent. No ships going up or down the river
reminded the Saxon of the City. It lay amid its marshes and its moors,
the old roads choked and overgrown; it was forgotten; it was what the
Saxons had already made of Canterbury and Anderida, a 'Waste Chester,'
that is, a desolated stronghold.

Augusta was forgotten.

This is the story that we learn from the actual site of London--its
position among marshes, the conditions under which alone the people
could be maintained.

How long did this oblivion continue? No one knows when it began or when
it ended. As I read the story of the past, I find a day towards the
close of the sixth century when there appeared within sight of the
deserted walls a company of East Saxons. They were hunting: they were
armed with spears: they followed the chase through the great forest
afterwards called the Middlesex Forest, Epping Forest, Hainault Forest,
and across the marshes of the river Lea, full of sedge and reed and
treacherous quagmires. And they saw before them the gray walls of a
great city of which they had never heard.

They advanced cautiously: they found themselves on a firm road, the
Vicinal Way, covered with grass: they expected the sight of an enemy on
the wall: none appeared. The gates were closed, the timbers were rotten
and fell down at a touch: the men broke through and found themselves
among the streets of a city all in ruins. They ran about--shouting--no
one appeared: the City was deserted.

They went away and told what they had found.

But Augusta had perished. When the City appears again it is under its
more ancient name--it is again London.

8. THE FIRST SAXON SETTLEMENT.

A hundred and fifty years passed away between the landing of the East
Saxons and their recorded occupation of the City. This long period made
a great difference in the fierce savage who followed the standard of the
White Horse and landed on the coast of Essex. He became more peaceful:
he settled down contentedly to periods of tranquillity. Certain arts he
acquired, and he learned to live in towns: as yet he was not a
Christian. This means that the influence of Rome with its religion, its
learning and its arts had not yet touched him.

But he had begun to live in towns; and he lived in London.

Perhaps the first of the new settlers were the foreign merchants
returning, as soon as more settled times allowed, with their cargoes.
London has always been a place of trade. But for trade no one would have
settled in it. Therefore, either the men of Essex invited the foreign
merchants to return; or the foreign merchants returned and invited the
men of Essex to come into the City and to bring with them what they had
to exchange.

In the year 597 Augustine, prior of a Roman monastery, was sent by Pope
Gregory the Great with forty monks, to convert the English. Ethelbert,
King of Kent, and most powerful of the English kinglets, was married to
Bertha, a Christian princess. She had brought with her a chaplain and it
was probably at her invitation or through her influence, that the monks
were sent. They landed at Thanet. They obtained permission to meet the
King in the open air. They appeared wearing their robes, carrying a
crucifix, and chanting Psalms. It is probable that the conversion of the
King had been arranged beforehand; for without any difficulty or delay
the King and all his Court, and, following the King's example, all the
people were baptised.

Augustine returned to Rome where he was consecrated Archbishop of the
English nation. A church was built at Canterbury, and the work of
preaching the Faith went on vigorously. The East Saxons made no more
hesitation at being baptised than the men of Kent. Ethelbert, indeed,
could command obedience; he was Over Lord of all the nations south of
the Humber. He it was, according to Bede, who built the first church of
St. Paul in London, a fact which proves his authority and influence in
London, and his sincere desire that the East Saxons should become
Christians.

They did, in a way. But when King Siebehrt died, they relapsed and drove
their Bishop into exile.

Then--Bede says that they were punished for this sin--the East Saxons
fell into trouble. They went to war with the men of Wessex and were
defeated by them. After this, we find London in the hands of the
Northumbrians and the Mercians--that is to say--these nations one after
the other obtained the supremacy. It was in the year 616 or thereabouts,
that Bishop Mellitus had to leave his diocese. Forty years later another
conversion of London took place under Bishop Cedd, consecrated at
Lindisfarne. The new faith was not strong enough to stand against a
plague, and the East Saxons of London went back once more to their old
gods. After another thirty years, before the close of the seventh
century, London was again converted: and this time for good.

In the eighth century London passed again out of the hands of the East
Saxon kings into those of the Mercians. The earliest extant document
concerning London is one dated 734, in which King Ethelbald grants to
the Bishop of Rochester leave to send one ship without tax in or out of
London Port.

A witan--i.e. a national council--was held in London in 811. It is then
spoken of as an illustrious place and royal city. The supremacy of
Mercia passed to that of Wessex--London went with the supremacy. In 833
Egbert, King of Wessex, held a witan in London.

[Illustration: MARTYRDOM OF ST. EDMUND BY THE DANES.

(_From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries._)]

When Egbert died the supremacy of Wessex fell with him. Then the Danish
troubles fell thick and disastrous upon the country. When Alfred
succeeded to the Crown the Danes held the Isle of Thanet, which
commanded the river; they had conquered the north country from the Tweed
to the Humber; they had overrun all the eastern counties twice--viz., in
839 and in 852: they had pillaged London, which they presently occupied,
making it their headquarters. With this Danish occupation ends the first
Saxon settlement of the City.

9. THE SECOND SAXON SETTLEMENT.

The Danes held the City for twelve years at least. One cannot believe
that these fierce warriors, who were exactly what the Saxons and Jutes
had been four hundred years before--as fierce, as rude, as
pagan--suffered any of the inhabitants, except the slaves, to remain.
Massacre and pillage--or the fear of both--drove away all the residents.
But the City was the headquarters of the Danes. Alfred recovered it in
the year 884.

He found it as the East Saxons had found it three hundred years before,
a city of ruins; the wall a ruin; the churches destroyed.

King Alfred has left many imperishable monuments of his reign. One of
the greatest is the City of London, which he rebuilt. A recent historian
(Loftie, _Historic Towns_, 'London') says that it would hardly be wrong
to write, 'London was founded, rather more than a thousand years ago, by
King Alfred--who chose for the site of his city a place formerly
fortified by the Romans but desolated successively by the Saxons and the
Danes.'

The first thing he did was to rebuild the wall. This work re-established
confidence in the minds of the citizens. Alfred placed his son-in-law
Ethelred, afterwards Alderman (i.e. Chief man--Governor) of the
Mercians, in command of the City, which seems to have been immediately
filled with people. The London citizens went out with Ethelred to defeat
the Danes at Benfleet, and with Alfred to defeat the Danes at the mouth
of the river Lea; they went out with Athelstan to fight at Brunanburgh.
London was never again taken by the Danes. Twice Sweyn endeavoured to
take the City but was repulsed. Nor did London open her gates to him
until the King had left the City. And when the Danes again entered the
City there was no more pillage or massacre; London was too strong to be
pillaged or massacred, and too rich to be abandoned to the army.

King Ethelred came back and died, and was buried in St. Paul's; the old
St. Paul's--that of King Ethelbert or that of Bishop Cedd--was burned
down and the Londoners were building a new cathedral.

Edmund Ironside was elected and crowned within the City walls. Then
followed a siege of London by Canute. He dug a canal through the swamps,
and dragged his ships by its means from Redriff to Lambeth. But he could
not take the City. But the Treaty of Partition between Edmund and
himself was agreed upon and the Dane once more obtained the City. He has
left one or two names behind him. The church of St. Olave's in Hart
Street, and that in 'Tooley,' or St. Olave's Street, Southwark, and the
Church of St. Magnus, attest to the sovereignty of the Dane.

[Illustration: SAXON HORSEMEN.

(_Harl. MS. 603._)]

At this time the two principal officers of the City were the Bishop and
the Portreeve: there was also the 'Staller' or Marshal. The principal
governing body was the 'Knighten Guild,' which was largely composed of
the City aldermen. But these aldermen were not like those of the present
day, an elected body: they were hereditary: they were aldermen in right
of their estates within the City. What powers the Knighten Guild
possessed is not easy to define. Besides this, the aristocracy of the
City, there were already trade guilds for religious purposes and for
feasting--but, as yet, with no powers. The people had their folk mote,
or general gathering: their ward mote: and their weekly hustings. We
must not seek to define the powers of all these bodies and corporations.
They overlapped each other: the aristocratic party was continually
innovating while the popular party as continually resisted. In many ways
what we call the government of the City had not begun to be understood.
That there was order of a kind is shown by the strict regulations, as
strictly enforced, of the dues and tolls for ships that came up the
river to the Port of London.

10. THE ANGLO-SAXON CITIZEN.

The Londoner of Athelstan and Ethelred was an Anglo-Saxon of a type far
in advance of his fierce ancestor who swept the narrow seas and harried
the eastern coasts. He had learned many arts: he had become a Christian:
he wanted many luxuries. But the solid things which he inherited from
his rude forefathers he passed on to his children. And they remain an
inheritance for us to this day. For instance, our form of monarchy,
limited in power, comes straight down to us from Alfred and Athelstan.
Our nobility is a survival and a development of the Saxon earls and
thanes; our forms of justice, trial by jury, magistrates--all come from
the Saxons; the divisions of our country are Saxon, our municipal
institutions are Saxon, our parliaments and councils are Saxon in
origin. We owe our language to the Anglo-Saxon, small additions from
Latin, French, and other sources have been made, but the bulk of our
language is Saxon. Three-fourths of us are Anglo-Saxon by descent.
Whatever there is in the English character of persistence, obstinacy,
patience, industry, sobriety, love of freedom, we are accustomed to
attribute to our Anglo-Saxon descent. In religion, arts, learning,
literature, culture, we owe little or nothing to the Anglo-Saxon. In all
these things we are indebted to the South.

Let us see how the Anglo-Saxon Londoner lived.

He was a trader or a craftsman. As a trader he received from the country
inland whatever it had to produce. Slaves, who were bred like cattle on
the farms, formed a large part of the exports; hides, wool, iron, tin,
the English merchant had these things, and nothing more, to offer the
foreigner who brought in exchange wine, spices, silk, incense, vestments
and pictures for the churches and monasteries, books, and other
luxuries. The ships at first belonged to the foreign merchants: they
traded not only at London, but also at Bristol, Canterbury, Dover,
Arundel, and other towns. Before the Conquest, however, English-built
ships and English-manned fleets had already entered upon the trade.

The trader, already wealthy, lived in great comfort. He was absolute
master in his own house, but the household was directed or ruled by his
wife. Everything was made in the house: the flour was ground, the bread
was baked, the meat and fish were salted; the linen was woven, the
garments were made by the wife, the daughters, and the women servants.
The Anglo-Saxon ladies were remarkable for their skill in embroidery;
they excelled all other women in this beautiful art.

The Anglo-Saxon house developed out of the common hall. Those who know
the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge can trace the growth of the house
in any of them. First there is the Common Hall. In this room, formerly,
the whole family, with the serving men and women, lived and slept. There
still exists at Higham Ferrars, in Northampton, such a hall, built as an
almshouse. It is a long room: at the east end, raised a foot, is a
little chapel; on the south side is a long open stove; the almsmen slept
on the floor on reeds, each man wrapped in his blanket.

[Illustration: SAXON CHURCH AT BRADFORD-ON-AVON, WILTS.]

Everybody lived and slept in the Common Hall. All day long the women
worked at the spinning and weaving and sewing and embroidery. Women were
defined by this kind of work--we still speak of spinsters. Formerly
relationship through the mother was called 'on the spindle side,' while,
long after the men had to fight every day against marauding tribes,
relationship through the father was called 'on the spear side.' All day
long the men worked outside in the fields, or in the warehouse, and on
the quays or at their craft. In the evening they sat about the fire and
listened to stories, or to songs with the accompaniment of the harp.

The first improvement was the separation of the kitchen from the hall:
in the Cambridge College you see the hall on one side and the kitchen
the other, separated by a passage. The second step was the construction
of the 'Solar,' or chamber over the kitchen, which became the bedroom of
the master and the mistress of the house. Then they built a room behind
the solar for the daughters and the maidservants; the sons and the
menservants still sleeping in the Hall. Presumably the house was at this
stage in the time of King Ethelred, just before the Norman Conquest. The
ladies' 'bower' followed, and after that the sleeping rooms for the men.

There was no furniture, as we understand it. Benches there were, and
trestles for the tables, which were literally laid at every meal: a
great chair was provided for the Lord and Lady: tapestry kept out the
draughts: weapons, musical instruments, and other things hung upon the
walls. Dinner was at noon: supper in the evening when work was over:
they made great use of vegetables and they had nearly all our modern
fruits: they drank, as the national beverage, beer or mead.

But everybody was not a wealthy merchant: most of the citizens were
craftsmen of some kind. These lived in small wooden houses of two rooms,
one above the other: those who were not able to afford so much slept in
hovels, consisting of four uprights with 'wattle and daub' for the
sides, a roof of thatch, no window, and a fire in the middle of the
floor. They lived very roughly: they endured many hardships: but they
were a well-fed people, turbulent and independent: their houses were
crowded in narrow lanes--how narrow may be understood by a walk along
Thames Street; they were always in danger of fire--in 962, in 1087, in
1135, the greater part of the City was burned to the ground. They lived
in plenty: there was work for all: they had their folk mote--their City
parliament--and their ward mote--which still exists: they had no feudal
lord to harass them: as for the dirt and mud and stench of the narrow
City streets, they cared nothing for such things. They were free: and
they were well fed: and they were cheerful and contented.

11. THE WALL OF LONDON.

Let us examine into the history and the course of the Wall of London, if
only for the very remarkable facts that the boundary of the City was
determined for fifteen hundred years by the erection of this Wall; that
for some purposes the course of the Wall still affects the government of
London; and that it was only pulled down bit by bit in the course of the
last century.

You will see by reference to the map what was the course of the Wall. It
began, starting from the east where the White Tower now stands. Part of
the foundation of the Tower consists of a bastion of the Roman wall. It
followed a line nearly north as far as Aldgate. Then it turned in a N.W.
direction just north of Camomile Street and Bevis Marks to Bishopsgate.
Thence it ran nearly due W., north of the street called London Wall,
turning S. at Monkwell Street. At Aldersgate it turned W. until it
reached Newgate, where it turned nearly S. again and so to the river, a
little east of the present Blackfriars Bridge. It ran, lastly, along the
river bank to join its eastern extremity. The river wall had openings or
gates at Dowgate and Bishopsgate, and probably at Queen Hithe. The
length of the Wall, without counting the river side, was 2 miles and 608
feet.

This formidable Wall was originally about 12 feet thick made of rubble
and mortar, the latter very hard, and faced with stone. You may know
Roman work by the courses of tiles or bricks. They are arranged in
double layers about 2 feet apart. The so-called bricks are not in the
least like our bricks, being 6 inches long, 12 inches wide and 1½ inch
thick. The Wall was 20 feet high, with towers and bastions at intervals
about 50 feet high. At first there was no moat or ditch, and it will be
understood that in order to protect the City from an attack of
barbarians--Picts or Scots--it was enough to close the gates and to man
the towers. The invaders had no ladders.

[Illustration: CITY GATES.]

In the course of centuries a great many repairs and rebuildings of the
Wall took place. The Saxons allowed it to fall into a ruinous condition.
Alfred rebuilt it and strengthened it. The next important repairs were
made in the reign of King John in 1215, by Henry III., Edward I.,
Edward II., Edward III., Richard II., Edward IV. After these various
rebuildings there would seem to be little left of the original Wall.
That, however, a great part of it continued to be the hard rubble core
of the Roman work seems evident from the fact that the course of the
Wall was never altered. The only alteration was when they turned the
Wall west at Ludgate down to the Fleet River and so to the confluence of
the Fleet and the Thames. The river side of the Wall was also allowed to
be removed.

[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE WALL.]

The City was thus protected by a great wall pierced by a few gates, with
bastions and towers. At the East End after the Norman Conquest rose the
Great White Tower still standing. At the West End was a tower called
Montfichet's Tower.

[Illustration: PART OF THE ROMAN WALL AT LEICESTER.]

But a wall without a ditch, where a ditch was possible, became of
little use as soon as scaling ladders were invented with wooden movable
towers and other devices. A ditch was accordingly constructed in the
year 1211 in the reign of King John. It appears to have been from the
very first neglected by the citizens, who trusted more to their own
bravery than to the protection of a ditch. It was frequently ordered to
be cleansed and repaired: it abounded, when it was clean, with good fish
of various kinds: but it was gradually allowed to dry up until, in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, nothing was left but a narrow channel or no
channel at all but a few scattered ponds, with market gardens planted in
the ditch itself. In Agas's map of London these gardens are figured,
with summer houses and cottages for the gardeners and cattle grazing. On
the west side north of Ludgate the ditch has entirely disappeared and
houses are built against the Wall on the outside. Houndsditch is a row
of mean houses facing the moat. Fore Street is also built over against
the moat. Within and without the Wall they placed churchyards--those of
St. Alphege, Allhallows, and St. Martin's Outwich, you may still see for
yourselves within the Wall: that of St. Augustine's at the north end of
St. Mary Axe, has vanished. Those of the three churches of St. Botolph,
Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Aldersgate, and that of St. Giles are churchyards
without the Wall. Then the ditch became filled up and houses were built
all along the Wall within and without. Thus began unchecked, perhaps
openly encouraged, the gradual demolition of the Wall. It takes a long
time to tear down a wall of solid rubble twelve feet thick. It took the
Londoners about 160 years. In the year 1760 they finally removed the
gates. Most of the Wall was gone by this time but large fragments
remained here and there. You may still see a considerable piece, part of
a bastion in the churchyard of St. Giles, and the vestry of All Hallows
on the Wall is built upon a bastion. In Camomile Street and in other
places portions of the Wall have been discovered where excavations have
been made: and, of course, the foundation of the Wall exists still, from
end to end.

12. NORMAN LONDON.

When William the Conqueror received the submission of the City he gave
the citizens a Charter--their first Charter--of freedom. There can be no
doubt that the Charter was the price demanded by the citizens and
willingly paid by the Conqueror in return for their submission. The
following is the document. Short as it is, the whole future of the City
is founded upon these few words:--

'William King greets William Bishop and Gosfrith Portreeve and all the
burghers within London, French and English, friendly.

'I do you to wit that I will that ye be all law worthy that were in King
Edward's day, and I will that every child be his father's heir after his
father's day: and I will not endure that any man offer any wrong to you.

'God keep you.'

The ancient Charter itself is preserved at Guildhall. Many copies of it
and translations of it were made from time to time. Let us see what it
means.

The citizens were to be 'law worthy' as they had been in the days of
King Edward. This meant that they were to be free men in the courts of
justice, with the right to be tried by their equals, that is, by jury.
'All who were law worthy in King Edward's day.' Serfs were not law
worthy, for instance. That the children should inherit their father's
property was, as much as the preceding clause, great security to the
freedom of the City, for it protected the people from any feudal claims
that might arise. Next, observe that there was never any Earl of London:
the City had no Lord but the King: it never would endure any Lord but
the King. An attempt was made, but only one, and that was followed by
the downfall of the Queen--Matilda--who tried it. Feudal customs arose
and flourished and died, but they were unknown in this free city.

But the City with its strong walls, its great multitude of people, and
its resources, might prove so independent as to lock out the King.
William therefore began to build the Tower, by means of which he could
not only keep the enemy out of London but could keep his own strong hand
upon the burghers. He took down a piece of the wall and enclosed twelve
acres of ground, in which he built his stronghold, within a deep and
broad ditch. The work was entrusted to Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester,
who left it unfinished when he died thirty years after.

The next great Charter of the City was granted by Henry the First. He
remitted the payment of the levies for feudal service, of tax called
Danegeld, originally imposed for buying off the Danes: of the murder
tax: of wager of battle, that is, that form of trial in which the
accused and the accuser fought it out, and from certain tolls. He also
gave the citizens the county of Middlesex to farm on payment to the
Crown of 300_l._ a year--a payment still made: they were to appoint a
Sheriff for the county: and they were to have leave to hunt in the
forests of Middlesex, Surrey, and the Chiltern Hills. They were also
empowered to elect their own justiciar and allowed to try their own
cases within their own limits.

[Illustration: TOWER IN THE EARLIER STYLE. CHURCH AT EARL'S BARTON.

(_The battlements are much later._)]

This was a very important Charter. No doubt, like the first, it was
stipulated as a price for the support of the City. William Rufus was
killed on Thursday--Henry was in London on Saturday. He must therefore
have ridden hard to get over the hundred and twenty miles of rough
bridle track between the New Forest and London. But the City supported
him and this was their reward.

We are gradually approaching the modern constitution of the City. The
Portreeve or first Magistrate, in the year 1189, in the person of Henry
Fitz Aylwin, assumed the title of Mayor--not Lord Mayor: the title came
later, a habit or style, never a rank conferred. With him were two
Sheriffs, the Sheriff of the City and the Sheriff of the County. There
was the Bishop: there was the City Justiciar with his courts. There were
also the Aldermen, not yet an elected body.

The Londoners elected Stephen King, and stood by him through all the
troubles that followed. The plainest proof of the strength and
importance of the City is shown in the fact that when Matilda took
revenge on London by depriving the City of its Charters the citizens
rose and drove her out of London and made her cause hopeless.

13. FITZSTEPHEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CITY.

PART I.

The White Tower is the only building in modern London which belongs to
Norman London. Portions remain--fragments--a part of the church of St.
Bartholomew the Great, a part of the church of St. Ethelburga, the crypt
of Bow Church: very little else. All the rest has been destroyed by
time, by 'improvements,' or by fire, the greatest enemy to cities in
every country and every age. Thus, three great fires in the tenth and
eleventh century swept London from end to end. No need to ask if
anything remains of the Roman or the Saxon City. Not a vestige is
left--except the little fragment, known as the London Stone, now lying
behind iron bars in the wall of St. Swithin's Church. Churches, Palaces,
Monasteries, Castles--all perished in those three fires. The City, no
doubt, speedily sprang again from its ashes, but of its rebuilding on
each occasion we have no details at all.

Most fortunately, there exists a document priceless and unique, short as
it is and meagre in many of its details, which describes London as it
was in the reign of Henry II. It is written by one FitzStephen, Chaplain
to Thomas Becket. He was present at the murder of the Archbishop and
wrote his life, to which this account is an introduction.

[Illustration: A NORMAN SHIP.

(_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)]

He says, first of all, that the City contained thirteen larger
conventual churches and a hundred and twenty-six parish churches. He
writes only fifty years after the Great Fire, so that it is not likely
that new parishes had been erected. All the churches which had been
destroyed were rebuilt. Most of them were very small parishes, with,
doubtless, very small churches. We shall return presently to the
question of the churches.

[Illustration: BUILDING A CHURCH IN THE LATER STYLE.

(_From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries._)]

On the east was the White Tower which he calls the 'Palatine Castle:'
on the west there were two towers--there was the Tower called
Montfichet, where is now Blackfriars station, and Baynard's Castle,
close beside it. The walls of the City had seven double gates. The river
wall had by this time been taken down. Two miles from the City, on the
west, was the Royal Palace (Westminster), fortified with ramparts and
connected with the City by a populous suburb. Already, therefore, the
Strand and Charing Cross were settled. The gates were Aldgate,
Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate, Ludgate, and the Bridge.

FitzStephen says that the citizens were so powerful that they could
furnish the King with 20,000 horsemen and 60,000 foot. This is clearly
gross exaggeration. If we allow 500 for each parish, we get a population
of only 63,000 in all, and in the enumeration later on, for the poll tax
by Richard the Second, there were no more than 48,000. This, however,
was shortly after a great Plague had ravaged the City.

But the writer tells us that the citizens excelled those of any other
city in the world in 'handsomeness of manners and of dress, at table,
and in way of speaking.' There were three principal schools, the
scholars of which rivalled each other, and engaged in public contests of
rhetoric and grammar.

Those who worked at trades and sold wares of any kind were assigned
their proper place whither they repaired every morning. It is easy to
make out from the surviving names where the trades were placed. The
names of Bread Street, Fish Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Wood
Street, Soapers' Lane, the Poultry, for instance, indicate what trades
were carried on there. Friday Street shows that the food proper for fast
days was sold there--namely, dried fish. Cheapside preserves the name
of the Chepe, the most important of all the old streets. Here, every
day, all the year round, was a market held at which everything
conceivable was sold, not in shops, but in _selds_, that is, covered
wooden sheds, which could be taken down on occasion. Do not think that
'Chepe' was a narrow street: it was a great open space lying between St.
Paul's and what is now the Royal Exchange, with streets north and south
formed by rows of these _selds_ or sheds. Presently the sheds became
houses with shops in front and gardens behind. The roadway on the south
side of this open space was called the Side of Chepe. There was another
open space for salesmen called East Chepe, another at Billingsgate,
called Roome Lane, another at Dowgate--both for purposes of exposing for
sale imports landed on the Quays and the ports of Queenhithe and
Billingsgate. Those who have seen a market-place in a French town will
understand what these places were like. A large irregular area. On every
side sheds with wares for sale: at first all seems confusion and noise:
presently one makes out that there are streets in orderly array, in
which those who know can find what they want. Here are mercers; here
goldsmiths; here armourers; here glovers; here pepperers or grocers; and
so forth. West Chepe is the place of shops where they sell the things
made in the City and all things wanted for the daily life.

On the other side of the Walbrook, across which there is a bridge where
is now the Poultry, is East Chepe, whither they bring all kinds of
imported goods and sell them to the retailers: and by the river side the
merchants assemble in the open places beside Queenhithe and Billingsgate
to receive or to buy the cargoes sent over from France, Spain, and the
Low Countries. One more open space there was, that round St. Paul's,
the place where the people held their folkmotes. But London was not, as
yet, by any means built over. Its northern parts were covered with
gardens. It was here, as we shall see, that the great monasteries were
shortly to be built.

[Illustration: LAY COSTUMES IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.]

14. FITZSTEPHEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CITY.

PART II.

Outside the walls, he says, there were many places of pleasant resort,
streams and springs among them. He means the Fleet River winding at the
bottom of its broad valley: farther west Tyburn and Westbourne: on the
south the Wandle, the Effra, the Ravensbourne. There was a well at
Holywell in the Strand--it lies under the site of the present Opéra
Comique Theatre: and at Clerkenwell: these wells had medicinal or
miraculous properties and there were, no doubt, taverns and places of
amusement about there. At Smithfield--or Smooth Field--just outside the
City walls, there was held once a week--on Friday--a horse fair.
Business over, horse racing followed. Then the river was full of fish:
some went fishing for their livelihood: some for amusement: salmon were
plentiful and great fish such as porpoises sometimes found their way
above Bridge.

Then there were the sports of the young men and the boys. They played at
ball--when have not young men played at ball? The young Londoners
practised some form of hockey out of which have grown the two noble
games of cricket and golf. They wrestled and leaped. Nothing is said
about boxing and quarterstaff. But perhaps these belonged to the
practice of arms and archery, which were never neglected, because at any
moment the London craftsman might have to become a soldier. They had
cock fighting, a sport to which the Londoner was always greatly
addicted. And they loved dancing with the girls to the music of pipe and
tabor. In the winter, when the broad fens north of the walls were
frozen, they skated. And they hunted with hawk and hound in the Forest
of Middlesex, which belonged to the City.

[Illustration: COSTUME OF SHEPHERDS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.]

The City, he tells us, is governed by the same laws as those of Rome.
Like Rome, London is divided into wards: like Rome the City has annually
elected magistrates who are called Sheriffs instead of Consuls: like
Rome it has senatorial and inferior magistrates: like Rome it has
separate Courts and proper places for law suits, and like Rome the City
holds assemblies on ordered days. The writer is carried away by his
enthusiasm for Rome. As we have seen, the government, laws, and customs
of London owed nothing at all, in any single respect, to Rome.
Everything grew out of the Anglo-Saxon laws and customs.

[Illustration: ECCLESIASTICAL COSTUME IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.]

By his loud praise of the great plenty of food of every kind which could
be found in London, FitzStephen reminds us that he has lived in other
towns, and especially in Canterbury, when he was in the service of the
Archbishop. We see, though he does not mention it, the comparison in his
mind between the plentiful market of London and the meagre market of
Canterbury. Everything, he says, was on sale. All the roasted meats and
boiled that one can ask for; all the fish, poultry, and game in season,
could every day be bought in London: there were cookshops where dinners
and suppers could be had by paying for them. He dwells at length upon
this abundance. Now in the country towns and the villages the supplies
were a matter of uncertainty and anxiety: a housewife had to keep her
pantry and her larder well victualled in advance: salt meat and salt
fish were the staple of food. Beef and mutton were scarce: game there
was in plenty if it could be taken; but game laws were strict; very
little venison would find its way into Canterbury market. To this cleric
who knew the country markets, the profusion of everything in London was
amazing.

Another thing he notices--'Nearly all the Bishops, Abbots, and Magnates
of England are, as it were, citizens and freemen of London; having their
own splendid houses to which they resort, where they spend largely when
summoned to great Councils by the King, or by their Metropolitan, or
drawn thither by their own private affairs.'

In another century or two London will become, as you shall see, a City
of Palaces. Observe that the palaces are already beginning. Observe,
also, that London is already being enriched by the visits and residence
of great lords who, with their retinues, spend 'largely.' Down to the
present day the same thing has always gone on. The wealthy people who
have their town houses in the West End of London and the thousands of
country people and foreigners who now flock to the London hotels are the
successors of the great men and their following who came up to London in
the twelfth century and spent 'largely.'

'I do not think,' says FitzStephen, 'that there is any city with more
commendable customs of church attendance, honour to God's ordinances,
keeping sacred festivals, almsgiving, hospitality, confirming,
betrothals, contracting marriages, celebration of nuptials, preparing
feasts, cheering the guests, and also in care for funerals and the
interment of the dead. The only pests of London are the immoderate
drinking of fools and the frequency of fires.'

15. LONDON BRIDGE.

PART I.

Nobody knows who built the first Bridge. It was there in the fourth
century--a bridge of timber provided with a fortified gate, one of the
gates of the City. Who put it up, and when--how long it stood--what
space there was between the piers--how broad it was--we do not know.
Probably it was quite a narrow bridge consisting of beams laid across
side by side and a railing at the side. That these beams were not close
together is known by the fact that so many coins have been found in the
bed of the river beneath the old Bridge.

[Illustration: ROYAL ARMS OF ENGLAND FROM RICHARD I. TO EDWARD III.

(_From the wall arcade, south aisle of nave, Westminster Abbey._)]

Besides the Bridge there were ferries across the river, especially
between Dowgate and the opposite bank called St. Mary Overies Dock,
where was afterwards erected St. Mary Overies Priory, to which belonged
the church now called St. Saviour's, Southwark. The docks at either end
of the old ferry still remain.

The Bridge had many misfortunes: it is said to have been destroyed by
the Danes in 1013. Perhaps for 'destruction' we should read 'damage.' It
was, however, certainly burned down in the Great Fire of 1136. Another,
also of wood, was built in its place and, in the year 1176, a bridge of
stone was commenced, which took thirty years to build and remained
standing till the year 1831, when the present Bridge was completed and
the old one pulled down.

The Architect of this stone Bridge, destined to stand for six hundred
and fifty years, was one Peter, Chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch in the
Old Jewry (the church was destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt).

Now the building of bridges was regarded, at this time, as a work of
piety. If we consider how a bridge helps the people we shall agree with
our forefathers. Without a bridge, those living on one side of a river
can only carry on intercourse with those on the other side by means of
boats. Merchants cannot carry their wares about: farmers cannot get
their produce to market: wayfarers can only get across by ferry: armies
cannot march--if you wish to follow an army across a country where there
are no bridges you must look for fords. Roads are useless unless bridges
cross the rivers. The first essential to the union of a nation is the
possibility of intercommunication: without roads and bridges the man of
Devon is a stranger and an enemy to the man of Somerset. We who have
bridges over every river: who need never even ford a stream: who hardly
know what a ferry means: easily forget that these bridges did not grow
like the oaks and the elms: but were built after long study of the
subject by men who were trained for the work just as other men were
trained and taught to build cathedrals and churches. A religious order
was founded in France in the twelfth century: it was called the Order of
the 'Pontife' Brethren--_Pontife_ is Pontifex--that is--Bridge Builder.
The Bridge Building Brothers constructed many bridges in France of
which several still remain. It is not certain that Peter of Colechurch
was one of this Brotherhood, perhaps not. When he died, in 1205, before
the Bridge was completed, King John called over a French 'Pontife' named
Isembert who had built bridges at La Rochelle and Saintes. But the
principal builders are said to have been three merchants of London named
Serle Mercer, William Almain, and Benedict Botewrite. The building of
the Bridge was regarded as a national work: the King: the great Lords:
the Bishops: as well as the London Citizens, gave money to hasten its
completion. The list of donors was preserved on 'a table fair written
for posterity' in the Chapel on the Bridge. It was unhappily destroyed
in the Great Fire.

It must not be supposed that the Bridge of Peter Colechurch was like the
present stately Bridge of broad arches. It contained twenty arches of
irregular breadth: only two or three being the same: they varied from 10
feet to 32 feet: some of them therefore were very narrow: the piers were
also of different lengths. These irregularities were certainly
intentional and were based upon some observations on the rise and fall
of the tide. No other great Bridge had yet been constructed across a
tidal river.

When the Bridge was built it was thought necessary to consecrate it to
some saint. The latest saint, St. Thomas Becket, was chosen as the
titular saint of this Bridge. A chapel, dedicated to him, was built in
the centre pier of the Bridge: it was, in fact, a double chapel: in the
lower part, the crypt, was buried Peter of Colechurch himself: the upper
part, which escaped the Great Fire, became, after the Reformation, a
warehouse.

16. LONDON BRIDGE.

PART II.

Houses were erected in course of time along the Bridge on either side
like a street, but with intervals; and along the roadway in the middle
were chain posts to protect the passengers. As the Bridge was only 40
feet wide the houses must have been small. But they were built out at
the back overhanging the river, and the roadway itself was not intended
for carts or wheeled vehicles. Remember that everything was brought to
the City on pack horse or pack ass. The table of Tolls sanctioned by
King Edward I. makes no mention of cart or waggon at all. Men on
horseback and loaded horses can get along with a very narrow road.
Perhaps we may allow twelve feet for the road which gives for the houses
on either side a depth of 14 feet each.

[Illustration: OLD LONDON BRIDGE.]

These houses were occupied chiefly by shops, most of which were
'haberdashers and traders in small wares.' Later on there were many
booksellers. Paper merchants and stationers, after the Reformation,
occupied the chapel. The great painter Hans Holbein lived on the Bridge
and the two marine painters Peter Monamy and Dominic Serres also lived
here.

The narrowness of the arches and the rush of the flowing or the ebbing
tide made the 'shooting' of the Bridge a matter of great danger. The
Duke of Norfolk in 1429 was thrown into the water by the capsizing of
his boat and narrowly escaped with his life. Queen Henrietta, in 1628,
was nearly wrecked in the same way by running into the piers while
shooting the Bridge. Rubens the painter was thrown into the water in the
same way.

One of the twenty arches formed a drawbridge which allowed vessels of
larger size than barges to pass up the river and could be used to keep
back an enemy. In this way Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1557 was kept out of
London. Before this drawbridge stood a tower on the battlements of which
were placed the heads of traitors and criminals. The heads of Sir
William Wallace, Jack Cade, Sir Thomas More and many others were stuck
up here. On the Southwark side was another tower.

The Bridge, which was the pride and boast of London, was endowed with
lands for its maintenance: the rents of the houses were also collected
for the same purpose: a toll was imposed on all merchandise carried
across, and a Brotherhood was formed, called the Brothers of St. Thomas
on the Bridge, whose duty it was to perform service in the chapel and to
keep the Bridge in repair.

Repairs were always wanting: to keep some of the force of the water off
the piers these were furnished with 'starlings,' i.e. at first piles
driven down in front of the piers, afterwards turned into projecting
buttresses of stone. Then corn mills were built in some of the openings,
and in the year 1582 great waterworks were constructed at the southern
end. The tower before the drawbridge was by Queen Elizabeth rebuilt and
made a very splendid house--called Nonesuch House. The Fire destroyed
the houses on the Bridge, some of which were not rebuilt: and in the
year 1757 all the houses were removed from the Bridge.

The New Bridge was finished and opened in 1831--it stands 180 feet west
of its predecessor. Then the Old Bridge was pulled down. The work of
Peter Colechurch lasted from 1209 to 1831 or 622 years. The Pontife
Brothers, therefore, knew how to put in good and lasting work.

This is the history of London Bridge. First a narrow wooden gangway of
beams lying on timber piles with a fortified gate; then a stone
structure of twenty irregular arches, the Bridge broad but the roadway
still narrow with houses on either side and a fortress and a chapel upon
it--in those times there was always a fortress, and there was always a
chapel. It must have been a pleasant place of residence: the air fresh
and clear: the supply of water unlimited--one drew it up in a bucket:
always something going on: the entrance of a foreign ambassador, a
religious procession, a riding of the Lord Mayor, a pageant, a nobleman
with his livery, a Bishop or a Prior with his servants, a pilgrimage, a
string of pack horses out of Kent bringing fruit for the City: always
something to see. Then there were the stories and traditions of the
place, with the songs which the children sang about the Bridge.
Especially there was the story of Edward Osborne. He was the son of one
Richard Osborne, a gentleman of Kent. Like many sons of the poor country
gentlemen, he was sent up to London and apprenticed to Sir William
Hewitt a cloth worker who lived on London Bridge. His master had a
daughter named Anne, a little girl who one day, while playing with her
nurse at an open window overhanging the river, fell out into the rushing
water sixty feet below. The apprentice, young Osborne, leaped into the
river after her and succeeded in saving her. When the girl was grown up
her father gave her to his ex-apprentice, Edward Osborne, to wife.
Edward Osborne became Lord Mayor. His descendant is now Duke of Leeds.
So that the Dukedom of Leeds sprang from that gallant leap out of the
window overhanging the river Thames from London Bridge.

17. THE TOWER OF LONDON.

PART I.

In an age when every noble's house was a castle, and when every castle
was erected in order to dominate, as well as to defend, the town and the
district in which it stood, the Tower of London was erected. The builder
of the White Tower was William the Conqueror, who gave the City its
Charter but had no intention of giving up his own sovereignty; the
architect, as has been already said, was one Gundulph, Bishop of
Rochester. Part of the City wall was pulled down to make room for it,
and it was intended at once for the King's Palace, the King's Castle,
and the King's Prison. It was also the key of London--who held the
Tower, held the City.

William Rufus built a wall round the Tower so as to separate it entirely
from the City and to prevent the danger of a hasty rising of the
people: with the same object he gave it a water gate.

A hundred years later, while Richard Coeur de Lion was on his Crusade,
the moat was constructed. Henry III. and his son Edward I. added to the
outer walls and strengthened them.

[Illustration: TOWER OF LONDON.]

There is a plan of the Tower made from a survey of the year 1597 and
published by the Society of Antiquaries. A study of the plan should be
made before visiting the place. Remark first of all that the fortress
has three entrances only: one at the S.W. angle to the City; one to the
river now called Traitors' Gate; and one on the S.E. angle called the
Irongate: that it is surrounded by a broad and deep moat which could be
filled at every high tide: that from the moat rises a battlemented wall,
and that within this first wall is another, flanked with protecting
towers; that the City entrance is most jealously guarded by a strong
gate first: then by a narrow way passing under a tower: then over a
bridge. In all mediæval castles the first thought was to make it
impossible to carry the place by a rush. If we would restore the Tower
of Queen Elizabeth to the Tower of Edward III. we must abolish all those
buildings which stand on the north and east sides, with those called
'Lieutenants' Lodgings' on the south. The space on the north side of the
Keep was the exercising ground: stables there must have been somewhere
in this great area; the men at arms would live in the smaller towers. If
you will study this plan carefully, you will understand the general
arrangement of a mediæval castle.

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 mediæval
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.'

[Illustration: A BED IN THE REIGN OF HENRY III.]

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
mediæval 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.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE HALL AT PENSHURST, KENT.

(_Showing the screen with minstrels' gallery over it, and the brazier
for fire in the middle; built about 1340._)]

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.

[Illustration: THE UPPER CHAMBER OR SOLAR AT SUTTON COURTENAY
MANOR-HOUSE.

(_Date, about 1350._)]

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.

[Illustration: THE LEPERS BEGGING.]

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 6_s._ 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 24_s._ 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 4_l._ 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 103_s._ 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 6_s._ a quarter, a farthing loaf
was to weigh 24 oz. whole meal and 16 oz. white. When it was at 1_s._
6_d._ 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 5_d._, 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 1_s._ 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.

[Illustration: LONDON BEFORE THE SPIRE OF ST. PAUL'S WAS BURNED: SHOWING
ALSO THE BRIDGE, THE TOWER, SHIPPING, ETC.]

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 à
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.

[Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL'S, FROM THE EAST.

(_Showing its condition just before the Great Fire; from an engraving by
Hollar._)]

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