{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_33613/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_33613","id":"gutenberg_33613","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33613","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: History - British","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","London (England) -- Juvenile literature"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Frontispiece: NO. 1.  AN OLD RIVER-WALL OR EMBANKMENT (CHELSEA) _See\npage_ 9]\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSTORIES OF\n\nLONDON\n\n\nBY\n\nE. L. HOSKYN, B.A. (LOND.)\n\nAUTHOR OF \"PICTURES OF BRITISH HISTORY,\" ETC.\n\n\nWITH A PREFACE BY\n\nSOPHIE BRYANT, D.Sc., LITT.D.\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Title page logo]\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nADAM AND CHARLES BLACK\n\n1914\n\n\n\n\n{3}\n\nPREFACE\n\nThere are many kinds of ignorance which, for lack of time and\nopportunity, we may rightly tolerate in ourselves.  Ignorance of the\nstories that cling around and beautify the home-place is not one of\nthese.  A place, indeed, is not a home unless human life has woven a\nthread of story through and through it.  Happy are those who dwell as\nchildren in a place well clad with racy memories and legendary lore.\nThe city-home of the London child is just such a place.  Here we have a\ncity with an old old history losing itself in the mists of time, and\npreserving itself in the memorials of its ancient sites and the tales\nthat grow like ivy round its odd place-names.  Of all this the careless\ncity-dweller takes no note, but the London child should be a different\nkind of being.  London stories are racy of London; they reflect its\nlife in every age; and the London child is heir to them all.\n\nThe stories of London in this little book are interesting to everybody,\nwhether young or old; they cannot fail to be so, because London is\ninteresting, more or less, to everybody in the world.  But the book is\nwritten more particularly for the children of London, so that they may\nnot be careless city-dwellers, as so many are, but may grow up into\nreal citizens of this great London, loving their old city in all its\nnooks and corners for its own dear sake, feeling it in all the twists\nand turns of its varied history, as if their life and its life were\nbound up in one.\n\nBut this is not all that the study of London's stories may {4} do for\nthe London child.  The natural beginning of interest in\nhistory--including the literature that collects around it--arises out\nof interest in the story of the place in which we live.  We walk about\nthe place and picture the events of which we read as happening within\nit.  The place is transfigured, is filled with life; and the story is\ntransfigured too as seen against the background to which it really\nbelongs.  In the case of London, moreover, there is a good deal of\nuseful work for the imagination to do in sufficiently restoring that\nbackground to its primitive simplicity.  So the London child who knows\nthe London stories thoroughly--so thoroughly as to be able to see them\nin their real setting, as they happened in that city by the river on\nthe marshes in the olden time--has learnt to know how every other\nstory, including the history proper of any other town or country,\nshould be known.  Thus, the study of the home story is for each of us\nthe true beginning of our education in that exercise of historical\nimagination on which our appreciation of history largely depends.\n\nIt is hoped that these _Stories of London_ will be specially\ninteresting to the London child, but not to him alone.  The story of\nLondon is central in the story of England, and appeals to the interest\nof every English-speaking child.\n\nSOPHIE BRYANT.\n\n\n\n\n{5}\n\nCONTENTS\n\n   I.  SOME VERY OLD STORIES\n  II.  WESTMINSTER ABBEY\n III.  THE CHARTER HOUSE\n  IV.  TWO FAMOUS CHARITIES\n   V.  THE STORY AND THE HISTORY OF DICK WHITTINGTON\n  VI.  WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN\n VII.  THE STORY OF ST. PAUL'S\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n1. AN OLD RIVER-WALL OR EMBANKMENT (CHELSEA) . . . . . . _Frontispiece_\n\n2. PART OF THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CHARTER HOUSE SCHOOL,\n   ITS CHAPEL AND PLAYGROUND\n\n3. WESTMINSTER ABBEY, THE TOMB OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR\n\n4. THE FIRST CORONATION IN THE ABBEY\n\n5. A ROOM IN THE TOWER WHERE STATE PRISONERS WERE LODGED\n\n6. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER WATCH THE CARTHUSIAN\n   PRIORS GOING AWAY TO DIE\n\n7. OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER HOUSE CHAPEL\n\n8. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED\n\n9. AN EXCITING GAME; OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON\n\n10. ENTRANCES OF THE OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AND OF CHRIST'S\n    CHURCH, LONDON\n\n11. AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE, TOWER BRIDGE IN THE DISTANCE\n\n12. WHITTINGTON SETTING THE KING FREE FROM HIS GREAT DEBT\n\n13. GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW\n\n14. PLACENTIA, THE OLD PALACE AT GREENWICH\n\n15. THE FIRE OF LONDON\n\n16. ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER\n\n\n_Sketch map of Norman London_\n\n_Old St Paul's_\n\n\n\n\n{6}\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 2.  PART OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE OLD CHARTER HOUSE\nSCHOOL, ITS CHAPEL AND PLAYGROUND.  (See p. 28)]\n\n======================================================================\n\n\n\n\n{7}\n\nSTORIES OF LONDON\n\n\nI.\n\nSOME VERY OLD STORIES\n\nThe first story of London should tell who built it, and when, and why.\nBut London is old, very old; it began before its builders had even\nthought of making books, and so its earliest history is written in the\nground on which it stands, in its hills and valleys, its rivers and\nriver-beds; and this is a kind of history which, if only we know how to\nread it, always tells the truth.  Perhaps you are saying to yourself,\n\"There is only one river in London, and that is the Thames; and there\nare no hills,--London is flat; and as for the ground, who has seen the\nreal ground on which London stands?  Is it not all built over, or paved\nwith wood or stones or cement?  How, then, can we learn anything from\nit?\"  Sometimes old worn-out buildings have to be pulled down to their\nvery foundations so that new houses may be put in their places, or a\ntube-railway or a tunnel has to be made, or gas-pipes or electric wires\nhave to be laid under the roads;--have you not seen navvies digging\ndeep into the earth to do all these things?  Then the secret things\nhidden in the ground are brought to light, and they teach us something\nof the very old history of the land.\n\n{8}\n\nPerhaps you know that the Hampstead and Highgate Hills lie four or five\nmiles north of the Thames; and at about the same distance south of it\nare other hills, on one of which the Crystal Palace stands.  Though we\ncall the land between these hills the Thames Valley, it is not flat;\nand long ago, before London was built in it, it was much more uneven\nthan it is now; for the more level roads are the easier it is for heavy\ncarriages and carts to be pulled along them, so hollows have been\nfilled up and hillocks cut down to make the ground as flat as possible.\nEven now, as you ride on the top of an omnibus through the long\nstraight road called Oxford Street, if you watch carefully you may\nnotice the rise and fall of the land,--a little hill, then a little\nvalley, and so on.  Once through each of these valleys a stream ran\ndown to the Thames.  Where are they now?  Some of them are\nunderground--arched over, built over, buried in the dark, out of sight.\nLook at the map on p. 11; there you will find one of these rivers,\nwhich ran from the Highgate Woods southward to the Thames.  It was\ncalled the Fleet, and has given its name to Fleet Street.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 3.  IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY: THE TOMB OF EDWARD THE\nCONFESSOR WITH ITS VELVET COVERING _See pages_ 17 _and_ 22]\n\n======================================================================\n\nThere were also some low hills quite close to the north bank of the\nriver.  Let us fancy that we have gone back through the ages, many\nhundreds of years before ever the Romans came to this country, and that\nwe are standing--you and I--facing the river on one of those hills,\nthat on which St. Paul's now stands.  What do we see?  To our right,\nunder its steep clay bank, so high it is almost a cliff, the Fleet runs\non its way to the Thames; to our left is the hill; behind us, {9} all\nthe way up to the hills of Hampstead, are tangled forests, and in the\nlow ground are wide marshes; and in front is the river.  It is\nlow-water; on either side of the stream are great stretches of mud and\nsand, wet marshy places, such as you may have seen at some place by the\nsea where the shore is very flat and the tide goes out very far.\nBeyond the marsh, on the southern shore, I think there is a wide\nshallow lake, for to this day some of the land there is below the level\nof the river at high-water.  As we watch, look! a little rippling wave\nruns over the flats between the sand-banks; the tide has turned,--how\nfast it rises, how far it spreads!  Before long the wide waste before\nus is covered with grey waters; it has become a great lake or sea.\nNowadays embankments, such as you see in picture 1, keep the river in\nits place; but in the long-ago times of which we are thinking every\nhigh tide must have spread far and wide over what is now dry land.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 4.  THE FIRST CORONATION IN THE ABBEY _See page_ 21]\n\n======================================================================\n\nCould any people have wished to live in such a watery place?  Yes,\nindeed they did; and under the bed of the Fleet River, near its mouth,\ntraces have been found of their homes.  That ancient people must have\nhad many enemies,--other men who fought them, fierce wild animals,\nwolves and other creatures which have not lived in England for hundreds\nand hundreds of years; and to defend themselves that people had such\npoor weapons, perhaps made only of bronze; so they sought for a very\nsafe dwelling-place.  Down into the muddy bed of the river they drove\ngreat wooden posts, such posts as men drive down now into river or sea\nwhen they are building a pier.  The worn {10} tops of those old timbers\nhave been found showing up through the soil where once the Fleet ran;\nand on them once rested a platform of wood on which houses were built.\nIs not this a piece of history written in the soil?  The first men who\ntried to read it understood more easily the meaning of those worn old\nposts because to this day the brown people, who live in one of the\ngreat islands to the south-east of Asia, build their houses on just\nsuch platforms out over the water.\n\nHow long did the men of that far-off time live in these strange\nriver-dwellings?  That we do not know; it may have been for very many\nyears.  At last (so some learned men believe) they built for themselves\na fort or stronghold on the high land near-by, perhaps where St. Paul's\nnow stands, but more likely lower down the river, on the next hill;\nthis stronghold may have been the beginning of London.  If, as some\npeople think, London means \"The Fort of the Waters,\" or \"The Lake\nFort,\" was it not well named?\n\nUp the river to this fort ships may sometimes have come, bringing\nmerchants to buy pearls and skins of wild animals and slaves; and to\npay for them with such things as the fierce Londoners of those days\nwould like--a sharp axe or a gay necklace.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE NORMANS.]\n\n======================================================================\n\nThe written history of London does not begin until the Romans had\nconquered and were ruling the land, more than a hundred years after\ntheir great general, Julius Caesar, had first come here.  They found\nLondon only a little group of huts, very likely made of wickerwork\nplastered over with mud, and surrounded by a poor wall and ditch.  How\nmuch they did for it!  They {12} built round it the great walls which\nyou see marked in our little map; so strong were they that parts of\ntheir foundations and of the walls themselves have been found even of\nlate years.  And many other traces of the Romans have been found in\nLondon--coins, and weapons, and carvings.  Near the Strand is a bath\nwhich once, perhaps, belonged to some Roman gentleman's fine house.\nThere were many such houses in and about London; and many a time the\nbeautiful pavements of these houses, and even the pavements of the old\nRoman streets, have been found in the City down below the present\nstreets and houses.  The Romans made great roads which stretched out\nnorth, south, east, and west, from London; and they built a bridge over\nthe Thames.  In those days the people across the English Channel, the\nGauls and Italians, were far wiser than the wild people of Britain; and\nroads and bridges made it possible for their trade, skill and wisdom to\ncome to the people of London.  A flourishing city it became under the\nRoman rule.\n\nThe years passed on and evil days befell the Roman Empire; the wild\nfierce northern races attacked it, and the Roman soldiers had to leave\nBritain and go back to defend Italy.  Then there came to this country\nalso sad days of war and trouble, for the English came over the North\nSea, fought and conquered the Britons, and at last settled here.  Then\ncame the Danes, and there was more war, more fighting.  During these\ndreadful times we hear little of London.\n\nAt last Alfred became King.  Do you remember how many good things he\ndid for England?  One of the best of them was that in the year 886, as\nthe {13} ancient Chronicle or history of our country tells us, he built\nLondon Town,--that is, he built again her walls and towers, and made\nher once more a strong city.  Thus, with Alfred as her founder and\nprotector, her later history begins.  Year by year she grew greater and\nmore important, until she became the greatest of all English cities and\nthe capital of the land.\n\nThere is another and a very different story of Old London, and this is\nhow it begins:--\"Brute, about the yeare of the world 2855 and 1108\nbefore the nativitie of Christ\" (that is, before Christ was born,)\n\"builded this city neare unto the riuer (river) now called Thames, and\nnamed it Troynouant\"--that is, 'New Troy.'  Now, this Brute belonged to\nthe very same family as Romulus who built Rome; and he and his\nfollowers came across the sea to this island, in which then only a few\ngiants were living, and he conquered them and took the land, and named\nit Britain after his own name, and his companions he called Britons.\n\nThere were more giants in Cornwall than in any other part of the land.\nOne of them was called Goemagot; he was so strong that he could pull up\nan oak-tree as if it were only a hazel-wand.  Now there was a great\nfight between the Britons and the Cornish giants, and all the giants\nwere killed but Goemagot.  Then he and a famous Briton fought together,\nand all men stood by to watch.  At first it seemed that the giant would\nwin for he wounded the Briton sorely; but, wounded as he was, the\nBriton heaved Goemagot up on his shoulders, ran with him to the shore,\nand flung him headlong into the sea; and (so says the story) the rock\nfrom which he fell is called \"The Giant's Leap\" unto {14} this day.\nAll this happened near the place where Plymouth now stands.  What has\nit to do with London?  In the Guildhall, which is the Council Hall of\nLondon, are many statues of great and famous men, and here are also two\ngreat wooden giants called Gog and Magog; they are the City's giants.\nOnce they used to be carried in the Lord Mayor's Show and in\nprocessions to make the people wonder.  The older giant is said to be\nGoemagot; the other, the Briton who hurled him headlong into the sea.\n\nLong after Brute died, Belinus became King.  Of all his wonderful\nhistory I can tell you only this,--he placed a great building in\nTrinovantum (that is, London,) upon the banks of the Thames, and the\ncitizens called it, after his name, Billingsgate.  Over it he built a\nhuge tower, and under it a fair haven or quay for ships.  \"At last,\nwhen he had finished his days, his body was burned, and the ashes put\nup in a golden urn, which they placed with wonderful art on the top of\nthe tower\" which he himself had built.  Have you ever heard of\nBillingsgate?  It is the chief fish-market of London, and its wharf is\nthe oldest on the Thames, so old that no one knows when fish were first\nlanded and sold there.\n\nMany years after Belinus built his great tower, Lud became King.  He\n\"not only repaired this Cittie\" (that is, Trinovantum,) \"but also\nincreased the same with faire buildings, Towers and walles; and after\nhis own name called it Caire Lud, as Lud's towne.\"  And about sixty-six\nyears before Christ was born he built a strong gate in the west part of\nthe city, and he named it, in his own honour, Ludgate; and when he {15}\ndied his body was buried by this gate.  Turn back to the little map of\nLondon on p. 11; there you will find Ludgate marked.  St. Paul's\nCathedral stands just to the east of it, on Ludgate Hill.\n\nThese stories were first written down by a Welsh priest called Geoffrey\nof Monmouth, who lived in the days of King Stephen; and long ago\neveryone believed they were true.  Then came a time when people said\nwhat, perhaps, you are thinking, \"These stories are only fairy-tales.\nWho made them up?\"  Well, Geoffrey of Monmouth said, in his book\nwritten nearly 800 years ago, that he had read them in a still older\nbook which came out of Brittany.  Who else had read this old book?  No\none, so Geoffrey said; so people left off believing them; they were put\naside and forgotten.  Now wise men think that they are really the old\nstories of our nation which have been passed down from father to son,\nand that perhaps the heroes of which they tell are the gods the people\nonce worshipped, that Lud was a God of the Waters.  If so, was it not\nvery natural that he was worshipped in Old London on the shores of the\nThames and the Fleet Rivers?\n\nThere is another hero, Bran the Blessed, of whom I must tell you.  He\ntoo was King of the Isle of the Mighty, as Britain was called.  He was\nso big no ship could contain him for he was like a mountain, and his\neyes were like two lakes.  In the end of his days he fought with the\nIrish in their own land until only he and seven of his followers were\nleft alive, and he was wounded unto death.  And he said to his\nfollowers, \"Very soon I shall die; then cut off my head, and {16} take\nit with you to London, and there bury it in the White Mountain looking\ntowards France, and no foreigners shall invade the land while it is\nthere.\"  Much more he told them of the manner of their coming to\nLondon, and all that he said came true, so that many years passed away\nbefore in the White Mount, where the Tower now stands, they buried the\nhead.  There it lay until Arthur dug it up, for he said, \"The strong\narm should defend the land.\"  He meant that the men of a nation should\nbe its defence.\n\nArthur himself was proclaimed King in London.  Perhaps you remember the\nold story of the child who was brought up so secretly that, when the\nKing, his father, died, no one knew who was now the rightful King or,\nindeed, if there was one.  Then, as Merlin the Magician had advised,\nthe Archbishop of Canterbury called on all the great lords of the\nkingdom to come together in London; and there, one day, outside the\ngreatest church in the City (was it St. Paul's, I wonder?) they saw a\ngreat stone with a sword sticking in it; and round about the stone,\nwritten in letters of gold, were these words:--\"Whoso pulleth out this\nsword of this stone is right wise born King of England.\"  The great\nlords tried to pull it out, and not one of them could do so; but young\nArthur, who had come to town with his foster-father and foster-brother,\npulled it out easily, not because he wanted to show that he was the\nKing,--he does not seem to have known about this,--but because his\nfoster-brother had sent him to fetch a sword and he could get no other.\nThus, all men knew that he was \"right wise born King of England.\"\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 5.  A ROOM IN THE TOWER WHERE STATE PRISONERS WERE\nLODGED.]\n\n======================================================================\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 6.  SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER WATCH THE\nCARTHUSIAN PRIORS GOING AWAY TO DIE.  _See page_ 26]\n\n======================================================================\n\n\n\n\n{17}\n\nII.\n\nTHE STORY OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY\n\nTurn to the picture facing p. 8.  If you have ever been in London, I\nthink you will know that this is a picture of part of Westminster\nAbbey.  Even if you have never seen the Abbey, perhaps you know that it\nis a very old and beautiful church near the River Thames in London.\nImagine that you are standing near it now, and that you can see its old\ngrey walls, and the grass and railings which separate it from the busy\nstreet with its motors and omnibuses, its carriages and carts.  Now,\nwith the roar of the streets in our ears, with the tall London\nbuildings all around us, and busy people constantly hurrying past us,\nlet us try to fancy what this spot was like in the very early times\nwhen we first hear of it.\n\nThen the Thames was clear and fresh and full of fish, and many a red\ndeer and other wild animal wandered along its banks and drank of its\nwaters.  About a mile and a half above London, where the river was wide\nand shallow, one of those little brooks of which I have told you ran\ninto it; and here, where the waters of the brook and of the river met,\nwas a bank of sandy gravel, which at high tide was an island, so it was\ncalled Thorney or Thorn Ey--the Island of Thorns--for it was all\novergrown with thorn-bushes.  Very lonely, very quiet, Thorney must\nhave been.\n\n{18}\n\nWho first lived there, what kind of a dwelling-place they had, we do\nnot really know.  In later days the monks, whose home it then was, said\nthat once the temple of a Roman god had stood there, and that when the\nBritons became Christians a good King built in its place a Christian\nchurch called the Abbey of St. Peter.  Do you remember that, after the\nRomans left Britain, the English, who were still heathen, came over the\nNorth Sea and conquered the Britons and settled on their lands?  The\nmonks said that in those days of war and trouble the little Abbey of\nSt. Peter was destroyed.  Early in the seventh century, when the\nEnglish also had learnt the Christian Faith, Sebert, King of the East\nSaxons, rebuilt the little abbey, and when he died he was buried there.\nSo said the monks, and to this very day there is a grave in Westminster\nAbbey which is said to be Sebert's.\n\nThere is a strange story told about this ancient church.  It was just\nfinished, and the first Bishop of London, Mellitus, was to come on a\ncertain Monday to consecrate it--that is, to set it apart for the\nservice of God.  The evening before a man called Edric was fishing in\nthe river.  Suddenly, on the southern bank, he saw a bright light; he\npulled his little boat towards it, and saw standing by the water a\nstrange-looking stately man, who pointed towards Thorney and said,\n\"Ferry me, I pray thee, across to yonder place\"; and Edric did so.  As\nthe stranger landed and went to the new church the air was filled with\nheavenly light, the church was \"without darkness or shadow,\" and\nthrough the light angels came flying from the skies, and with their\nhelp the stranger held the solemn service of {19} consecration.  All\nthis Edric heard and saw.  Do you wonder that he forgot all about his\nfishing?\n\nWhen the service was ended and, I suppose, the heavenly light had faded\naway and darkness again covered the place, the stranger came to Edric\nand asked for food.  \"Alas!\" he answered, \"I have none.  I have not\ncaught a single fish.\"\n\nThen said the stranger, \"I am Peter, Keeper of the Keys of Heaven.\nWhen the Bishop comes to-morrow, tell him that I, St. Peter, have\nconsecrated my own church of St. Peter.  Go thou out into the river;\nthou wilt catch many a fish, whereof the most part will be salmon.\nThis I grant thee if thou wilt promise two things;--first, that never\nagain wilt thou fish on Sunday; and, secondly, that thou wilt give\none-tenth of thy fish to the Abbey of St. Peter.\"\n\nNext day King Sebert and the Bishop of London came to Thorney.  There,\nby the new church, with a salmon in his hand, Edric, the fisherman, was\nwaiting to tell his story.  Did they believe it?  How could they help\nbelieving? for he showed them the marks of twelve crosses on the\nchurch, and the traces of the sacred oil and of the candles which the\nangels had held!  There was nothing left for the Bishop to do but to\ndeclare that the church had been well and truly consecrated.\n\nThese are the wonderful stories the monks used to tell of their abbey.\nI suppose they loved it so much that they wanted people to think it as\nold and as wonderful as it could possibly be.\n\nBut now we have come to real history which we know to be true.  In 1042\nEdward, called the {20} Confessor, became King of England.  Englishmen\nlong remembered him and what he looked like; his hair and beard were\nmilky white, and his cheeks were red; he loved hunting and long\nservices in church; and his people believed that the touch of his hand\nwould heal the sick, and that God spoke to him in dreams and visions.\n\nHis father had been driven out of England by the Danes, and Edward had\ngrown up in Normandy; so it came about that he loved the Normans, who\nwere more courteous than the rude rough English.  Yet I think he loved\nEngland too, for we are told that he made a vow to St. Peter that if\never he returned there in safety he would make a pilgrimage to the\nsaint's grave in Rome.\n\nHe did not keep this vow; his people would not let him, for they said,\n\"The journey to Rome is long and dangerous, and our King is very\nprecious to us.  We cannot let him go.\"  But a man, even if he is a\nKing, may not break a solemn vow, so Edward asked the Pope what he must\ndo, and the Pope answered, \"Stay at home and rule thy people; yet, as\nthou hast vowed to make a pilgrimage to Rome, do some other costly\nthing instead.  Build a new church, or rebuild an old one in honour of\nSt. Peter.\"  And King Edward determined to rebuild the little church at\nThorney, or Westminster as we must now call it; for the thorns had long\nsince been cleared away, the sandy bank was no longer an island even at\nhigh-water, and pleasant meadows lay on either side of the river.\n\nFor fifteen years the work went on; Edward was so interested in it, so\nloved it, that he watched over and {21} cared for every part of it.\nNow at last, at Christmas-time of the year 1065, the east end was\nfinished.  How eagerly the King looked forward to its consecration!  It\nwas indeed consecrated three days after Christmas, on the Feast of the\nHoly Innocents, but the King was not there; he was very ill, and within\na few days he died.  The first great service held in the new Abbey was\nhis funeral; he was buried before the high Altar.  After this there was\nno peace or happiness in England for many a day.  Edward left no son,\nso the greatest of the English Earls, Earl Harold, was made King.  But\nWilliam, Duke of Normandy, declared that Edward had promised him the\ncrown; and he came across the sea, and fought and killed Harold on the\nSussex Hills at the Battle of Hastings.  Thus the Norman Duke became\nWilliam I., King of England, and he was crowned in Westminster Abbey on\nChristmas Day, 1066.  Inside the church with him were the Norman\nnobles; outside crowded the poor English.\n\nWhen he was proclaimed King at the Altar, the English shouted, as was\ntheir custom, \"God save the King!\"  The Normans within the Abbey heard\nand wondered.  What could the shouts mean?  Were the English rising\nagainst them?  Full of fear and anger they rushed out to find\neverything in confusion, the houses ablaze, and their men, who had been\nleft outside on guard, killing the poor English.  In the Abbey William\nand the Bishops and monks were left almost alone; and thus, in the\ngloom and darkness of the winter's day, with the sound of tumult and\nfighting ringing in their ears, the Conqueror was {22} crowned.  This\nwas the first coronation in the Abbey; facing p. 9 is a picture of it.\n\nTwo hundred years later King Henry III. pulled down Edward the\nConfessor's Abbey, and built in its place the Abbey we still have.  In\nit the Confessor's tomb is behind the altar; for Henry had his body\nreverently moved from its first grave to a chapel which he had\nespecially prepared for it.  When you go to the Abbey you will see that\nthis chapel is higher than any of the others; some people say the\nreason is that, to do more honour to the Confessor, King Henry sent\nships to bring earth from the Holy Land, and this sacred earth was\npiled up into a mound behind the high Altar, and on it the Confessor's\nchapel was built.  This is the part of the Abbey shown in picture 3;\nturn back and look at it again.  Do you see that the old tomb is\ncovered with purple velvet?  Are not the pillars and arches about it\nbeautiful?\n\nI have told you only the beginning of the Abbey's history.  Not only\nare all our Kings crowned there but many of them lie buried there too;\nso also do some of the best and wisest men who have served our country,\nsome of our bravest sailors, and of our greatest poets.  Thus it comes\nabout that the history of the Abbey is as long as the history of our\ncountry--indeed, it _is_ the history of our country.\n\n\n\n\n{23}\n\nIII.\n\nTHE STORY OF THE CHARTER HOUSE\n\nIn 1347 Edward III. was besieging Calais; he was at war with France,\nand but the year before had won the great victory of Crecy.  The siege\nlasted a whole year, and then at last the men of Calais could hold out\nno longer, for the French King could not help them and they had no food\nleft.  When King Edward heard this he sent to them one of his knights,\nSir Walter Manny, with this message, \"Give yourselves up to me that I\nmay do with you what I will.\"  This was a hard thing to ask, so hard\nthat Edward's lords pleaded with him to show mercy; and the King gave\nway and said he would be content if six citizens came to him, barefoot,\nin their shirts, with ropes about their necks, and bearing the city's\nkeys.  \"On them,\" he said, \"I will do my will.\"  So the Captain of\nCalais gave up six of the citizens to Sir Walter Manny, and he brought\nthem to the King and begged him to spare their lives--begged, but\nbegged in vain.  Then Queen Philippa, Edward's wife, weeping bitterly,\nfell on her knees, and prayed the King for love of our Lord to have\nmercy; and the King's heart was moved to pity, and he answered her,\n\"Though I do it against my will--take them!  I give them to you.\"  Can\nyou not fancy how well she treated them, and how happy she was when she\nsent them home to Calais?\n\nIn those days, outside the walls of London towards {24} the north-west\nwas a pleasant land of fields and trees, of streams and clear sweet\nsprings, a lonely land with few houses except three great monasteries.\nHere Sir Walter Manny and the Bishop of London of that time founded\nanother monastery for twenty-four monks and a Prior or chief monk.  It\nwas called the London Charter House, for it was one of several Charter\nHouses which all belonged to the same kind of monks, who all obeyed the\nsame rules and wore the same dress, and so they are said to belong to\nthe same Order.  This new Charter House stood on land which had been\ngiven (some by Sir Walter Manny, some by a former Bishop of London,) to\nbe used as a burial-ground for people who had died in the great\nsickness, called the Black Death, in the year 1349.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 7.  OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER\nHOUSE.  _See page_ 28]\n\n======================================================================\n\nLet us fancy what the life of the monks of the Charter House was like.\nTheir day began at an hour when you are sound asleep in bed; at eleven\no'clock the convent bell rang, and at midnight the monks met in chapel\nfor Matins, their first service, which often lasted two hours, or even\nlonger, so slowly, so solemnly, did they chant the psalms and prayers.\nWhen it was over the monks went back to their beds until five o'clock,\nwhen they rose and went about the business of the day.  What did they\nfind to do?  They were busy all day long, for they had to take part in\nthe many services of the chapel; and each monk had his own little house\nand garden, called his \"cell,\" where he passed most of his time alone.\nHere he read and prayed; here he worked,--perhaps at carpentering or\nsome such trade, perhaps he copied or wrote books; here he ate his\nsolitary meal, the only meal {25} of the day, which might be of eggs,\nfish, fruit and vegetables, but never of meat; sometimes it was of\nbread and water only.  By seven o'clock his day was ended and he was\nasleep in bed.  One of the strictest rules of this Order of monks is\nthat they shall be silent except in Chapel.  They only meet together\ntwice a week; once when they all dine together, and again on Sundays,\nwhen they all go for a long walk in company.\n\nThis has been the life of every Carthusian monk (so the Charter House\nmonks are called,) ever since the Order was founded in the eleventh\ncentury; and this was the life of the London Charter House from the\ndays of Edward III. until the reign of Henry VIII.  Do you remember\nthat he and his Parliament broke the links which bound together the\nChurches of Rome and England?  In 1534 a law was made which said that\nthe King, not the Pope, should henceforth be the Head of the English\nChurch, and that anyone who would not agree to this was a traitor.\nSome people in England were very glad of this, for there were things in\nthe Church which seemed to them altogether wrong; \"Now,\" they thought,\n\"these wrong things can be set right.\"  But other people were very\nsorry; they believed the Pope was indeed Head of the whole Church, that\nGod had made him so, and what God had willed man cannot alter.  Amongst\nthose who thought so were the monks of the Charter House.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 8.  ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED.\n_See page_ 30]\n\n======================================================================\n\nIt is hard to wait day by day for some dreadful thing which we know is\nsurely coming to us, so these were sad days for the monks.  Were they\nfrightened, I wonder, when they heard what was going on in the {26}\nworld outside their walls, and knew that soon, very soon, they must\ntell the fierce King that for them the Pope was and must always be Head\nof the Church?  What would happen to them?  Did their prayers and\nsolemn services strengthen and comfort them then?  Yes, indeed they\ndid.  And their Prior, John Houghton, was a brave true man, as men have\nneed to be in such times; and not only by his words, but by his deeds,\nhe taught his monks to choose rather to die than to give up what they\nbelieved to be true; for in the spring of the next year he and two\nother Carthusian Priors told Thomas Cromwell, the King's great\nMinister, that they could not change their Faith.  They were sent to\nthe Tower, tried as traitors in Westminster Hall, and found guilty.\nTurn to picture 6; here you see Sir Thomas More, in this month of May\nhimself a prisoner in the Tower for the same reason, watching the three\nPriors and another monk going away to die.  As he watched, More said to\nhis daughter, \"Lo, dost thou see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be\nnow as cheerful going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their\nmarriages?\"\n\nAt Tyburn Tree, where the Marble Arch now stands, John Houghton laid\ndown his life for his Faith.\n\nTwo sad years followed; then all but ten of the monks yielded to the\nKing and promised to \"forsake the Bishop of Rome.\"  These ten were sent\nto Newgate Prison.  There they would very soon have died, for in those\ndays life in a prison was a dreadful thing, but they were helped by a\nbrave woman, called Margaret Clement, whom Sir Thomas More had brought\nup with his own daughter Margaret.  \"Moved {27} with a great compassion\nof those holy Fathers, she dealt with the gaoler ... and withal did win\nhim with money that he was content to let her come into the prison to\nthem, which she did, attiring and disguising herself as a milkmaid,\nwith a great pail upon her head full of meat, wherewith she fed that\nblessed company, putting meat into their mouths, they being tied and\nnot able to stir, nor to help themselves.\"\n\nSoon orders came that the monks were to be kept very strictly, and the\ngaoler could not allow Margaret Clement to visit them; then, one after\nanother, all but one died.\n\nIn 1538 the rest of the monks were turned out of the Charter House.\nSorrowfully they passed out under its great archway, and went their\ndifferent ways to places of safety.\n\nAnd was the Charter House left empty to fall into ruins?  No; it became\nthe property of first one great lord and then of another.  They altered\nit to meet their needs; the monks' cells disappeared; it became a grand\nmansion.  Queen Elizabeth and James I. both stayed there.\n\nAt last it was sold to Thomas Sutton, a merchant who had made a large\nfortune by mining for coal near Newcastle and selling it in London.  He\nmust have been a good old man, for we are told he used often to go into\nhis quiet garden to pray, \"Lord, Thou hast given me a large and liberal\nestate; give me also a heart to make use thereof.\"\n\nHe had no children, and when he died, in 1611, he left his great wealth\nto found a free school, and a \"hospital\" where eighty old\nmen--\"soldiers who had {28} borne arms by land or sea, merchants who\nhad been ruined by shipwreck or piracy, and servants of the King or\nQueen,\"--could spend their last days in peace.  They are called the\nCharter House Pensioners.  Turn back to picture 7; these two old men\nare Pensioners.  At first there were to be but forty boys in the\nschool, but the numbers grew larger and larger; and many a great man\nhas been educated in the famous Charter House School.\n\nAs the years passed on and London spread beyond its walls, the pleasant\nfields about the Charter House were covered with streets and houses.\nAt last, about fifty years ago, the Governors of the school thought it\nwould be wise to move it to a more open place; so they built a new\nschool at Godalming in Surrey, and the boys moved into it in 1872.\nInto the old buildings they had left came a great day-school, the\nMerchant Taylors', so there are still about 500 boys as well as the old\npensioners in the London Charter House.\n\nWhat a strange history the Charter House has!  What changes it has\nseen!  The convent with its silent monks, the great house with its\nstate and royal visitors, the noisy school, the peaceful home of the\nold pensioners,--the Charter House bears traces of them all.  For here\nare still the courts and cloisters and the chapel of the monks, and the\nstateroom of the great noble; the boys' playground (picture 2 shows us\na little bit of it,) is the square round which once stood the monks'\nquiet cells; in the chapel we may see the tomb of the Founder, Sir\nThomas Sutton; indeed, both the Founders, Sir Thomas Sutton and Sir\nWalter Manny, lie buried there.\n\n\n\n\n{29}\n\nIV.\n\nTWO FAMOUS CHARITIES\n\nTurn to picture 8; this is the ancient church of St. Bartholomew the\nGreat.  In it, on the north side of the altar, is an old old tomb on\nwhich lies a stone figure in a quaint dress; it is the tomb of Rahere,\nsaid to be the founder of the church and of the great Hospital of St.\nBartholomew near-by.\n\nThis is the story of Rahere:--He was born in France in the reign of\nWilliam the Conqueror.  Early in the twelfth century he was in England,\nand he was often at the Courts of the Red King and of Henry I.  We are\ntold that he was \"a pleasant-witted gentleman, and therefore in his\ntime called the Kinge's Minstrell\"; indeed, the old chronicler seems to\nthink he led an idle foolish life.  If this is true, he certainly\nrepented before long, for he became a pilgrim and made the long and\ndifficult journey to Rome to visit there the places where the Apostles\nSt. Peter and St. Paul were martyred.  In Rome he fell ill, and when he\nwas getting better he vowed he would make a hospital \"yn re-creacion\n(that is, re-creation or healing) of poure men.\"\n\nAnd now wonderful things happened.  In a dream or vision Rahere saw the\nApostle Bartholomew, who said to him such words as these:--\"Build not\nonly a {30} hospital but also a church, and build them in Smithfield by\nthe City of London.\"  So Rahere went home, called together the citizens\nof London, and told them what he meant to do.  And they answered, \"This\nis a hard thing to compass for Smithfield lieth within the King's\nmarket.\"\n\nRahere then went to King Henry I. and told him his story, and the King\ngave him the land he needed,--such land! wet and marshy, \"moorish\nland,\" an old writer says, \"heretofore a common,\" where the Londoners\nused to fling out the rubbish and dirt of their city.  On this land, in\nthe year 1123, Rahere began to build his hospital, which he called\nafter the Apostle who had appeared to him; and later, as that Apostle\nhad bidden him, he built a Priory; the church you see in picture 8 is\npart of its church.\n\nWho helped Rahere to do all this?  The citizens of London.  We are told\nthat he gathered together a crowd of people by pretending to be mad,\nand then he made them work; they drained the wet marshy soil, they\ncarried great stones, they laboured hard.  Thus the hospital was built.\n\nRahere was its first master.  A friend of his, called Alfune, \"went\nhimselfe dayly to the Shambles and other markets, where he begged the\ncharity of devout people for their\" (that is, the poor sick people's)\n\"reliefe.\"  Now, the charity he asked for was food for them to eat.\n\nRahere's last years were quietly spent in his own Priory, where he died\nin the year 1144.  This is his story, but it was first written down\nwhen writers loved rather to tell wonderful things about great men {31}\nthan to seek out the exact truth about them.  Now some people think he\ndid not found the hospital, but both hospital and church are far older\nthan his day; and that the Priory was built for the monks who managed\nthe hospital.\n\nHowever this may be, the monks of the Priory certainly had great\nprivileges; one of them was that every year, at the Festival of St.\nBartholomew, for three days they might hold a fair in the \"smooth\nfield\" or Smithfield.  Have you ever been to a country fair, and seen\nits funny little stalls of sweets and chinaware and its quaint shows?\nIf you have, you must know that most English fairs are not at all\nimportant nowadays; but in the times of which I am writing most of the\nbuying and selling in England was done at them.  And so the old writer,\nStow, tells us that to St. Bartholomew's Fair \"the Clothiers of all\nEngland and Drapers of London repayred and had their boothes and\nstandings within the churchyard of this priorie, closed in with walles,\nand gates locked every night, and watched for safetie of men's goodes\nand wares\"--so rich and valuable was its merchandise.  Year by year it\nwas held until 1855; then it was done away with, for serious buying and\nselling were no longer carried on at such fairs, and \"Bartlemy Fair,\"\nas it was called, was now famous only for its shows of wild beasts,\ndwarfs and giants, for its ox roasted whole, and for its scenes of wild\nmerry-making.\n\nFor four hundred years the monks of St. Bartholomew's tended the poor\npeople of London.  Then came the days when Henry VIII. broke up the\nmonasteries; in 1539 he turned the monks out of the Priory and closed\n{32} the hospital.  Presently I will tell you what afterwards happened\nto it.\n\n\nFor the beginning of our second charity we must go far away from London\nto the little town of Assisi in Italy.  There, on a spring day of the\nyear 1209, a young man kneeling in a little church heard the priest\nreading the Gospel for the day:--\"As ye go, preach, saying, 'The\nKingdom of Heaven is at hand.'  Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers....\nProvide neither silver nor gold nor brass in your purses, neither scrip\nnor two coats, nor shoes nor staff.\"  The young man felt as though\nChrist Himself was speaking to him.  \"From henceforth,\" he said, \"I\nshall set myself with all my might to live thus.\"\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 9.  AN EXCITING GAME: OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON]\n\n======================================================================\n\nIf you had asked the people of Assisi about him, they would have\nanswered you in some such words as these, \"Yonder man?  He is Francis,\nthe spendthrift son of the cloth-merchant, Pietro Bernardone.  He to\nmake such a vow! he, the idle companion of the foolish young nobles of\nAssisi, the waster of his father's wealth!  It is true he has changed\nof late, but his new way of life pleases his father not at all, for he\nhas given away all he possessed, and says he has taken Poverty as his\nbride.  He visits the lepers, and labours to repair some of the poor\nchurches of the town.\"\n\nYet Francis kept his vow.  Dressed in a simple grey gown, he went in\nand out amongst the poorest of the people, preaching to them and\ntending the sick.  In return they could give him but a scanty meal or a\nnight's lodging; money he would not take; it was, he {33} said, of no\nuse to him.  And wherever he was, whatever he was doing, no matter what\nhardships he had to bear--and he had many--he was always full of\nhappiness.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 10.  ENTRANCES OF THE OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AND OF\nCHRIST CHURCH, LONDON]\n\n======================================================================\n\nIn those hard cruel days men thought little of pain and suffering; but\nFrancis had love and sympathy, not only for men, but for animals and\nfor all things.  In one of his poems he calls the moon his sister, and\nthe sun his brother; and he gives thanks for \"our sister water, who is\nvery serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean,\" and for\n\"our brother fire; he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and\nstrong.\"  We hear of him preaching to the birds, and bidding them be\nthankful for their feather-clothes and wings.\n\nSoon other men joined themselves to him to live and teach as he did,\nand they were called Franciscans, the Monks of St. Francis; and\nsometimes the Grey Friars, because, like St. Francis, they wore grey\ngowns; and they are also called the Begging Friars, because they too\nhad taken Poverty for their bride, and might own neither houses nor\nlands; even food they must earn by the labour of their own hands, or\nkindly people must give it to them.  All their time, all their thoughts\nmust be given to helping the poor, the sick, and the wretched; and\nwhere they were, there the Friars must go, so they made their homes\nchiefly in the towns; and at first, while they kept the rules of St.\nFrancis very strictly, even these homes did not really belong to them.\n\nIn 1224 nine Franciscans came to England--the very first to come here.\nFour of them went straight {34} to London.  There the poorer people\nlived on the marshy land near the Thames, huddled together in huts\nbuilt of mud and wattle; and in such homes there must have been plenty\nof sickness and misery.  For a short time the four Grey Friars lived on\nCornhill.  Perhaps they thought they had no right to live in so\npleasant a place when there was such great misery down by the river;\ncertainly, soon so many people came about them that this first home was\ntoo small for them.  Now, a London citizen had some property \"in\nStynkyng Lane and in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles.\"  Do you know\nwhat shambles are?  In them animals are killed for food; they cannot be\nnice places to live in.  This property the citizen gave to the Friars,\nand there they made their new home.  By their good deeds they must very\nquickly have won the respect of the Londoners, for some gave them more\nlands, and others helped in building a church and monastery for them.\nThis monastery was close to the place where the London General Post\nOffice now stands.\n\nIn those days the monasteries did most of the work which is now done by\nschools, libraries, hospitals, hotels, and workhouses; no doubt the\nFranciscans did their full share of it in London.  But as the years\npassed on and the first monks died, the younger men who took their\nplaces became less strict in keeping the rules of St. Francis; many\npeople gave money and lands to the Order, and it became rich and great,\nand changed very much.  Before a hundred years had passed away, in\nplace of their first church, a new one had been built for them, one of\nthe grandest in the {35} land; its floor and pillars were all of\nmarble.  St. Francis told his followers that they needed no books but a\nPrayer-Book; before long the Grey Friars not only had books, but two\nhundred years after they settled in London Richard Whittington gave\nthem a library.  They no longer gave all their time to caring for the\npoor and wretched, for we hear of some of them teaching at Oxford and\nCambridge; indeed, one of the most learned men of the age, Roger Bacon,\nwas a Grey Friar.\n\nThus the years passed on until Henry VIII. became King.  Do you\nremember how he treated the monks of the Charter House?  I have no such\nstory to tell you of the Grey Friars, for they gave up to the King\ntheir monastery and all they possessed when he called on them to do so.\n\nWere the monks missed?  Who did the work they had once done?  At first\nmuch of it was left quite undone.  Here is a little bit of a letter\nwhich the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Richard Gresham, wrote to the King,\nin 1538, on this very subject:--Someone, he says, must come to the\n\"ayde and comfort of the poor, syke [sick], blynde, aged and impotent\npersons beyng not able to help themselffs, nor havyng no place certen\nwhere they may be refreshed or lodged at, tyll they be holpen and cured\nof their diseases and sickness.\"  And he goes on to ask that three\nancient hospitals may be given over to the Mayor and Aldermen of the\nCity to carry on once more their old work.  King Henry thought this was\na wise plan, and in 1546 he gave to London Rahere's old hospital, St.\nBartholomew's, and the Grey Friars' monastery.\n\n{36}\n\nNothing more seems to have been done for five years.  Yet the poor\nneeded help greatly; and under Henry's son, Edward VI., we hear of\nsermons being preached, of the King, the Bishop of London, and the\nMayor consulting together and making a new plan--that the house of the\nGrey Friars should be set aside as a hospital or home for \"fatherless\nchildren and other poore mens children,\" where they should be fed,\nclothed, taught, and properly looked after.  Thus Edward VI. is often\nspoken of as the chief founder of the new charity, but I think Henry\nVIII. and Sir Richard Gresham had more to do with it; don't you?  Yet\nit was the City's charity, and the citizens provided the money needed\nfor it.  Before the next winter set in nearly 400 boys and girls were\nlodged in the old Grey Friars; the next Christmas Day (1552), the\nchildren, 340 in number, \"all in one livery of russet cotton,\" lined\nthe road as the Lord Mayor and Aldermen passed in procession to St.\nPaul's Cathedral.  \"The next Easter they were in blew [blue] at the\nSpittle [hospital], and so have continued ever since\"; and from these\n\"blew\" clothes the school has taken one of its names--the Blue-Coat\nSchool.  Its other name is Christ's Hospital.\n\nHundreds of boys have worn the long blue gown and yellow stockings, and\nsome of them have become famous men.  I will tell you the name of only\none of these, Charles Lamb; for he has written about the school as he\nknew it, and perhaps you have read Lamb's \"Tales from Shakespeare\"; he\nand his sister Mary wrote them.\n\nFacing page 32 is a picture of Blue-Coat boys, with {37} their gowns\ntucked up, playing football.  Until a short time ago, people in the\nbusy street called Holborn could look through the bars which separated\nthe playground from it, and watch the boys at play.  They can do this\nno longer, for the old buildings have been pulled down, and part of the\nground they stood on has been bought for the General Post Office; and\nin the year 1902 the school, like the Charter House School, moved away\ninto the country, to Horsham.\n\nFrom the beginning it was meant for girls as well as boys; old papers\nabout it always speak, not of the _boys_, but of the \"_children_ of\nthis House.\"  Boys and girls seem to have lived there, to have dined\ntogether in Hall, and even at one time to have shared a classroom for\nwriting-lessons; part of the girls' work was to learn to make their own\nand the boys' clothes.  They too wore a quaint dress with white caps\nand wide collars, but they gave it up long ago; and long ago, in 1778,\nthey left London; their school is at Hertford.  It has never been as\nfamous as the boys' school.\n\n\nNow I must tell you a little about King Henry's other gift to London,\nSt. Bartholomew's Hospital.  It is now one of the largest of the London\nhospitals, and has become very famous as a school where young men are\ntaught and trained to be doctors; perhaps your doctor was once a\nstudent there.\n\nA great part of the Priory church was pulled down as soon as it fell\ninto the hands of Henry VIII., and for many years the rest of it was\nneglected and allowed to fall almost into ruins.  Even in the\nnineteenth {38} century, stables, coach-houses, and store-rooms stood\nwhere once were the monks' old cloisters.  In one part of the church\nwas a blacksmith's forge, a fringe factory had taken possession of\nanother, and in still another the boys of the parish school did their\nlessons.  Now all this has been changed.  For more than fifty years\nmuch care, thought and money have been spent in restoring the building\nand in getting rid of stables, forge, factory, and school; and now\nLondoners have every reason to be proud of their beautiful old church.\n\n\n\n\n{39}\n\nV.\n\nTHE STORY AND HISTORY OF DICK WHITTINGTON\n\n  \"Turn again, Whittington,\n  Lord Mayor of London!\"\n\n\nBow bells sang these words on All-Hallows Day many years ago, and on\nHighgate Hill a boy stood listening to them.  If I ask you who the boy\nwas, I am sure you will answer, \"Dick Whittington.\"\n\nThe story of Dick Whittington can be told in two very different ways:\nthere is, first, the old tale which long ago men told their children,\nand these children told their children.  Thus it was passed on from\nfather to son, and we do not know that it was ever written down until\nthe days of James I., nearly two hundred years after Whittington died.\nOf course, everyone who told this tale wanted to make it as interesting\nas possible, so little bits were added to it, and it gradually grew\nmore and more wonderful.  It is not surprising, then, that learned men\nhave not been satisfied with it, and they have searched the Chronicles\nand Records of London to find out what they tell us of Richard\nWhittington, and thus a second story has been made.  Now I will tell\nyou first the older story.\n\nDick Whittington was born in the West of England.  While he was still\nonly a little boy his father and mother died, and left him so poor that\nhe had no home, and was thankful to do even the hardest work {40} for\njust his bare food.  One day someone told him that the streets of\nLondon were paved with gold.  \"Can it be true?\" he thought to himself.\n\"Is there so much gold in London that it is trodden underfoot?  Then it\nis my own fault if I starve here in the West Country, for am I not big\nenough and brave enough to tramp all the way up to London?  Who could\nprevent me from picking up some of that gold which surely no one needs,\nor they would not pave the streets with it?  And I need it so much!\nCourage, Dick Whittington; off with you to London!\"  So off he set, and\ntramped all the weary way to the great city.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 11.  AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE; TOWER BRIDGE IN THE\nDISTANCE.]\n\n======================================================================\n\nWhen he reached it, up and down its streets he went,--streets far\nnarrower than those of to-day, and darkened by the overshadowing\nhouses, for often each of their stories stood out a little beyond the\nstory below.  Very dirty we should have thought those streets, for\npeople often threw out into them their rubbish and refuse.  And what of\nthe gold?  Dick saw none.  At last, utterly wearied out, utterly\ndisappointed, so weak from hunger that he could hardly stand, he sank\ndown to rest on the doorstep of one of the houses.  Now the story says\nthat presently the cook of this house caught sight of him sitting\nthere.  She was a bad-tempered woman.  She flung open the door and\nscolded Dick well for an idle fellow, and bade him be off.  Dick begged\nher to give him work so that he might earn some food, but she would not\nlisten to him, and only scolded the more; and while this was going on\nup came the master of the house, a rich merchant, whose name was Hugh\nFitzwarren.  He asked the meaning of all these angry words, and {41} he\ntoo was vexed to see a boy sitting idly on his doorstep, and bade him\ngo to his work.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Dick, \"I have no work, and I have had nothing to eat for\nthree days.  I am a poor country lad, and here no one knows me, no one\nwill help me.\"  And he rose up to wander away again, but he was so\ntired, so weak, he could hardly stand.  The merchant saw this, and said\nto the cook, \"Take him in; feed him well, and set him to work to help\nthee in thy kitchen.\"\n\nNow, she was, as I said, a bad-tempered woman.  Her master's orders she\nmust and did obey, but if Dick now had work and food and a\nresting-place, he had also many a sharp word, many a sour look, many a\ncruel blow.  Though he worked hard he could not please her.  Indeed, in\nall the household--and it was a large one--the only person who was\nfriendly to him was the merchant's little daughter, Mistress Alice, who\nnot only spoke kindly to him herself, but tried to make his\nfellow-servants treat him better.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 12.  WHITTINGTON SETTING THE KING FREE FROM THE\nGREAT DEBT.]\n\n======================================================================\n\nDick slept in a garret which was overrun with rats and mice; they were\nso bold that they even crept about over him when he was in bed, and\nprevented him sleeping.  What could he do about this?  In all the world\nhe had but one penny; how he came by this penny I do not know, but I\nfeel sure he earned it by doing some extra work.  With it he bought a\ncat and took her up to his garret, and there she lived and made war on\nthe rats and mice.  Henceforth Dick slept in peace.\n\nWhenever the merchant, Hugh Fitzwarren, sent a ship to trade with\nforeign countries, he allowed each {42} of his servants to have some\nlittle share in her; each might send out in her some silk or cloth, or\neven a very little thing, whatever he had or could afford to buy; and\nthe money for which this thing was sold was the servant's own.  This\nthe merchant did that \"so God might give him greater blessing.\"  Thus\nit came about that one day Dick was called with all the other servants,\nand each was asked what he would send out in the good ship _Unicorn_,\nwhich was now ready for sea.  When it came to Dick's turn, he said, \"I\nhave nought to send.\"  \"Think again,\" said his master; \"hast thou no\nlittle thing thou canst spare?  Hast thou nought to venture?\"  \"Nought,\nnought,\" answered Dick, \"except my cat, and thou wilt not take her.\"\n\"Nay, why not?\" said the merchant.  \"Send thy cat by all means.\"  So,\nthough his fellow-servants laughed and mocked, Dick's cat was sent on\nboard the _Unicorn_.\n\nNow he was lonely indeed; so lonely that the cook's angry words and\ncross tempers were harder to bear than ever, and Dick made up his mind\nto run away.  Very early one morning--it was the Feast of\nAll-Hallows--while his fellow-servants were still fast asleep, he\nslipped out of Master Fitzwarren's house and made his way northward out\nof London.  On Highgate Hill he sat down to rest.  Hark! what was that\nhe heard?  Now the wind brought the sound to him more clearly; now it\ndied away again.  It was the chime of Bow bells, and this is what it\nsaid to him:--\n\n  \"Turn again, Whittington,\n  Lord Mayor of London!\"\n\n\n{43}\n\nLord Mayor of London!  Was he to be Lord Mayor?  If so, must he not\nwork faithfully, and, if need be, endure hardships--yes, even such\nlittle hardships as the cruel words and blows of the bad-tempered cook?\nUp he jumped, and hurried back so fast that he reached Master\nFitzwarren's house before the cook had missed him.\n\nThe _Unicorn_ had sailed to the Barbary Coast of Africa.  The King of\nthis country was rich and great, yet he was most miserable and\nuncomfortable, for his kingdom simply swarmed with rats and mice.  They\nwere everywhere, even in the beds and on the King's table, where they\nate the food which had been prepared for him.  When the men of the\n_Unicorn_ came to the Court to show the King the goods their ship had\nbrought, fancy how surprised they were to see rats and mice here,\nthere, and everywhere!  \"That cat we have on board,\" said they, \"would\nsoon stop this.\"  \"Then let the cat be sent for at once!\" cried the\nKing.  So Dick's cat was brought, and now in the palace, as once in\nDick's garret, she made fierce war on the rats and mice, and before\nlong she had driven them all away.  The King was so delighted that he\nbought the cat for ten times more money than he paid for all the\n_Unicorn's_ rich merchandise.\n\nWhen the ship came home, here was fine news for Dick,--no more\nkitchen-work for him; he was a rich man now.  He became a merchant like\nhis master, Hugh Fitzwarren, and by-and-by he married Mistress Alice;\nand, as Bow bells had promised him, he was made Mayor of London, not\nonce, but three times.  He was a good Londoner and a good Englishman,\nfor {44} the story says that when King Henry V. came home after he had\nconquered France, Whittington entertained him at a great banquet.  Look\nat the picture of this which faces page 41; near the table a fire is\nburning, and Whittington is just going to throw something into it.  How\neagerly everyone is watching him, and well they may; for before the\nKing went to France he had borrowed great sums of money from the City\nand its merchants to pay the cost of his wars, and now Whittington is\nflinging into the fire the papers in which the King had promised to pay\nback 37,000 crowns--that is, L60,000 in our money.  Thus he set the\nKing free from his debt, or, in other words, gave him all this money.\nWas not this a princely gift for the great merchant to give the great\nKing?\n\nNow I must tell you what the Chronicles and Records of London tell us\nabout Richard Whittington.  He was indeed born in the West of England,\nbut he belonged to a good family.  We do not know why and when he came\nto the City.  In those days it was certainly no disgrace for the\nyounger sons of good families to be London merchants; for the City was\ngreat and prosperous, able to raise large sums of money to help the\nKing in his wars; and we read that at a council held at the Guildhall\nabout this very matter, to which came the Archbishop of Canterbury and\nthe King's brothers, the Lord Mayor was given the seat of honour above\nthem all, so greatly was he respected because he was London's chief\nofficer.\n\nAll the workmen, according to their trades, had to belong to companies\ncalled \"guilds.\"  Each guild had its own officers and made its own\nrules for looking {45} after its members; and it had to see not only\nthat these members knew how to do their work, but also that they did it\nproperly and charged a fair price for it.  We may still read the rules\nabout all this made by the Guilds of the Blacksmiths, the Plumbers, the\nGlovers, and many others.  Truly, the merchants and workmen of London\nwere honourable and upright, and turned out good honest work.  No\nwonder, then, that Richard Whittington became a London merchant.\n\nHe was a mercer--that is, he sold cloth and silk and velvet and such\nthings; and so we hear of him providing velvet for the servants of that\nEarl of Derby who afterwards became King Henry IV.\n\nWhittington became a great man in the City, was Alderman and Sheriff,\nand from June, 1397, until November, 1399, he was Mayor.  Mayor for a\nyear and five months?  Are not Mayors appointed every year in October?\nand do they not rule only for one year, from November to November?\nYes, but the Mayor chosen in October 1396 died during his year of\noffice, and the King, Richard II., appointed Whittington to take his\nplace; and at the year's end the Aldermen chose him to be Mayor again\nfor the next year.\n\nHe was still carrying on his business, and when Henry IV. became King,\nand the Princesses, his daughters, were to be married, Whittington sold\nto them the cloth of gold and other things necessary for their\nweddings.  He often lent great sums of money to Henry IV., and in later\ndays to his son, Henry V., and in the reign of this King he was Mayor\ntwice.  He died in the year 1423; on his gravestone were carved some\nLatin words which mean that he was the {46} Flower of Merchants.  His\nwife's name was certainly Alice Fitzwarren, but she was the daughter of\na Dorsetshire Knight.\n\nSo you see the real Richard Whittington was a very great and rich\nmerchant.  But many another has been as rich and great, yet no stories\nare told of them; what makes Whittington different from all others?\n\nFirst of all, he was Lord Mayor three times, or, rather, may we not say\nthree and a half times?  And then he was very wise and generous; he\ngave, as I have already told you, a library to the Grey Friars; and he\narranged that after his death a great deal of his money should be used\nto help London.  His friends, who had to see to this, knew that good\nwater is one of the things most necessary for a great city, so they\narched over a spring to keep it clean and sweet, and they placed\n\"drinking-bosses,\" or taps, in the conduits or channels and pipes which\nbrought the water from country springs and streams into London.\nNewgate Prison was \"feble, over-litel, and so contagious of eyre [air]\nyat [that] hit caused the deth of many men,\" so Whittington's money was\nused to rebuild it.  It was also used to repair St. Thomas's Hospital,\nand to make a new hospital or almshouse where always thirteen old men\nshould live, who were to pray for Dick Whittington's soul, and the\nsouls of his father and mother and wife.  These almshouses are no\nlonger in the City; they have been moved out to Highgate, and stand not\nfar from the stone which marks the place where Whittington heard the\nchime of Bow bells; and through them Dick Whittington's wealth is still\ndoing good to the poor of London.\n\n\n\n\n{47}\n\nVI.\n\nWHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN\n\nIn the reign of Henry VI., Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the King's\nuncle, built himself a palace at Greenwich, and he called it\n\"Placentia\" or \"Plaisance,\" which means a pleasant thing or place.\n(Turn over this page and the next, and you will find a picture of it.)\nI think the Tudor Kings really found it a pleasant place, for they\nlived there a great deal; here Henry VIII. and his daughters, Mary and\nElizabeth, were born, and here Edward VI. died.\n\nIn those days the road we now call the Strand led from the City to the\nvillage of Charing Cross; and all along it stood great and beautiful\nhouses with gardens which stretched down to the river.  Each house,\nmost likely, had its water-gate or landing-place, where the master of\nthe house and his guests could step on board their barges, which might\ntake them up the river to Westminster and the royal palace near\nRichmond, or down to London and beyond it to Greenwich; for in those\ndays the river was London's greatest and most stately highway.  Very\nstately were the barges, very gay, too, with flags and the fine\nliveries of servants; and very often people on the banks or in little\nboats near-by heard music sounding from their decks as they moved\nswiftly along.  How beautiful, how stately, must Queen Elizabeth's\nbarge have been, when at her Coronation she came by water to the Abbey!\n\n{48}\n\nShe often stayed in her palace called Plaisance; how grandly she lived\nthere!  One who saw her there tells of the \"gentlemen, barons, earls,\nKnights of the Garter, all richly-dressed and bareheaded,\" who went\nbefore her; one of them carried the sceptre, another the sword of\nstate.  The ladies of her Court followed her, and she was guarded on\neach side by fifty gentlemen who carried gilt battle-axes.  She was\nherself magnificently dressed, and \"wherever she turned her face as she\npassed along, everybody fell down on their knees.\"\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 13.  GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW.]\n\n======================================================================\n\nSometimes, when she wanted to be amused, plays were acted in the great\nhall of the palace, and she sat in her chair of state with her ladies\nabout her and looked on.  I wonder if any of these plays were written\nby Shakespeare?  Perhaps they were; it is even possible that\nShakespeare himself may have acted before her, for he had come to\nLondon from his country home two years before the Spanish Armada sailed\nup the English Channel to conquer England; and during the last five\nyears of her reign, whenever Elizabeth went up the river in her barge,\nshe passed the round wooden theatre, called the Globe, where his plays\nwere acted, for it was in Southwark on the south bank.  There is no\nsign of it now; a great brewery has been built over the place where\nonce it stood.\n\nThese were the days when English sailors fought the Spanish on the high\nseas, because they claimed all the New World as their own and strove to\nkeep everyone else out of it.  From the windows or the terrace of her\npalace did the Queen ever watch ships sailing down the river to take\npart in this struggle, or in another,--a struggle with winds and waves,\nice and {49} snow, as the sailors tried to explore the unknown coasts\nof America?  Once at least we know she did, for Admiral Frobisher's two\nlittle ships fired a salute to her as they dropped down the river.  He\nwas going to search for gold and for the North-West Passage round the\nnorth of America to the Pacific.  He found no passage and no gold\nthough he went again and yet again to the cold North.  How often\nEnglishmen searched for that passage; how hard they found it to believe\nthat there is no way for ships through those icy seas!\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 14.  PLACENTIA, THE OLD PALACE AT GREENWICH.]\n\n======================================================================\n\nThose were stirring times.  Often sailors came home with wonderful\ntales to tell; and thus, in September, 1580, a ship, called the\n_Pelican_, sailed into Plymouth Sound, and all England rang with the\nnews of her coming, for she was Admiral Drake's ship.  Nearly three\nyears before he and his sailors had left England in her; they had\nfought the Spanish, they had taken great treasure, money and jewels,\nand they had sailed round the world.  Now they were safe home again.\nDo you wonder that the Queen wanted to see the ship which had made such\na voyage?  She told Drake to bring the _Pelican_ round to Deptford,\nwhich is very near Greenwich; and she went on board and took part in a\ngreat feast which was given in her honour; and she knighted Drake on\nthe deck of his own ship.  How proud Englishmen were of him!  One of\nthem said the _Pelican_ ought to be hoisted up to the top of the tower\nof St. Paul's Cathedral, to take the place of the spire which had been\ndestroyed by lightning some time before.  Was not this a mad plan?  Of\ncourse, it was never carried out.  For many a year the old ship lay in\nDeptford {50} Dockyard just as the Victory lies now in Portsmouth\nHarbour; and people used to visit her, and even have supper on board\nher.  When she was very old she was broken up; out of some of her\ntimbers a chair was made and presented to Oxford University.\n\nDo you remember what happened in 1588?  This was the year of the\nInvincible Armada, when England had to prepare ships and sailors and\nsoldiers to protect herself from the Spanish.  What help did London\ngive?  She was asked for fifteen ships and five thousand men.  \"Give us\ntwo days,\" said her citizens, \"to consider what we can do\"; and in two\ndays they answered, \"We will send thirty ships and ten thousand men to\nserve our country.\"\n\nLondon, then, had certainly plenty of ships; and many a sea-captain\nbesides Frobisher sailed down the river past Placentia on his way to\nsome far-off port; for London merchants were eager to trade with all\nparts of the world; and after the defeat of the Spanish Armada they\nknew that the wide ocean, east and west, lay open before them.  No\nSpaniard now could forbid English ships to sail on any sea.\n\nDrake had seen for himself and had brought home word of the spices and\ngreat wealth of the East Indies.  But they were very far off, and the\ncost of fitting out ships for so long a voyage was very great; great,\ntoo, were the dangers these ships would have to face--dangers of sea\nand storm, of savage people and an unknown land; could any one merchant\nrisk so much?  The Lord Mayor called together some London merchants to\nconsider this question, and they answered, \"The losses which would ruin\none would hardly be felt if {51} borne by many; let us, then, form a\ncompany to trade with the East.\"  Thus began the East India Company;\nits birthday was the very last day of the sixteenth century.  It had at\nfirst only four ships and less than five hundred men; before it came to\nan end, two hundred and fifty-eight years later, it was ruling nearly\nall India.\n\nI have another story to tell you which began nearly twenty years before\nthe East India Company's birthday.  In December, 1581, a young man came\nto Placentia, bringing letters to the Queen from her soldiers in\nIreland, where there had been war and great trouble.  He was carefully\ndressed and wore a new plush cloak, for this was, I think, his first\nvisit to Court, and the Queen loved to see everyone about her well and\nbeautifully dressed.  Perhaps he had only just arrived; perhaps the\nQueen had been out in her barge and was coming up from the riverside to\nher palace; however it may have been, she came to a very muddy place in\nthe road, which is not at all surprising, since in December there is\noften a great deal of rain.  The Queen looked at the puddles and\nstopped, and the young man sprang forward, swept his plush cloak from\nhis shoulders and spread it over the mud for her to step on that so she\nmight pass on without soiling her shoes.  I feel sure you know the\nyoung man's name--it was Walter Raleigh.  Is it any wonder that he\nbecame a great favourite with the Queen?  An old story says that soon\nafter this he wrote with a diamond on the glass of a window in the\npalace:--\n\n  \"Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall.\"\n\n\n{52}\n\nAnd the Queen saw it, and wrote beneath it:--\n\n  \"If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.\"\n\n\nHis heart did not fail him; he became captain of her Guard, and he rose\nhigher and higher in her service.\n\nRaleigh was the first Englishman to think how splendid it would be if\nsome of his countrymen would go to America and make homes for\nthemselves there, and so build up a greater England beyond the seas.\nHe sent out ships to explore, and twice he sent out men to settle in\nthe new land.  Some the Indians killed; some found the work of building\nhouses and clearing away the forests far harder than they had expected;\nand the Indians often attacked them, and food was sometimes so scarce\nthey almost died of hunger.  Do you wonder they lost heart and came\nback to England?  Thus it seemed that Raleigh's plan quite failed; but\nit did not really, for about twenty years later, a company, like the\nEast India Company, was formed, called the Virginia Company.  It sent\nout some settlers who sailed from London in the year 1606, and they did\nwhat Raleigh's men had failed to do--built themselves homes, and\ncleared and tilled the land.  Thus began the British Dominions beyond\nthe Seas.\n\nOne thing Raleigh did which must not be forgotten.  The men he sent to\nexplore in America saw potatoes and tobacco growing there, and learnt\nfrom the Indians how to use them.  When they came home they showed\nRaleigh the plants they had brought back with them.  He tried smoking\ntobacco, and I {53} think he must have liked it very much, for he used\nto give his friends pipes with silver bowls and teach them how to\nsmoke.  And he planted potatoes in the garden of a house he had in\nIreland; his were the very first Irish potatoes.  A few years later\nboth potatoes and tobacco were growing in the garden of one of those\nfine houses in the Strand of which I have told you; people thought them\nvery rare and curious plants.\n\nEight years before the great Queen died, Raleigh went himself to South\nAmerica, and sailed far up the River Orinoco.  He found a fertile land\nand friendly Indians, who told him wonderful stories of the great \"city\nof Manoa\" which was (so they said,) rich beyond the dreams of man; El\nDorado, the Golden City, the Spanish called it.  Raleigh never forgot\nthese stories; more than twenty years later they helped to bring him\nback to America.\n\nWhen Elizabeth died and James I. came to the throne he fell into\ndisgrace, for some people said he had plotted against the King; so he\nwas tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.  But he was not\nkilled; year after year he was kept a prisoner in the Tower of London.\nHow did he pass his days there? was he very dull and sad?  I think not.\nPart of the time his wife and son lived with him; he was very much\ninterested in the new science of chemistry, and he worked at it and\ntried experiments in his cell; he began to write a wonderful History of\nthe World; and I think he thought and dreamed much about Manoa, his\nGolden City, and the riches which lay hidden in South America.  The\nSpanish said these riches were {54} all theirs; but Raleigh did not\nbelieve this, and he thought Englishmen could so easily get possession\nof some of them.  After many years he tried to persuade King James to\nlet him cross the Atlantic and sail up the Orinoco to find a gold-mine\nhe had heard of there; he said if only he might go and open it up, it\nwould bring great wealth to the King.  Had he another hope, I wonder,\nhidden away in his heart, of which he did not speak--that he might also\nsearch for and find his Golden City?  However this may be, he certainly\ntried to persuade the King, and he succeeded, for James said, \"Yes, you\nmay go,\" though he well knew that Raleigh could not go to South America\nand bring home gold without offending the Spanish, and England was then\nat peace with Spain.  So Raleigh sailed away.  After fifteen months he\ncame home with a sad tale to tell;--everything had gone wrong, the\nSpanish had killed many of his men, and he had found no gold.  James\nsent him back to the Tower; and four months later, in the year 1618, he\nwas beheaded, because (so he was told,) he had once plotted against the\nKing.  Thus died the last of the great men of Queen Elizabeth's Court\nwho had done so much for England.\n\nHow different London is now from the London of Queen Elizabeth's reign!\nOld St. Paul's and its high tower,--I will tell you in the next story\nwhat became of them.  The Globe Theatre, too, has quite disappeared.\nBusy shops have taken the places of the beautiful old houses in the\nStrand; nothing now reminds us of them except the names of some of the\nstreets which turn off it; and Somerset House, the great building where\n{55} now some of the business of the nation is carried on, is so called\nbecause it stands on the place where the Duke of Somerset, who lived in\nEdward VI.'s reign, began to build a palace for himself.\n\nIf you go down the river to Greenwich, will you see Queen Elizabeth's\npleasant palace?  Ah, no.  Sixty years after she died it was so out of\nrepair that Charles II. ordered it to be pulled down and a new one\nbuilt in its place.  This new palace was not finished until William and\nMary's reign.  Then there was a great war with France, and the Queen\nbegged the King to finish the palace and to turn it into a hospital for\nsailors who had been wounded or crippled in one of the great\nsea-fights.  So it came to pass that, instead of Placentia, we now have\nGreenwich Palace; you will find a picture of it facing p. 48.\n\nPerhaps you are thinking, \"At any rate the Tower has not changed, and\nLondon still has a Lord Mayor.\"  But even the Tower has changed, for in\nQueen Elizabeth's time it was a royal palace as well as a prison.  She\ndid not use it often; perhaps she did not like it, for she had been a\nprisoner there herself when her sister Mary was Queen.  Now our Kings\nnever live there; and prisoners are not kept there; and for more than a\nhundred and fifty years no one has been beheaded there.  I must tell\nyou of one other change, for I am sure it will interest all children.\nIn Queen Elizabeth's reign, if you had gone to see the Tower, you would\nhave been shown also the lions and other wild animals which, from very\nearly times, had been kept there in dens near the part which is called,\nafter them, the Lion Tower.  Now you must go to the Zoological Gardens\n{56} to see wild animals; there are none in the Tower; they were all\nsent away to the Zoo not long before Queen Victoria began to reign.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 15.  THE FIRE OF LONDON]\n\nFrom the Fresco by Stanhope A. Forbes, R.A., in the Royal Exchange\n\n_By permission of the Artist and the Sun Insurance Office_\n\n_See page_ 61\n\n======================================================================\n\nAs for the Lord Mayor, he is still the first magistrate of London, and\nhe still takes the leading place in all London's affairs, just as he\ndid in Queen Elizabeth's reign.  No, his work and duties have not\nchanged, except that, as London has grown greater and more important,\nthey have grown greater and more important also.\n\n\n\n\n{57}\n\nVII.\n\nST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL\n\nThe Cathedral of the City of London is called St. Paul's.  In the\npicture beside this page you can see its great dome and golden cross,\nthe top of which is nearly as many feet above the ground as there are\ndays in the year.  For more than thirteen hundred years God has been\nworshipped on the spot where St. Paul's now stands; before that, many\npeople think, a Roman temple stood there; and before that, again,\nperhaps the ancient Londoners worshipped there the God Lud, of whom I\nhave told you; since that time the number of the years has grown from\nhundreds to thousands.\n\n======================================================================\n\n[Illustration: NO. 16.  ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER]\n\n======================================================================\n\nLet us fancy what this country was like more than thirteen hundred\nyears ago.  The English had conquered it and given it their name and\nlanguage.  The Christian Faith, which the Britons had learnt while the\nRomans were ruling them, had been almost quite forgotten except in the\nwestern part of the land; for in the east very many of the English had\nsettled, and they were heathen.  Do you remember that Pope Gregory the\nGreat, when he was still just a simple priest, had seen some English\nchildren in the slave-market at Rome, and thought they were fair as\nangels?  He never forgot these children, and when he became Pope he\nsent his friend, Augustine, and some priests to England to teach its\npeople the Christian Faith.  {58} These missionaries landed in Kent and\nwere kindly received by its King, Ethelbert, whose wife, Bertha, was\nalready a Christian.  In time he was baptized; and the old historian\nBede tells us that he \"builded in the Citie of London St. Paules\nChurch\"; and its first Bishop was that Mellitus to whom the fisherman\nEdric brought the message that St. Peter had consecrated his own abbey\non Thorney.\n\nIn time Ethelbert died, and Mellitus was made Archbishop of Canterbury;\nthen the men of London became heathen again.  There is a curious old\ntale about this, and though it is just a story, not real history, I\nwill tell it to you.  Do you remember that the monks said Sebert, King\nof the East Saxons, rebuilt St. Peter's Abbey?  Do you not think, then,\nthat he must have cared enough about the Christian Faith to teach it to\nhis sons?  Yet after his death they went back to the old Faith.  It\nchanced that one day, when Mellitus was holding the solemn service of\nthe Mass, they broke open the door of the church, rushed in and ordered\nhim to give them \"white bread\" such as he used to give their father;\nthey meant the Bread used in the Mass.  How could Mellitus give it to\nmen who did not believe the Faith in which such Bread is a holy thing?\nHe refused, and in their anger they turned him out of London; and, as I\nsaid, the Londoners went back to their old religion.  Truly it took a\nlong time and much teaching to make them really Christians.\n\nNear the end of the seventh century we hear of another Bishop of\nLondon, called Erkenwald.  He did much to make St. Paul's beautiful and\nsplendid.  {59} And he cared for his people too,--the men, women and\nchildren, who lived scattered about in the wild forests which then lay\nround London; and in order that he might visit, help and teach them, he\nused to drive in a cart from place to place over rough roads, and often\nwhere there were no roads.  He was so good that people said he was a\nsaint; and so when he died and his body was buried in St. Paul's, his\ngrave there was greatly honoured,--it was even said that miracles were\nworked there.  Is it there still?  Ah, no; it was destroyed long ago,\nas you shall hear presently.  Yet London ought not to forget this old\nBishop since it is said that one of her streets is called after him,\nfor in his days it seems that the old Roman walls had fallen into\nruins, and it is said that Erkenwald built a new city-gate ever since\ncalled, after him, Bishopsgate.  If you look at a map which shows the\nstreets of London, you will find Bishopsgate and Bishopsgate Street\nnear Liverpool Street Station.  This story shows us that Erkenwald was\na good citizen as well as a good Bishop.\n\nThe years passed on; the Normans came and conquered England; and now we\nhave come to real history.\n\nNear the end of William I.'s reign, St. Paul's was burnt down, and the\nBishop of London of that day began to build in its place a cathedral so\ngrand and large that men thought it would never be finished, \"it was to\nthem so wonderful for height, length, and breadth.\"  Yet little by\nlittle it grew until--but not for more than two hundred and twenty-five\nyears--it stood complete with its great steeple, {60} the highest in\nEurope, towering up 520 feet into the air.  This is the Cathedral to\nwhich in later days Queen Elizabeth came to return thanks to God for\nthe defeat of the Spanish Armada.  Here Sir Philip Sidney was buried.\nPerhaps you remember that, as he lay dying on a battlefield in the\nNetherlands, someone brought him a drink of cold water which seemed to\nhim the most delicious thing in all the world, so thirsty was he\nbecause of his wounds.  Then he saw a poor soldier looking at it with\nlonging eyes, and he would not drink it, \"for,\" he said, \"his need is\ngreater than mine; give it to him.\"\n\nIn the days of Oliver Cromwell the poor Cathedral was used as a barrack\nfor soldiers and as a stable for their horses.  There is now in the\nBritish Museum a printed paper ordering the soldiers not to play\nnine-pins and other games there between nine o'clock at night and six\nin the morning, because their noise and shouts while they played\ngreatly disturbed the people who lived near the churchyard.  Long\nbefore this the great steeple had been struck by lightning and burnt\ndown, and the whole Cathedral had fallen out of repair; thus, when\nCromwell died and Charles II. became King, there was much talk as to\nwhat was to be done for it.\n\n[Illustration: OLD ST. PAUL'S.  Burnt down in 1666.]\n\nThe summer of the year 1666--the year after the Great Plague--was very\nhot; an east wind blew for weeks together, so the old crowded wooden\nhouses of the City must have been as dry as tinder, when, on September\n2, a fire broke out in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane.  At first, I\nsuppose, the neighbours watched it and thought it just such a fire as\nthey had {61} seen many a time before; but how could they have felt\nwhen it spread from house to house, and leapt from street to street?\nwhen days passed and still it spread?  Some people ran about like\ndistracted creatures, not even trying to save their possessions; others\nfled away to the fields outside the City, carrying with them all they\ncould.  Imagine them huddling under the hedges for shelter and looking\nback at the crimson sky, for an old writer tell us \"all the sky was of\na fiery aspect like the top of a burning oven, and the light\" was \"seen\nabove forty miles round about for many nights.\"  The melting lead of\nthe roof of St. Paul's ran \"down the streets in a stream, and the {62}\nvery pavements were glowing with a fiery redness, so as no horse or man\nwas able to tread on them.\"\n\nFive days the fire raged.  When at last it died out, London lay in\nruins; 400 streets, 89 churches and 4 of the city-gates had been burnt,\nbesides the Cathedral, and in it the shrine of St. Erkenwald.  Has any\ncity, I wonder, ever suffered so great a loss?  Were the Londoners sad\nand miserable when they looked at the ruins?  For a time, perhaps, they\nwere; but soon they set themselves to build a new London with wider\nstreets and houses made of stone, which would not burn so easily; and\nthe man who advised and helped them most to do this was Sir Christopher\nWren.  He drew the plans for, and saw to the rebuilding of, many of the\ncity churches, and above all of the Cathedral.  Look again at its\npicture facing page 57.  The first of its stones was laid in June,\n1675, and the last and highest in 1710; but it is not finished even\nyet; month by month the work goes on.  If you go into it, you will see\nmen busy covering its great walls and pillars with beautiful rich\ncolours.\n\nWren lived to be a very old man.  Towards the end of his life he used\nto come to London once a year to sit for awhile under the great dome\nwhich he had planned and built, for he loved it, and I think it was to\nhim not only a beautiful, but also a solemn and a holy thing.  When he\ndied his body was buried in the Cathedral; his name and what he did are\nwritten over the north door, and also some Latin words which mean,\n\"Reader, if thou seekest his monument, look around.\"\n\nSt. Paul's has taken part in our life as a nation ever {63} since.\nHere some of our greatest men are buried.  Nelson and Wellington both\nlie here, and so do some other great British sailors and soldiers, some\nalso of our statesmen and painters; and monuments have been put up here\nin memory of others whose graves are far away.  Here Queen Victoria\ncame in 1897 to return thanks to God for her long reign; and here every\nday, and especially on Sundays and on all great national occasions,\nsolemn services of prayer and supplication, or of praise and\nthanksgiving, are held.\n\n\n\n\nBILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD\n\n\n\n\nBlack's Historical Series,\n\nBy E. L. HOSKYN, B.A.\n\nPICTURES OF BRITISH HISTORY\n\nMORE PICTURES OF BRITISH HISTORY.\n\nEach containing 60 Illustrations, of which 32 are in colour.\n\nCrown 4to.  Price 1/6 each.  Bound in cloth.\n\n\n\"More Pictures of British History\" is a series of stories arranged so\nas to follow after and enlarge the survey of history given in \"Pictures\nof British History.\"  The same methods have been followed in both\nhooks, but whereas \"Pictures of British History\" deals mainly with men\nof action, the new one treats chiefly of those whose thoughts and\nideals have made history.  It is hoped that this has been done simply\nand vividly enough to bring the stories well within the grasp and to\narouse the interest of children of nine or ten years of age.\n\n\n\nBy M. W. KEATINGE, M.A., and N. L. FRAZER, M.A.\n\nA HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR SCHOOLS.\n\nWITH DOCUMENTS, PROBLEMS, AND EXERCISES.\n\nPrice 5/-; or in Two Parts, price 2/6 each.\n\nPART I., B.C. 55 TO A.D. 1603.\n\nPART II., A.D. 1603 TO PRESENT DAY.\n\n\"A gallant and successful effort to solve a difficult problem and to\nintroduce a real and great improvement into the teaching of\nhistory.\"--_Times_.\n\nThe \"Documents, with Problems and Exercises\" are also published\nseparately under the title of\n\nDOCUMENTS OF BRITISH HISTORY.\n\nIn one Volume, Large Crown 8vo., cloth, price 3/6; or in six Sections,\nLimp Cloth, price 8d. each.\n\n\n  Section   I.--A.D. 78-1216     |   Section  IV.--A.D. 1603-1715\n     \"     II.--A.D. 1216-1399   |      \"      V.--A.D. 1715-1815\n     \"    III.--A.D. 1399-1603   |      \"     VI.--A.D. 1815-1900\n\nThe last-named Section does not appear in \"A History of England for\nSchools.\"\n\nA. & C. BLACK, 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.","title":"Stories of London","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":16842}