IIThe Middle AgesTHE LONDON OF DICK WHITTINGTON
All the week, Betty went to a High School, but Saturday was a whole holiday, and greatly to her satisfaction, it was arranged that she should spend her Saturdays with Godmother.
It was just a week since she had visited the London of Roman times, but not till the following Saturday, when she actually saw her Godmother, did the memory of “the magic part” come back to her.
“It’s so exciting to remember the secret directly I see you!” she exclaimed. “How far back are we going to-day? Oh,dolet us begin at once, without wasting a single instant.”
Godmother laughed. “We won’t waste a single instant certainly. But you’re not going back into the Past till this afternoon. I’ve ordered the car, and we shall drive again into the City.”
By “the City” Betty knew she meant all thebusinesspart of London, to which thousands of people went every day to work in offices or warehouses.
“Why is only this crowded part of London called theCity?” she asked presently when they were driving through bustling streets near St. Paul’s. “I should have thought thewholeof London was a city?”
“So it is,” returned Godmother. “But as it all gradually spread, east and west, north and south, from London Bridge, it has become usual to speak of this busiest and earliest part of itas theCity, and of all the rest by different names, such as the West End, North London, South London, and so forth. It’s such a huge place, you see, that such divisions as these are necessary.”
“Now we’re coming to London Bridge. I’m glad we’re going over it again,” Betty said presently, as they passed the Monument from which the previous week she had looked far and wide.
“We will drive very slowly, and I want you to notice several buildings that can be seen from the bridge.”
“There’s the Tower!” said Betty, looking to the left, where the solid square of the main building, with a tower at each corner, was visible. “And there’s St. Paul’s,” she added, turning to the right, and gazing at its dome and cross.
“Look at all these wharves and warehouses lining each bank of the river, with the great cranes hanging from them,” advised Godmother. “I want you to remember this scene. Try to get a clear picture of it in your mind.”
Betty looked with interest at the crowded shipping below the bridge, and at the bales of goods, some being lowered into boats, others hoisted up into the warehouses. She saw how, left and right, the river was spanned by bridges, and how, as far as she could see, warehouses and quays stretched in a continuous line, while smoke from thousands of factory chimneys rose into the air.
“Now we are on the south side of the river,” said Godmother, when the end of the bridge was reached. “All this district is calledSouthwark, and beyond it there are miles of dingy streets and houses, making up the parts of London called Bermondsey and Newington and Camberwell, and so forth. But it’s houses, houses, and most of them ugly houses, all the way. That black, dingy bridge overhead, spanning the road, belongs to London Bridge railway station.”
“But here’s one beautiful place at least!” Betty remarked, pointing to the right, where a fine church was hemmed in between walls of hideous sheds and other buildings belonging to the railway. A narrow churchyard, with a flagged path across it, separated the church from these ugly dirty surroundings, and afew trees just breaking into leaf showed brilliantly green against its ancient walls.
“Yes, I particularly want you to notice that church. It’s called St. Saviour’s, Southwark. Look at it well, and don’t forget its name. We’ll go back now to the north end of the bridge, and drive a little way along that street which runs beside the river towards the Tower.”
“ThamesStreet,” murmured Betty, reading its name on the wall as they turned into it.
So crowded was this particular street, so full of heavy lorries and wagons outside its warehouses, that they were soon obliged to leave it, and drive intoCheapside, quite close, but farther back from the river. Through St. Paul’s Churchyard, down Ludgate Hill into Fleet Street they drove, and straight on down the Strand.
“There’s the Savoy Hotel, and the Savoy Theatre next to it, where I saw ‘Alice in Wonderland’ once,” observed Betty, as they passed these buildings.
“Remember that also,” said Godmother, “and try to get some of the names of the streets into your head. These streets, I mean, that lead out of the Strand. All of them, you see, go down to the river.”
Betty had already noticed some of them, as the car passed, and had murmured their names. They were soon in Whitehall now, with the well-known Abbey in sight, and therefore near home.
“Westminster Hall,” said Godmother, when they passed the Houses of Parliament. She pointed to its long sloping roof, and added, “That’sone of the buildings you must remember.”
Every time Godmother drew her special attention to something, Betty gave a little smile of excitement, for she knew she would see that particular place or building again—bymagic. And the magic made all the difference.
It was two or three hours later before she followed Godmother into the white-panelled room.
“Oh, Idohope it will be nice this time!” she exclaimed, full of excited anticipation.
Godmother laughed as she went to the cabinet.
“Last Saturday the talisman was a Roman ring. What is it going to be now?” Betty asked, as her godmother selected two objects from the cabinet. One she saw was an old book, the other, when she held it in her hand, she found to be a beautifully engraved gold chain.
“This book,” said Godmother, “was written by a poet—Geoffrey Chaucer by name—who lived more than five hundred years ago. You will discover to whom the chain once belonged, later on. Now, shut your eyes, hold the chain in both hands, and say, after me, these words written by old Chaucer, five hundred years ago.”
Betty obeyed, and repeated slowly after Godmother:
“ ... When that the month of MayIs comen, and that I hear the foules sing,And that the floures ginnen for to spring,Farewell my booke and my devotion....”
“ ... When that the month of MayIs comen, and that I hear the foules sing,And that the floures ginnen for to spring,Farewell my booke and my devotion....”
“ ... When that the month of MayIs comen, and that I hear the foules sing,And that the floures ginnen for to spring,Farewell my booke and my devotion....”
“ ... When that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foules sing,
And that the floures ginnen for to spring,
Farewell my booke and my devotion....”
“Open your eyes,” said Godmother, after a silence. “We have gone back to the year 1388. Richard the Second is king. This is London Bridge, and it is May Day.”
Betty’s eyes, now wide open, wandered right and left. The London she looked upon, was completely changed from the scene she had beheld on her last magic visit. Gone were the Roman villas, gone the fortress, gone the Roman Hall of Justice. But the wall that had then encircled the city—or one very like it—was still there, for from where she stood, she could see parts of it, with its massive gates at intervals opening into the green country beyond. The bridge on which she stood, was now built of stone, firm and strong. At either end, stood fortified towers, with gates, and in the middle of the bridge, was a beautiful little Chapel. Leaning over the parapet, Betty saw that the chapel was in two parts, one built above the other, and from the lower one, steps descended into the water.
“We’ll look at the people as they pass, before I tell you how all this change has come about,” Godmother said. And indeed the people were interesting and picturesque enough to occupy all Betty’s attention.
“How gay they are! What beautiful coloured clothes they wear!” she cried. “Oh, Godmother, do look at this young man coming. Isn’t he splendid?”
She pointed to a boy of eighteen or nineteen who came swinging along the bridge, dressed in a short tunic edged with fur, and embroidered all over with flowers. The tunic had long wide hanging sleeves tapering to a point which almost reached the young gallant’s knee. He wore long green silk stockings, boots ending in a peak, and his crimped fair hair fell on either side of his face down to his shoulders.
“What a lot of monks there are!” she exclaimed, when the beautiful youth had gone by. Some of these were in rough grey habits with a knotted rope round their waists; others wore white robes under a black cloak, and there were many of them going to and fro upon the bridge.
“The grey ones are the Franciscans, or Grey Friars, and those with the black cloak are the Dominicans, or Black Friars,” Godmother told her.... “Here is an old countrywoman coming in from the southern gate with her butter and eggs! Doesn’t she look comfortable?”
She was a stout old lady, with folds of white linen round her neck drawn up on either side of her face under a flat broad-brimmed hat. Her woollen skirt was very short, showing scarlet stockings and buckled shoes, and she carried an enormous basket on one arm.
“That white linen arrangement round her face is called awimple,” said Godmother. “Nuns, if you remember, still wear the same sort of thing.”
“She isn’t a bit like a nun though,” laughed Betty, watching the fat old woman as she waddled past her.
The next moment her attention was attracted by a group of children who came running along the bridge shouting and singing. They all had flowers in their hands, and some of the little ones wore wreaths of bluebells or primroses.
“Oh! don’t they look pretty!” exclaimed Betty in delight. “And they must have picked the flowers in the fields and woods just outside that gate at the end of the bridge,” she added.
“You remember what is at the end of the bridge as we saw it this morning? A railway station, and a railway arch over an ugly street, with miles and miles of streets beyond. The Church of St. Saviour’s, was the only beautiful thing visible—a change indeed,” said Godmother.
Betty watched the children and looked at their clothes with the greatest interest. The little girls wore frocks looped up on one side over a girdle, some of the boys had long stockings and short tunics and wore tiny capes of linen, with a hood buttoned under the chin.
The whole merry party presently ran into one of the recesses of the bridge where there was plenty of room, and began to play a singing game, dancing as they sang.
Though some of the words sounded strange in Betty’s ears, she understood most of them, and the verses of the song, if they were put into the English to which we are now accustomed, would run something after this fashion:
“London Bridge is broken down,Dance over, my Lady Lee;London Bridge is broken downWith a gay ladee.How shall we build it up again?Dance over, my Lady Lee;How shall we build it up again?With a gay ladee.Build it up with stone so strong,Dance over, my Lady Lee,Then ’twill last for ages longWith a gay ladee.”
“London Bridge is broken down,Dance over, my Lady Lee;London Bridge is broken downWith a gay ladee.How shall we build it up again?Dance over, my Lady Lee;How shall we build it up again?With a gay ladee.Build it up with stone so strong,Dance over, my Lady Lee,Then ’twill last for ages longWith a gay ladee.”
“London Bridge is broken down,Dance over, my Lady Lee;London Bridge is broken downWith a gay ladee.
“London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over, my Lady Lee;
London Bridge is broken down
With a gay ladee.
How shall we build it up again?Dance over, my Lady Lee;How shall we build it up again?With a gay ladee.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance over, my Lady Lee;
How shall we build it up again?
With a gay ladee.
Build it up with stone so strong,Dance over, my Lady Lee,Then ’twill last for ages longWith a gay ladee.”
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance over, my Lady Lee,
Then ’twill last for ages long
With a gay ladee.”
“That song is old even now—in this year 1388,” said Godmother. “The great-grandmothers of these children may have sung it. It probably celebrated the time when the last of the timber bridges was broken down in a storm, and this stone one, upon which we are standing, was built in its place about the time when Richard the First was reigning.”
“And we are in the reign of Richard theSecondnow, nearly two hundred years later,” Betty replied.
“The children are right when they say London Bridge will last for ages long,” Godmother remarked. “It lasted more than six hundred years—almost to our own time. My Grandfather, for instance, Betty, was born the yearthisBridge upon which we are standing, was pulled down, and the one you saw this morning, built.”
But Betty’s eyes were still fixed on the children who at intervals in their game ran to offer their bunches of flowers to the passers-by, shouting “May Day! May Day!”
Presently one little girl with a pretty voice, began to sing (in words which were nearly, though not altogether, like the English of our own day) a little song which, written down, was this:
“Summer is icumen in;Lhude sing cuccu!Groweth sed, and bloweth med,And springeth the wude nu—Sing cuccu!”
“Summer is icumen in;Lhude sing cuccu!Groweth sed, and bloweth med,And springeth the wude nu—Sing cuccu!”
“Summer is icumen in;Lhude sing cuccu!Groweth sed, and bloweth med,And springeth the wude nu—Sing cuccu!”
“Summer is icumen in;
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springeth the wude nu—
Sing cuccu!”
It was easy to put this into modern English, and Betty knew what it meant:
“Summer is a-coming in;Loud sings cuckoo!Groweth seed, and bloweth mead,And springeth the wood new.Sing cuckoo!”
“Summer is a-coming in;Loud sings cuckoo!Groweth seed, and bloweth mead,And springeth the wood new.Sing cuckoo!”
“Summer is a-coming in;Loud sings cuckoo!Groweth seed, and bloweth mead,And springeth the wood new.Sing cuckoo!”
“Summer is a-coming in;
Loud sings cuckoo!
Groweth seed, and bloweth mead,
And springeth the wood new.
Sing cuckoo!”
“That’s the first verse of a song that is more than a hundred years old even in this year 1388 to which we’ve gone back,” said Godmother. “Yet you can understand it pretty well, can’t you? It shows how near to the language we speak to-day, the speech of the fourteenth century is growing.”
“Yes. And isn’t it lovely for those children to hear the cuckoo and pick flowers just on the other side of London Bridge? Oh, I wish the country came right up to the City now—like this,” sighed Betty, nodding towards the fields and woods that made a green belt close behind the wall.
“Godmother!” she exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a sort of castle near the river bank. “There’s something I know! Why, surely it’s the Tower of London? Only there’s not so much of it as there is now,” she added.
“Yes, it’s the Tower right enough—three hundred years old already in 1388, and eight hundred years old in our own time. But now, my dear, before you get too distracted by all you’re seeing and hearing, I’m going to take you in here to talk history for a few minutes.”
Betty followed her into the porch of the chapel on the Bridge, where they sat down on a bench out of sight of all the gay life outside.
“We left London,” Godmother began, “empty and deserted, with a group of our Saxon ancestors whom we may callEnglishpeople, standing uncertainly outside the walls built round the city by the departed Romans. What happened next?”
“Those English people settled in London, and in time made it alive and busy again.”
Godmother nodded. “And what became of theBritishwho used to live here?”
“They were driven West, into Wales, and are the Welsh people now.”
“Yes. And then?”
Betty reflected. “Oh! Why, the Danes came, didn’t they? Yes. The English king, Alfred the Great, fought against them. And then afterwards the Normans came and conquered England. And they spokeFrench!... I don’t see why you call those Saxon people who stood outside London, ourancestors, Godmother? Because we must be all mixed up with the Danes and the Normans—especially with the Normans, who were quite different, and had a different language. So I don’t understand how those first English could be our ancestors exactly?”
“I’ll tell you how. When you say the Normans spoke a different language, you’re right. But in saying they were ‘quite different,’ you’re wrong. What does the wordNormanmean? Merely aNorthman. They came from the same northern countries as the English, and were originally of the same race. The reason they spoke French, was, that for two or three hundred years before they came to England they had been living in the north of France. But when they conquered this island and settled down here, what happened? Did the English people learn to speak the language of their conquerors? Far from it. The conquerors learnt to speak the tongue of the men they conquered, ‘mixed up,’ as you say, with some of their own French. Three hundred years after William the First landed, the people—conquerors and conquered alike—have becomeonepeople, speakingonelanguage, theEnglishlanguage. Altered, of course, from the kind of language spoken by those wild-looking men blowing their horns outside London walls. If you had heardthemtalking, you wouldn’t have understood a word (even though it was the foundation of the English we talk to-day). But now, in this year 1388, three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, you can understand most of it, can’t you? Out of the mixture of the Norman’s French and the English people’s early English, has come the language we now speak. Well, now that the history lesson is over, let us see all we can of the London the poet Chaucer knew in the reign of Richard the Second. We may even meet Chaucer himself—if we’re lucky!” she added.
“I want to see the Tower,” said Betty. “Dad took me there once. But it looked different, from the Tower we can see from this bridge.”
“That’s because parts have been added to it since the reign of Richard the Second. But you saw the keep, or White Tower, as it is called, when you went with your father the other day. That keep, or central tower, has been standing ever since William the Conqueror built it. Look at the moat full of water round the castle. That was made when Richard the First was king.”
“There’s no water there now,” Betty said. “When Dad and I went over the Tower the other day, soldiers were drillingin the moat! Oh, Godmother,” she went on after a moment, “isn’t it strange and—uncannyto think that none of the people on this bridge, know all the things that are going to happen in that Tower?”
“The thingsweknow because we live in a later time, you mean? Yes. Can you think of some of them?”
“The poor little princes are soon going to be murdered there, for one thing,” began Betty eagerly. “And Sir Thomas More, a good deal later on, will be beheaded. And——” she hesitated.
“Ah, yes, in the years to come many, many poor prisoners will go under the Traitor’s Gate there, never to return,” said Godmother. “But we won’t think of them now. Let us look at this beautiful little chapel beside us on the bridge. It’s dedicated to the latest on the list of saints. Can you guess who that is?”
Betty looked puzzled.
“St. Thomas à Becket. You remember all abouthim, and how he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral?”
“Yes! and there used to be pilgrimages to his tomb,” put in Betty.
“Later on we may see some of the pilgrims starting on their journey,” Godmother told her. “Now let us take a boat and go westward up the river.”
“That will lead to Westminster, won’t it? Oh, Godmother, do let us see how Westminster has got on!” exclaimed Betty suddenly, remembering the low swampy island of Roman times.
“That’s just what we’re going to do. We’ll take a boat from the steps down there that lead from the lower chapel of St. Thomas to the water. We shall be in time, if we make haste, to join that party of monks who have been to say their prayers in the chapel, and are just going away by boat.”
Betty hurried after her from the upper to the lower chapel, and she and Godmother stepped into the boat with three or four of the Black Friars as they were called—a merry party, and, as Betty thought, not at all monk-like, in their conversation. Though she could not understand all they said, because many of the words were pronounced in a way strange to her, she gathered enough to know that they were talking about a pilgrimage toCanterbury, to which they seemed to be looking forward as a delightful pleasure trip.
Interesting as the friars were to watch, the river banks were still more fascinating. Except for the landing-stages and a few quays and wharves near London Bridge, they might have been floating on acountryriver, and Betty thought suddenly of the unending line of warehouses, the smoke of a thousand chimneys, the noise and bustle near the river she had seen only this morning.
“There’s the Strand,” exclaimed Godmother presently, pointing towards the right-hand bank of the stream.
“TheStrand?” echoed Betty, scarcely able to believe her eyes.
The Strand along which she had so recently driven, was a bustling street of shops and theatres, with tall-steepled churches at the end of it. Now she saw a country road lined with hedges, across which ran swift streams hurrying to empty their waters in the main river. There were bridges over the streams, and along the tree-shaded road, and across the bridges, rode or trudged a constant procession of people.
“It’s the main road from the City to Westminster, you see,” said Godmother, “so that’s why it’s so crowded.”
“I never knew what theStrandmeant before,” declared Betty, all at once enlightened. “A strand is a shore, isn’t it? So that road is just the shore of the river.”
“Just as it is now,” Godmother returned. “Nearly all the narrow streets on the right of the Strand, as you walk up it from Charing Cross station, lead down to the river. But except for lucky people like ourselves, it needs a great deal of imagination to picture it as we see it here, back in the fourteenth century, doesn’t it?”
Betty was now gazing with admiration at a line of beautiful great houses whose gardens sloped to the water and were closed at its brink by a stone gate.
“Those are the palaces of the great nobles,” Godmother told her. “The one we are passing, is called theSavoy, and it belongs to John of Gaunt.”
“Why, there’s the Savoy Hotel, and the Savoy Theatre inthe Strand now!” exclaimed Betty. “We passed them to-day.”
“Yes, they stand on part of that very ground where now you see this grand palace. Nearly every street leading from the Strand to the river still bears the name of some nobleman’s palace, and shows where it stood. Essex Street, Buckingham Street, Cecil Street—you noticed some of them this morning? They all mark the site of some great house, now vanished. Many of them—in this reign of Richard the Second—are not yet built, and some of these at which we are looking, will be pulled down andre-built before they are finally destroyed. We are only in the fourteenth century as yet, remember.”
“This Savoy Palace is splendid!” Betty cried withenthusiasm. “Look, Godmother. There are ladies and gentlemen walking on the terrace. Oh, how beautifully they are dressed. Aren’t the colours lovely? I do wish we had dresses like that now, don’t you? Do look at that lady with a thing like a sugar-loaf on her head, and a gauzy veil floating from it.”
“Yes, the costumes of this fourteenth century are certainly beautiful,” Godmother agreed. “Now you will understand why the English in the fourteenth century had the reputation for being the most gaily dressed people in Europe.”
“They look simply lovely on that terrace, and it’s such a beautiful house—that Savoy Palace, isn’t it?”
“It’s a wonderful looking place,” agreed Godmother. “I don’t think King John of France had a bad sort of prison, do you?”
“King John?” Betty looked puzzled.
“Don’t you remember how he was taken prisoner by John of Gaunt’s brother—the Black Prince—at Poitiers, and how because he was unable to pay his ransom, when he was set free, he returned to London like an honourable gentleman, and lived here, at the Savoy, till his death?”
“And that isn’t so very long ago, is it? I mean, counting that we’re in the fourteenth century now?”
“Twenty years ago. The Black Prince, King Richard’s father, has been dead about ten years, and he must often have come to this Savoy Palace to see John of Gaunt, his brother, and his so-called prisoner King John, of whom every one was very fond.”
They had fortunately lingered some time before the palace of the Savoy, to allow the Black monks to land at steps near it. Afterwards there was a long wait while the waterman who rowed the boat, followed them up a narrow lane over-arched with white hawthorn, and was seen to enter a little house with tiny latticed-paned windows and a swinging sign-board above its porch.
“That’s a tavern, and he’s gone to drink what he no doubt calls ‘a stoup of wine,’” said Godmother. “The muddy lane there, all overhung with trees, is now one of the narrow streets near the Savoy Hotel, leading into the Strand. At this momentof thetwentiethcentury, it is blocked with motor omnibuses and taxicabs!” she added with a smile.
Betty was glad of the delay, for it gave her time to look long at the stately palace, and at the other great houses lining the right bank of the river, with their backgrounds of gardens and orchards melting into green fields and woods where now, streets and innumerable buildings stretch for miles and miles. Presently the boatman returned, whistling a cheerful air, and wiping his lips on the sleeve of his leather jerkin. Springing into the boat he began to row very quickly, and in a few minutes, as it seemed, Godmother said, “Here we are at the Palace of Westminster.”
All Betty could see from the river, was a strong brick wall, turreted and pierced with gates.
“The Palace of Westminster? There isn’t one now, is there?” she asked, as they went up steps from the river.
“Not in reality. There is no actual palace here in our time. Yet because it stands on the same ground, another name for our modern Houses of Parliament is ‘The Palace of Westminster.’”
“Why, yes! The wide road outside it, is called Old Palace Yard, of course. I remember now. But there isn’t any of the old palace left, is there?”
“There is just one building left of what was the home of all the Kings of England from long before William the Conqueror till the time of Henry the Eighth.”
They were passing under the arch of the gateway at the moment—a fine stone gateway.
“This has only just been built by the present King,” Godmother observed. “It is quite a new gate, as you see.”
But Betty gave a cry of amazement when on passing through the gate she found herself in what was practically a little walled town, apart from the rest of London. The wall enclosed not only the Palace, and the great Abbey, but also little streets full of houses in which lived carpenters, stonemasons, armourers, jewellers, the makers of priestly robes, goldsmiths, blacksmiths—in fact, traders of every kind who worked either for the Palace or the Abbey, or for both.
Her thoughts went back to the swampy island of a thousand years ago. Here she was, standing on the very same isle. Yet how changed! Instead of a forest of reeds and bushes, here was a stately Palace and a still more stately Abbey. Busy men and women lived, where formerly only birds and water-rats made their homes. The island had, in fact, become a little town, divided from the greater city by massive walls.
“We are facing the Palace now,” said Godmother presently. “Do you see anything about it that looks familiar?”
“Why, surely that’s Westminster Hall?” Betty exclaimed after a moment, pointing to a long steep-roofed building in the midst of towers and pinnacles that were strange to her.
“Yes, and the only part of the Old Palace that will remain to the time in which you and I live. It was built by William Rufus, so it is old, even in this fourteenth century.”
“But it looks so new.”
“That’s because it has just been altered and almost rebuilt by the King now reigning. Let us go and look at the beautiful inner roof of the Hall.”
“The next time I see it, when we’ve moved on to our own time, it won’t look like this,” Betty observed, gazing up at its rafters as they entered Westminster Hall. “It will be all dark and old, won’t it? But it will be awfully interesting to think I saw it just after it was rebuilt and improved.”
“That’s Richard’s coat of arms up there below the line of windows,” said Godmother. “You see the white hart is repeated again and again. Don’t forget to look out for it when you see this Hall again—in ordinary circumstances, I mean, without the ‘magic.’ And don’t forget either that, except for the Tower, there’s no building in our history that has seen so much misery,” she added. “Think of all the famous people who have been tried here, and condemned to death.”
“Poor Charles the First was one, wasn’t he? Oh, Godmother, isn’t it strange to think it hasn’t happened yet—and won’t happen for—let me see?—about two hundred years!”
“Now for just a glimpse of the Abbey,” said Godmother after a moment, “and then we’ll slip back into our own day for a little while. It won’t do to see too much all at once.”
“I could stay for ever in this London!” Betty declared. “You’ll bring me back again, won’t you, Godmother? I mean to just this time in the fourteenth century. It’s so frightfully interesting.”
She had turned round to gaze at the beautiful Abbey in front of the Palace, the very Abbey so near to which her godmother lived. But at first sight she scarcely recognized it as the old grey place she knew, blackened by the years and the smoke of ages.
“It looks so clean and white,” she said. “And where are the towers that you see when you come up Victoria Street? And where is Henry the Seventh’s Chapel?”
“Now there’s a silly child!” cried Godmother. “How could there be a Henry the Seventh’s Chapel when we are only at the reign of Richard the Second—nearly a hundred years before Henry the Seventh reigned?”
“I forgot,” said Betty meekly.
“As for the towers you mention, they weren’t built till the eighteenth century, long after Henry the Seventh’s time.”
“But though the Abbey looks different, it’s quite asbigas it is now, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, it covers quite as much ground, though, as you see, a good deal of it looks different from the Abbey of our day. That’s because from time to time, certain parts have been pulled down, and built in another way. We’ll sit down here in the porch a moment and watch the people going in.”
As they rested in the deep sculptured porch with the image of the Virgin above it, men, women, and children of all ranks were continually entering or leaving the Church. Now it was a soldier in a tight leather cap, leather tunic or jerkin, and long hose. Now a great lady arriving in a litter borne by serving-men from which she alighted in the porch, and swept into the Church. One of these wore a short velvet jacket edged with ermine, over a long silken skirt. Her hair was twisted up into bosses on either side of her ears, and covered with a golden net, and her cloak, kept together in front with a jewelled clasp, trailed behind her as she walked.
Following her came a boy, perhaps her son, as fantasticallydressed as the young man Betty had recently seen on London Bridge. All of the people, she noticed, crossed themselves as they passed the statue of the Virgin on entering the Abbey, and this reminded her that England was still a Roman Catholic country.
She thought she would never be tired of watching the scene before her, nor of letting her eyes wander over all the monasteries and gardens enclosed by the walls of Westminster.
The bells began to ring for service within the Abbey.... They were still ringing when she found the white-panelled walls of Godmother’s parlour round her, and rubbed her eyes as though to clear them of a vision....
“The Abbey bells!” exclaimed Godmother. “Ringing just as they rang long ago, when Chaucer was alive.”
“You said we might perhaps see him,” said Betty. “But we didn’t.” She knew something about Chaucer, for she had read one or two of the stories from the “Canterbury Tales,” and now that she had looked at London as it was when he lived in it, she was anxious to see the great poet himself.
“Plenty of time. Didn’t I promise you should go back again? As soon as we’ve taken a little walk about the Westminster of to-day, we can slip into fourteenth-century London as soon as we please.”
“The best of this magic is that it doesn’treallytake any time, and yet it seems that we’ve been away hours and hours!” remarked Betty, as they turned out of Godmother’s quiet road.
They were in Victoria Street now, with the Houses of Parliament shutting out the view of the river, and on their right the Abbey. There was a roar of traffic, and all the ground on the left was covered with great modern buildings.
Betty remembered the walled town she had just seen, with its quaint houses, its shops full of workmen, its gardens and monasteries. Nothing of that olden Westminster remained, except the Abbey itself and Westminster Hall, just opposite to her, with its sloping roof, which at the moment modern workmen, standing upon scaffolding, were busy repairing.
She gave a long sigh. “Isn’t itwonderfulto think it has changed like this,” she said. “Even the Abbey doesn’t look the same because of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel at the back there and the towers in front,—which weren’t built the last time we saw it.”
“I might go on telling you about that Abbey and its changes, all day,” was Godmother’s answer. “There’s so much to learn about it that I only propose to talk about a little bit at a time. We’ll just walk through it now, and out into the cloisters.”
Betty followed her, looking up at the beautiful soaring arches as they passed quickly across the Church and out at a little leather-covered door into a wonderful colonnade, enclosing a square of emerald-green grass.
“This is a very, very old part of the building,” said Godmother. “But long before even this colonnade, or cloister as it is called,was built, there was a church here. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a pretty story about the first Abbey. Now,” she began, “you must think of the swampy island you saw in Roman times, and remember that our feet are on that very island now. Well, as you know, time passed, the Romans went, and our ancestors, the first English people came. They were heathens, worshipping wild gods like Thor and Woden, of whom you may have heard. Then, after years had gone by, they were converted to Christianity by Roman monks, and Sebert, one of their kings (who was really only what we should call the chief of a warlike tribe), built a church on this very spot, which though it had become by this time fairly dry, was so covered with rough thickets that it was called the Isle of Thorns, or Thorney Island. The church, which we must picture to ourselves as a very simple building, was to be calledSt. Peter’s. At last it was finished and ready to be consecrated, that is, dedicated to God, and the Bishop Mellitus, who was the first Bishop of London, was coming to perform the ceremony.
“Now the day before the consecration, was a Sunday, and in the twilight that Sunday evening a certain fisherman called Edric, was busy with his nets on the banks of this Isle of Thorns, when he saw near the newly-built church of St. Peter a mysterious light. Presently he saw approaching, a venerable-looking man who asked to be rowed across a stream which lay between the shores of the island and the church. Edric consented, and on reaching the opposite bank, followed the stranger towards the church. On the way the old man struck the ground twice with his staff, and to the fisherman’s amazement, each time, a spring of water gushed forth from the earth. But his wonder was increased when he saw the new building a blaze of light, and on entering, found it radiant with angels, each of whom held a candle. Then in the midst of the heavenly light the old man went through all the ceremonies of consecrating the church, while above its roof in a shining stream, Edric saw angels ascending and descending.
“When this lovely vision had disappeared, Edric rowed the old man back over the stream, and was bidden to tell the bishop next day that the church was already consecrated by no less aperson than St. Peter himself! He was also to tell the bishop that the church must be called the Abbey of Westminster.
“The old man, who was no other than St. Peter, also said that Edric might always be sure of catching many fish, on two conditions. First that he should never again work on a Sunday, and secondly, that he never forgot to take a certain quantity of the fish to the monks of the Abbey.
“So next day, when Bishop Mellitus came to perform the ceremony of consecration, Edric told him all that had happened, and showed him the crosses on the doors, and the wax spilt on the floor from the candles the angels had held, and the springs of water (which, as wells, remain to this day). The bishop was convinced of the truth of the fisherman’s story, and changed the name of the island from Thorney, to Westminster. So in remembrance of this appearance of St. Peter to Edric, the Thames fishermen for nearly four hundred years from that time, always brought a tithe of their fish to the Collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster, for that is the full and proper name of Westminster Abbey.”
“It’s a nice story,” said Betty. “The fisherman in it reminds me of the time when we came to this place in Roman days in a fisherman’s boat. But that was long before it was called Thorney Island, of course.”
“Well,” continued Godmother, “part of what I’ve just told you is only a legend. Now we come to real history. That first church built by Sebert, stood here for about four hundred years. Then Edward the Confessor came to the throne. He, as his name tells you, was a very pious king, and he had made a vow to God to build a great church. So he pulled down the one already standing on Thorney Island (as it was still called by the people) and on its foundations built another huge one—quite as large as this present Abbey. It was finished just before he died, and the very next year, in 1066, William the Conqueror took possession not only of the palace in which Edward the Confessor and the kings before him, had lived (that old palace we have so lately seen, you know)—but of the great new church belonging to it.
“It stood as Edward the Confessor left it, for two hundred years. Then King Henry the Third pulled nearly all of it down,so that very little is left of the first ancient building now. The Chapel of the Pyx, which we will see one day, is, however, a part of Edward the Confessor’s Abbey, and so are some of the walls of this very cloister we are in.
“Edward the First, Henry’s son, went on with the re-building, and while Chaucer was alive, a great deal was added to it. The famous Jerusalem Chamber, for instance, was only just finished when you saw the Abbey by magic this morning, and so was the greater part of this cloister in which we are sitting.”
“No wonder the Abbey looked all bright and new,” said Betty. “What is theJerusalemChamber?”
“We’ll go and see it, and I’ll tell you about it when we’re there.”
They went through a little ancient court into a beautiful old room with a stained-glass window at one end.
“Chaucer may have seen that glass,” said Godmother, “for it was painted long before he was born. This room was built during his lifetime, for the use of the Abbot’s guests when they came to stay with him. It was probably called the Jerusalem Chamber because there used to be tapestry on its walls showing the history of Jerusalem. And about that there is a curious story.”
“Do tell me!” Betty urged.
“I will, when we go home. Or rather, I’ll let Shakespeare tell you, because he has used the story in one of his plays.
“Many things have happened in this Jerusalem Chamber from the days when Chaucer saw it, up to our own time. Not so very long ago, for instance, when the Bible was revised—(that is, translated again, and much of the wording altered) the learned men who worked at it sat here.... Now we’ve seen as much of the Abbey as was in existence when Richard the Second was king. But of course an enormous amount of its history comes after his time.”
“Does the story of the Jerusalem Chamber come after?” Betty asked.
“Yes, but so soon afterwards that we’ll read it in the play ofHenry the Fourth.”
“He was the very next king after Richard, wasn’t he? Ohyes, of course. He was the man who usurped the throne, and had poor Richard murdered.”
Directly they reached the parlour at home, Betty ran to the bookcase for a “Shakespeare,” and Godmother turned to the play.
“I must tell you what had happened before the few last words which are all I’m going to read!” she said. “King Henry the Fourth was setting out on a journey to the Holy Land, and just before he started, he went to pray in the Abbey. But there, before the altar, he was suddenly taken ill, and became unconscious. They carried him into the Abbot’s guest-chamber—the Jerusalem Room which you’ve just seen, but later moved him to another apartment. There when he was dying, remembering the place to which he had first been carried from the Abbey, he said: