IV.

NO. 7. OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER HOUSE. See page 28NO. 7. OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER HOUSE.See page28

Let us fancy what the life of the monks of the Charter House was like. Their day began at an hour when you are sound asleep in bed; at eleven o'clock the convent bell rang, and at midnight the monks met in chapel for Matins, their first service, which often lasted two hours, or even longer, so slowly, so solemnly, did they chant the psalms and prayers. When it was over the monks went back to their beds until five o'clock, when they rose and went about the business of the day. What did they find to do? They were busy all day long, for they had to take part in the many services of the chapel; and each monk had his own little house and garden, called his "cell," where he passed most of his time alone. Here he read and prayed; here he worked,—perhaps at carpentering or some such trade, perhaps he copied or wrote books; here he ate his solitary meal, the only mealof the day, which might be of eggs, fish, fruit and vegetables, but never of meat; sometimes it was of bread and water only. By seven o'clock his day was ended and he was asleep in bed. One of the strictest rules of this Order of monks is that they shall be silent except in Chapel. They only meet together twice a week; once when they all dine together, and again on Sundays, when they all go for a long walk in company.

This has been the life of every Carthusian monk (so the Charter House monks are called,) ever since the Order was founded in the eleventh century; and this was the life of the London Charter House from the days of Edward III. until the reign of Henry VIII. Do you remember that he and his Parliament broke the links which bound together the Churches of Rome and England? In 1534 a law was made which said that the King, not the Pope, should henceforth be the Head of the English Church, and that anyone who would not agree to this was a traitor. Some people in England were very glad of this, for there were things in the Church which seemed to them altogether wrong; "Now," they thought, "these wrong things can be set right." But other people were very sorry; they believed the Pope was indeed Head of the whole Church, that God had made him so, and what God had willed man cannot alter. Amongst those who thought so were the monks of the Charter House.

NO. 8. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED. See page 30NO. 8. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED.See page30

It is hard to wait day by day for some dreadful thing which we know is surely coming to us, so these were sad days for the monks. Were they frightened, I wonder, when they heard what was going on in theworld outside their walls, and knew that soon, very soon, they must tell the fierce King that for them the Pope was and must always be Head of the Church? What would happen to them? Did their prayers and solemn services strengthen and comfort them then? Yes, indeed they did. And their Prior, John Houghton, was a brave true man, as men have need to be in such times; and not only by his words, but by his deeds, he taught his monks to choose rather to die than to give up what they believed to be true; for in the spring of the next year he and two other Carthusian Priors told Thomas Cromwell, the King's great Minister, that they could not change their Faith. They were sent to the Tower, tried as traitors in Westminster Hall, and found guilty. Turn topicture 6; here you see Sir Thomas More, in this month of May himself a prisoner in the Tower for the same reason, watching the three Priors and another monk going away to die. As he watched, More said to his daughter, "Lo, dost thou see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerful going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriages?"

At Tyburn Tree, where the Marble Arch now stands, John Houghton laid down his life for his Faith.

Two sad years followed; then all but ten of the monks yielded to the King and promised to "forsake the Bishop of Rome." These ten were sent to Newgate Prison. There they would very soon have died, for in those days life in a prison was a dreadful thing, but they were helped by a brave woman, called Margaret Clement, whom Sir Thomas More had brought up with his own daughter Margaret. "Movedwith a great compassion of those holy Fathers, she dealt with the gaoler ... and withal did win him with money that he was content to let her come into the prison to them, which she did, attiring and disguising herself as a milkmaid, with a great pail upon her head full of meat, wherewith she fed that blessed company, putting meat into their mouths, they being tied and not able to stir, nor to help themselves."

Soon orders came that the monks were to be kept very strictly, and the gaoler could not allow Margaret Clement to visit them; then, one after another, all but one died.

In 1538 the rest of the monks were turned out of the Charter House. Sorrowfully they passed out under its great archway, and went their different ways to places of safety.

And was the Charter House left empty to fall into ruins? No; it became the property of first one great lord and then of another. They altered it to meet their needs; the monks' cells disappeared; it became a grand mansion. Queen Elizabeth and James I. both stayed there.

At last it was sold to Thomas Sutton, a merchant who had made a large fortune by mining for coal near Newcastle and selling it in London. He must have been a good old man, for we are told he used often to go into his quiet garden to pray, "Lord, Thou hast given me a large and liberal estate; give me also a heart to make use thereof."

He had no children, and when he died, in 1611, he left his great wealth to found a free school, and a "hospital" where eighty old men—"soldiers who hadborne arms by land or sea, merchants who had been ruined by shipwreck or piracy, and servants of the King or Queen,"—could spend their last days in peace. They are called the Charter House Pensioners. Turn back topicture 7; these two old men are Pensioners. At first there were to be but forty boys in the school, but the numbers grew larger and larger; and many a great man has been educated in the famous Charter House School.

As the years passed on and London spread beyond its walls, the pleasant fields about the Charter House were covered with streets and houses. At last, about fifty years ago, the Governors of the school thought it would be wise to move it to a more open place; so they built a new school at Godalming in Surrey, and the boys moved into it in 1872. Into the old buildings they had left came a great day-school, the Merchant Taylors', so there are still about 500 boys as well as the old pensioners in the London Charter House.

What a strange history the Charter House has! What changes it has seen! The convent with its silent monks, the great house with its state and royal visitors, the noisy school, the peaceful home of the old pensioners,—the Charter House bears traces of them all. For here are still the courts and cloisters and the chapel of the monks, and the stateroom of the great noble; the boys' playground (picture 2shows us a little bit of it,) is the square round which once stood the monks' quiet cells; in the chapel we may see the tomb of the Founder, Sir Thomas Sutton; indeed, both the Founders, Sir Thomas Sutton and Sir Walter Manny, lie buried there.

Turn topicture 8; this is the ancient church of St. Bartholomew the Great. In it, on the north side of the altar, is an old old tomb on which lies a stone figure in a quaint dress; it is the tomb of Rahere, said to be the founder of the church and of the great Hospital of St. Bartholomew near-by.

This is the story of Rahere:—He was born in France in the reign of William the Conqueror. Early in the twelfth century he was in England, and he was often at the Courts of the Red King and of Henry I. We are told that he was "a pleasant-witted gentleman, and therefore in his time called the Kinge's Minstrell"; indeed, the old chronicler seems to think he led an idle foolish life. If this is true, he certainly repented before long, for he became a pilgrim and made the long and difficult journey to Rome to visit there the places where the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred. In Rome he fell ill, and when he was getting better he vowed he would make a hospital "yn re-creacion (that is, re-creation or healing) of poure men."

And now wonderful things happened. In a dream or vision Rahere saw the Apostle Bartholomew, who said to him such words as these:—"Build not only ahospital but also a church, and build them in Smithfield by the City of London." So Rahere went home, called together the citizens of London, and told them what he meant to do. And they answered, "This is a hard thing to compass for Smithfield lieth within the King's market."

Rahere then went to King Henry I. and told him his story, and the King gave him the land he needed,—such land! wet and marshy, "moorish land," an old writer says, "heretofore a common," where the Londoners used to fling out the rubbish and dirt of their city. On this land, in the year 1123, Rahere began to build his hospital, which he called after the Apostle who had appeared to him; and later, as that Apostle had bidden him, he built a Priory; the church you see inpicture 8is part of its church.

Who helped Rahere to do all this? The citizens of London. We are told that he gathered together a crowd of people by pretending to be mad, and then he made them work; they drained the wet marshy soil, they carried great stones, they laboured hard. Thus the hospital was built.

Rahere was its first master. A friend of his, called Alfune, "went himselfe dayly to the Shambles and other markets, where he begged the charity of devout people for their" (that is, the poor sick people's) "reliefe." Now, the charity he asked for was food for them to eat.

Rahere's last years were quietly spent in his own Priory, where he died in the year 1144. This is his story, but it was first written down when writers loved rather to tell wonderful things about great menthan to seek out the exact truth about them. Now some people think he did not found the hospital, but both hospital and church are far older than his day; and that the Priory was built for the monks who managed the hospital.

However this may be, the monks of the Priory certainly had great privileges; one of them was that every year, at the Festival of St. Bartholomew, for three days they might hold a fair in the "smooth field" or Smithfield. Have you ever been to a country fair, and seen its funny little stalls of sweets and chinaware and its quaint shows? If you have, you must know that most English fairs are not at all important nowadays; but in the times of which I am writing most of the buying and selling in England was done at them. And so the old writer, Stow, tells us that to St. Bartholomew's Fair "the Clothiers of all England and Drapers of London repayred and had their boothes and standings within the churchyard of this priorie, closed in with walles, and gates locked every night, and watched for safetie of men's goodes and wares"—so rich and valuable was its merchandise. Year by year it was held until 1855; then it was done away with, for serious buying and selling were no longer carried on at such fairs, and "Bartlemy Fair," as it was called, was now famous only for its shows of wild beasts, dwarfs and giants, for its ox roasted whole, and for its scenes of wild merry-making.

For four hundred years the monks of St. Bartholomew's tended the poor people of London. Then came the days when Henry VIII. broke up the monasteries; in 1539 he turned the monks out of the Priory and closedthe hospital. Presently I will tell you what afterwards happened to it.

For the beginning of our second charity we must go far away from London to the little town of Assisi in Italy. There, on a spring day of the year 1209, a young man kneeling in a little church heard the priest reading the Gospel for the day:—"As ye go, preach, saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers.... Provide neither silver nor gold nor brass in your purses, neither scrip nor two coats, nor shoes nor staff." The young man felt as though Christ Himself was speaking to him. "From henceforth," he said, "I shall set myself with all my might to live thus."

NO. 9. AN EXCITING GAME: OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDONNO. 9. AN EXCITING GAME: OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON

If you had asked the people of Assisi about him, they would have answered you in some such words as these, "Yonder man? He is Francis, the spendthrift son of the cloth-merchant, Pietro Bernardone. He to make such a vow! he, the idle companion of the foolish young nobles of Assisi, the waster of his father's wealth! It is true he has changed of late, but his new way of life pleases his father not at all, for he has given away all he possessed, and says he has taken Poverty as his bride. He visits the lepers, and labours to repair some of the poor churches of the town."

Yet Francis kept his vow. Dressed in a simple grey gown, he went in and out amongst the poorest of the people, preaching to them and tending the sick. In return they could give him but a scanty meal or a night's lodging; money he would not take; it was, hesaid, of no use to him. And wherever he was, whatever he was doing, no matter what hardships he had to bear—and he had many—he was always full of happiness.

NO. 10. ENTRANCES OF THE OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AND OF CHRIST CHURCH, LONDONNO. 10. ENTRANCES OF THE OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AND OF CHRIST CHURCH, LONDON

In those hard cruel days men thought little of pain and suffering; but Francis had love and sympathy, not only for men, but for animals and for all things. In one of his poems he calls the moon his sister, and the sun his brother; and he gives thanks for "our sister water, who is very serviceable unto us and humble and precious and clean," and for "our brother fire; he is bright and pleasant and very mighty and strong." We hear of him preaching to the birds, and bidding them be thankful for their feather-clothes and wings.

Soon other men joined themselves to him to live and teach as he did, and they were called Franciscans, the Monks of St. Francis; and sometimes the Grey Friars, because, like St. Francis, they wore grey gowns; and they are also called the Begging Friars, because they too had taken Poverty for their bride, and might own neither houses nor lands; even food they must earn by the labour of their own hands, or kindly people must give it to them. All their time, all their thoughts must be given to helping the poor, the sick, and the wretched; and where they were, there the Friars must go, so they made their homes chiefly in the towns; and at first, while they kept the rules of St. Francis very strictly, even these homes did not really belong to them.

In 1224 nine Franciscans came to England—the very first to come here. Four of them went straightto London. There the poorer people lived on the marshy land near the Thames, huddled together in huts built of mud and wattle; and in such homes there must have been plenty of sickness and misery. For a short time the four Grey Friars lived on Cornhill. Perhaps they thought they had no right to live in so pleasant a place when there was such great misery down by the river; certainly, soon so many people came about them that this first home was too small for them. Now, a London citizen had some property "in Stynkyng Lane and in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles." Do you know what shambles are? In them animals are killed for food; they cannot be nice places to live in. This property the citizen gave to the Friars, and there they made their new home. By their good deeds they must very quickly have won the respect of the Londoners, for some gave them more lands, and others helped in building a church and monastery for them. This monastery was close to the place where the London General Post Office now stands.

In those days the monasteries did most of the work which is now done by schools, libraries, hospitals, hotels, and workhouses; no doubt the Franciscans did their full share of it in London. But as the years passed on and the first monks died, the younger men who took their places became less strict in keeping the rules of St. Francis; many people gave money and lands to the Order, and it became rich and great, and changed very much. Before a hundred years had passed away, in place of their first church, a new one had been built for them, one of the grandest in theland; its floor and pillars were all of marble. St. Francis told his followers that they needed no books but a Prayer-Book; before long the Grey Friars not only had books, but two hundred years after they settled in London Richard Whittington gave them a library. They no longer gave all their time to caring for the poor and wretched, for we hear of some of them teaching at Oxford and Cambridge; indeed, one of the most learned men of the age, Roger Bacon, was a Grey Friar.

Thus the years passed on until Henry VIII. became King. Do you remember how he treated the monks of the Charter House? I have no such story to tell you of the Grey Friars, for they gave up to the King their monastery and all they possessed when he called on them to do so.

Were the monks missed? Who did the work they had once done? At first much of it was left quite undone. Here is a little bit of a letter which the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Richard Gresham, wrote to the King, in 1538, on this very subject:—Someone, he says, must come to the "ayde and comfort of the poor, syke [sick], blynde, aged and impotent persons beyng not able to help themselffs, nor havyng no place certen where they may be refreshed or lodged at, tyll they be holpen and cured of their diseases and sickness." And he goes on to ask that three ancient hospitals may be given over to the Mayor and Aldermen of the City to carry on once more their old work. King Henry thought this was a wise plan, and in 1546 he gave to London Rahere's old hospital, St. Bartholomew's, and the Grey Friars' monastery.

Nothing more seems to have been done for five years. Yet the poor needed help greatly; and under Henry's son, Edward VI., we hear of sermons being preached, of the King, the Bishop of London, and the Mayor consulting together and making a new plan—that the house of the Grey Friars should be set aside as a hospital or home for "fatherless children and other poore mens children," where they should be fed, clothed, taught, and properly looked after. Thus Edward VI. is often spoken of as the chief founder of the new charity, but I think Henry VIII. and Sir Richard Gresham had more to do with it; don't you? Yet it was the City's charity, and the citizens provided the money needed for it. Before the next winter set in nearly 400 boys and girls were lodged in the old Grey Friars; the next Christmas Day (1552), the children, 340 in number, "all in one livery of russet cotton," lined the road as the Lord Mayor and Aldermen passed in procession to St. Paul's Cathedral. "The next Easter they were in blew [blue] at the Spittle [hospital], and so have continued ever since"; and from these "blew" clothes the school has taken one of its names—the Blue-Coat School. Its other name is Christ's Hospital.

Hundreds of boys have worn the long blue gown and yellow stockings, and some of them have become famous men. I will tell you the name of only one of these, Charles Lamb; for he has written about the school as he knew it, and perhaps you have read Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare"; he and his sister Mary wrote them.

Facing page 32 is a picture ofBlue-Coat boys>, withtheir gowns tucked up, playing football. Until a short time ago, people in the busy street called Holborn could look through the bars which separated the playground from it, and watch the boys at play. They can do this no longer, for the old buildings have been pulled down, and part of the ground they stood on has been bought for the General Post Office; and in the year 1902 the school, like the Charter House School, moved away into the country, to Horsham.

From the beginning it was meant for girls as well as boys; old papers about it always speak, not of theboys, but of the "childrenof this House." Boys and girls seem to have lived there, to have dined together in Hall, and even at one time to have shared a classroom for writing-lessons; part of the girls' work was to learn to make their own and the boys' clothes. They too wore a quaint dress with white caps and wide collars, but they gave it up long ago; and long ago, in 1778, they left London; their school is at Hertford. It has never been as famous as the boys' school.

Now I must tell you a little about King Henry's other gift to London, St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It is now one of the largest of the London hospitals, and has become very famous as a school where young men are taught and trained to be doctors; perhaps your doctor was once a student there.

A great part of the Priory church was pulled down as soon as it fell into the hands of Henry VIII., and for many years the rest of it was neglected and allowed to fall almost into ruins. Even in the nineteenthcentury, stables, coach-houses, and store-rooms stood where once were the monks' old cloisters. In one part of the church was a blacksmith's forge, a fringe factory had taken possession of another, and in still another the boys of the parish school did their lessons. Now all this has been changed. For more than fifty years much care, thought and money have been spent in restoring the building and in getting rid of stables, forge, factory, and school; and now Londoners have every reason to be proud of their beautiful old church.

"Turn again, Whittington,Lord Mayor of London!"

Bow bells sang these words on All-Hallows Day many years ago, and on Highgate Hill a boy stood listening to them. If I ask you who the boy was, I am sure you will answer, "Dick Whittington."

The story of Dick Whittington can be told in two very different ways: there is, first, the old tale which long ago men told their children, and these children told their children. Thus it was passed on from father to son, and we do not know that it was ever written down until the days of James I., nearly two hundred years after Whittington died. Of course, everyone who told this tale wanted to make it as interesting as possible, so little bits were added to it, and it gradually grew more and more wonderful. It is not surprising, then, that learned men have not been satisfied with it, and they have searched the Chronicles and Records of London to find out what they tell us of Richard Whittington, and thus a second story has been made. Now I will tell you first the older story.

Dick Whittington was born in the West of England. While he was still only a little boy his father and mother died, and left him so poor that he had no home, and was thankful to do even the hardest workfor just his bare food. One day someone told him that the streets of London were paved with gold. "Can it be true?" he thought to himself. "Is there so much gold in London that it is trodden underfoot? Then it is my own fault if I starve here in the West Country, for am I not big enough and brave enough to tramp all the way up to London? Who could prevent me from picking up some of that gold which surely no one needs, or they would not pave the streets with it? And I need it so much! Courage, Dick Whittington; off with you to London!" So off he set, and tramped all the weary way to the great city.

NO. 11. AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE; TOWER BRIDGE IN THE DISTANCE.NO. 11. AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE; TOWER BRIDGE IN THE DISTANCE.

When he reached it, up and down its streets he went,—streets far narrower than those of to-day, and darkened by the overshadowing houses, for often each of their stories stood out a little beyond the story below. Very dirty we should have thought those streets, for people often threw out into them their rubbish and refuse. And what of the gold? Dick saw none. At last, utterly wearied out, utterly disappointed, so weak from hunger that he could hardly stand, he sank down to rest on the doorstep of one of the houses. Now the story says that presently the cook of this house caught sight of him sitting there. She was a bad-tempered woman. She flung open the door and scolded Dick well for an idle fellow, and bade him be off. Dick begged her to give him work so that he might earn some food, but she would not listen to him, and only scolded the more; and while this was going on up came the master of the house, a rich merchant, whose name was Hugh Fitzwarren. He asked the meaning of all these angry words, andhe too was vexed to see a boy sitting idly on his doorstep, and bade him go to his work.

"Ah," said Dick, "I have no work, and I have had nothing to eat for three days. I am a poor country lad, and here no one knows me, no one will help me." And he rose up to wander away again, but he was so tired, so weak, he could hardly stand. The merchant saw this, and said to the cook, "Take him in; feed him well, and set him to work to help thee in thy kitchen."

Now, she was, as I said, a bad-tempered woman. Her master's orders she must and did obey, but if Dick now had work and food and a resting-place, he had also many a sharp word, many a sour look, many a cruel blow. Though he worked hard he could not please her. Indeed, in all the household—and it was a large one—the only person who was friendly to him was the merchant's little daughter, Mistress Alice, who not only spoke kindly to him herself, but tried to make his fellow-servants treat him better.

NO. 12. WHITTINGTON SETTING THE KING FREE FROM THE GREAT DEBT.NO. 12. WHITTINGTON SETTING THE KING FREE FROM THE GREAT DEBT.

Dick slept in a garret which was overrun with rats and mice; they were so bold that they even crept about over him when he was in bed, and prevented him sleeping. What could he do about this? In all the world he had but one penny; how he came by this penny I do not know, but I feel sure he earned it by doing some extra work. With it he bought a cat and took her up to his garret, and there she lived and made war on the rats and mice. Henceforth Dick slept in peace.

Whenever the merchant, Hugh Fitzwarren, sent a ship to trade with foreign countries, he allowed eachof his servants to have some little share in her; each might send out in her some silk or cloth, or even a very little thing, whatever he had or could afford to buy; and the money for which this thing was sold was the servant's own. This the merchant did that "so God might give him greater blessing." Thus it came about that one day Dick was called with all the other servants, and each was asked what he would send out in the good shipUnicorn, which was now ready for sea. When it came to Dick's turn, he said, "I have nought to send." "Think again," said his master; "hast thou no little thing thou canst spare? Hast thou nought to venture?" "Nought, nought," answered Dick, "except my cat, and thou wilt not take her." "Nay, why not?" said the merchant. "Send thy cat by all means." So, though his fellow-servants laughed and mocked, Dick's cat was sent on board theUnicorn.

Now he was lonely indeed; so lonely that the cook's angry words and cross tempers were harder to bear than ever, and Dick made up his mind to run away. Very early one morning—it was the Feast of All-Hallows—while his fellow-servants were still fast asleep, he slipped out of Master Fitzwarren's house and made his way northward out of London. On Highgate Hill he sat down to rest. Hark! what was that he heard? Now the wind brought the sound to him more clearly; now it died away again. It was the chime of Bow bells, and this is what it said to him:—

"Turn again, Whittington,Lord Mayor of London!"

Lord Mayor of London! Was he to be Lord Mayor? If so, must he not work faithfully, and, if need be, endure hardships—yes, even such little hardships as the cruel words and blows of the bad-tempered cook? Up he jumped, and hurried back so fast that he reached Master Fitzwarren's house before the cook had missed him.

TheUnicornhad sailed to the Barbary Coast of Africa. The King of this country was rich and great, yet he was most miserable and uncomfortable, for his kingdom simply swarmed with rats and mice. They were everywhere, even in the beds and on the King's table, where they ate the food which had been prepared for him. When the men of theUnicorncame to the Court to show the King the goods their ship had brought, fancy how surprised they were to see rats and mice here, there, and everywhere! "That cat we have on board," said they, "would soon stop this." "Then let the cat be sent for at once!" cried the King. So Dick's cat was brought, and now in the palace, as once in Dick's garret, she made fierce war on the rats and mice, and before long she had driven them all away. The King was so delighted that he bought the cat for ten times more money than he paid for all theUnicorn'srich merchandise.

When the ship came home, here was fine news for Dick,—no more kitchen-work for him; he was a rich man now. He became a merchant like his master, Hugh Fitzwarren, and by-and-by he married Mistress Alice; and, as Bow bells had promised him, he was made Mayor of London, not once, but three times. He was a good Londoner and a good Englishman, forthe story says that when King Henry V. came home after he had conquered France, Whittington entertained him at a great banquet. Look at the picture of this which facespage 41; near the table a fire is burning, and Whittington is just going to throw something into it. How eagerly everyone is watching him, and well they may; for before the King went to France he had borrowed great sums of money from the City and its merchants to pay the cost of his wars, and now Whittington is flinging into the fire the papers in which the King had promised to pay back 37,000 crowns—that is, £60,000 in our money. Thus he set the King free from his debt, or, in other words, gave him all this money. Was not this a princely gift for the great merchant to give the great King?

Now I must tell you what the Chronicles and Records of London tell us about Richard Whittington. He was indeed born in the West of England, but he belonged to a good family. We do not know why and when he came to the City. In those days it was certainly no disgrace for the younger sons of good families to be London merchants; for the City was great and prosperous, able to raise large sums of money to help the King in his wars; and we read that at a council held at the Guildhall about this very matter, to which came the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King's brothers, the Lord Mayor was given the seat of honour above them all, so greatly was he respected because he was London's chief officer.

All the workmen, according to their trades, had to belong to companies called "guilds." Each guild had its own officers and made its own rules for lookingafter its members; and it had to see not only that these members knew how to do their work, but also that they did it properly and charged a fair price for it. We may still read the rules about all this made by the Guilds of the Blacksmiths, the Plumbers, the Glovers, and many others. Truly, the merchants and workmen of London were honourable and upright, and turned out good honest work. No wonder, then, that Richard Whittington became a London merchant.

He was a mercer—that is, he sold cloth and silk and velvet and such things; and so we hear of him providing velvet for the servants of that Earl of Derby who afterwards became King Henry IV.

Whittington became a great man in the City, was Alderman and Sheriff, and from June, 1397, until November, 1399, he was Mayor. Mayor for a year and five months? Are not Mayors appointed every year in October? and do they not rule only for one year, from November to November? Yes, but the Mayor chosen in October 1396 died during his year of office, and the King, Richard II., appointed Whittington to take his place; and at the year's end the Aldermen chose him to be Mayor again for the next year.

He was still carrying on his business, and when Henry IV. became King, and the Princesses, his daughters, were to be married, Whittington sold to them the cloth of gold and other things necessary for their weddings. He often lent great sums of money to Henry IV., and in later days to his son, Henry V., and in the reign of this King he was Mayor twice. He died in the year 1423; on his gravestone were carved some Latin words which mean that he was theFlower of Merchants. His wife's name was certainly Alice Fitzwarren, but she was the daughter of a Dorsetshire Knight.

So you see the real Richard Whittington was a very great and rich merchant. But many another has been as rich and great, yet no stories are told of them; what makes Whittington different from all others?

First of all, he was Lord Mayor three times, or, rather, may we not say three and a half times? And then he was very wise and generous; he gave, as I have already told you, a library to the Grey Friars; and he arranged that after his death a great deal of his money should be used to help London. His friends, who had to see to this, knew that good water is one of the things most necessary for a great city, so they arched over a spring to keep it clean and sweet, and they placed "drinking-bosses," or taps, in the conduits or channels and pipes which brought the water from country springs and streams into London. Newgate Prison was "feble, over-litel, and so contagious of eyre [air] yat [that] hit caused the deth of many men," so Whittington's money was used to rebuild it. It was also used to repair St. Thomas's Hospital, and to make a new hospital or almshouse where always thirteen old men should live, who were to pray for Dick Whittington's soul, and the souls of his father and mother and wife. These almshouses are no longer in the City; they have been moved out to Highgate, and stand not far from the stone which marks the place where Whittington heard the chime of Bow bells; and through them Dick Whittington's wealth is still doing good to the poor of London.

In the reign of Henry VI., Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the King's uncle, built himself a palace at Greenwich, and he called it "Placentia" or "Plaisance," which means a pleasant thing or place. (Turn over this page and the next, and you will find apictureof it.) I think the Tudor Kings really found it a pleasant place, for they lived there a great deal; here Henry VIII. and his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were born, and here Edward VI. died.

In those days the road we now call the Strand led from the City to the village of Charing Cross; and all along it stood great and beautiful houses with gardens which stretched down to the river. Each house, most likely, had its water-gate or landing-place, where the master of the house and his guests could step on board their barges, which might take them up the river to Westminster and the royal palace near Richmond, or down to London and beyond it to Greenwich; for in those days the river was London's greatest and most stately highway. Very stately were the barges, very gay, too, with flags and the fine liveries of servants; and very often people on the banks or in little boats near-by heard music sounding from their decks as they moved swiftly along. How beautiful, how stately, must Queen Elizabeth's barge have been, when at her Coronation she came by water to the Abbey!

She often stayed in her palace called Plaisance; how grandly she lived there! One who saw her there tells of the "gentlemen, barons, earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly-dressed and bareheaded," who went before her; one of them carried the sceptre, another the sword of state. The ladies of her Court followed her, and she was guarded on each side by fifty gentlemen who carried gilt battle-axes. She was herself magnificently dressed, and "wherever she turned her face as she passed along, everybody fell down on their knees."

NO. 13. GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW.NO. 13. GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW.

Sometimes, when she wanted to be amused, plays were acted in the great hall of the palace, and she sat in her chair of state with her ladies about her and looked on. I wonder if any of these plays were written by Shakespeare? Perhaps they were; it is even possible that Shakespeare himself may have acted before her, for he had come to London from his country home two years before the Spanish Armada sailed up the English Channel to conquer England; and during the last five years of her reign, whenever Elizabeth went up the river in her barge, she passed the round wooden theatre, called the Globe, where his plays were acted, for it was in Southwark on the south bank. There is no sign of it now; a great brewery has been built over the place where once it stood.

These were the days when English sailors fought the Spanish on the high seas, because they claimed all the New World as their own and strove to keep everyone else out of it. From the windows or the terrace of her palace did the Queen ever watch ships sailing down the river to take part in this struggle, or in another,—a struggle with winds and waves, ice andsnow, as the sailors tried to explore the unknown coasts of America? Once at least we know she did, for Admiral Frobisher's two little ships fired a salute to her as they dropped down the river. He was going to search for gold and for the North-West Passage round the north of America to the Pacific. He found no passage and no gold though he went again and yet again to the cold North. How often Englishmen searched for that passage; how hard they found it to believe that there is no way for ships through those icy seas!

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