The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories of London, by E. L. Hoskyn This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Stories of London Author: E. L. Hoskyn Release Date: September 3, 2010 [EBook #33613] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES OF LONDON *** Produced by Al Haines Cover art NO. 1. AN OLD RIVER-WALL OR EMBANKMENT (CHELSEA) See page 9 STORIES OF LONDON BY E. L. HOSKYN, B.A. (LOND.) AUTHOR OF "PICTURES OF BRITISH HISTORY," ETC. WITH A PREFACE BY SOPHIE BRYANT, D.Sc., LITT.D. Title page logo LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1914 PREFACE There are many kinds of ignorance which, for lack of time and opportunity, we may rightly tolerate in ourselves. Ignorance of the stories that cling around and beautify the home-place is not one of these. A place, indeed, is not a home unless human life has woven a thread of story through and through it. Happy are those who dwell as children in a place well clad with racy memories and legendary lore. The city-home of the London child is just such a place. Here we have a city with an old old history losing itself in the mists of time, and preserving itself in the memorials of its ancient sites and the tales that grow like ivy round its odd place-names. Of all this the careless city-dweller takes no note, but the London child should be a different kind of being. London stories are racy of London; they reflect its life in every age; and the London child is heir to them all. The stories of London in this little book are interesting to everybody, whether young or old; they cannot fail to be so, because London is interesting, more or less, to everybody in the world. But the book is written more particularly for the children of London, so that they may not be careless city-dwellers, as so many are, but may grow up into real citizens of this great London, loving their old city in all its nooks and corners for its own dear sake, feeling it in all the twists and turns of its varied history, as if their life and its life were bound up in one. But this is not all that the study of London's stories may do for the London child. The natural beginning of interest in history—including the literature that collects around it—arises out of interest in the story of the place in which we live. We walk about the place and picture the events of which we read as happening within it. The place is transfigured, is filled with life; and the story is transfigured too as seen against the background to which it really belongs. In the case of London, moreover, there is a good deal of useful work for the imagination to do in sufficiently restoring that background to its primitive simplicity. So the London child who knows the London stories thoroughly—so thoroughly as to be able to see them in their real setting, as they happened in that city by the river on the marshes in the olden time—has learnt to know how every other story, including the history proper of any other town or country, should be known. Thus, the study of the home story is for each of us the true beginning of our education in that exercise of historical imagination on which our appreciation of history largely depends. It is hoped that these Stories of London will be specially interesting to the London child, but not to him alone. The story of London is central in the story of England, and appeals to the interest of every English-speaking child. SOPHIE BRYANT. CONTENTS I. SOME VERY OLD STORIES II. WESTMINSTER ABBEY III. THE CHARTER HOUSE IV. TWO FAMOUS CHARITIES V. THE STORY AND THE HISTORY OF DICK WHITTINGTON {3} {4} {5} VI. WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN VII. THE STORY OF ST. PAUL'S LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. AN OLD RIVER-WALL OR EMBANKMENT (CHELSEA) . . . . . . Frontispiece 2. PART OF THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CHARTER HOUSE SCHOOL, ITS CHAPEL AND PLAYGROUND 3. WESTMINSTER ABBEY, THE TOMB OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR 4. THE FIRST CORONATION IN THE ABBEY 5. A ROOM IN THE TOWER WHERE STATE PRISONERS WERE LODGED 6. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER WATCH THE CARTHUSIAN PRIORS GOING AWAY TO DIE 7. OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER HOUSE CHAPEL 8. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED 9. AN EXCITING GAME; OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON 10. ENTRANCES OF THE OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AND OF CHRIST'S CHURCH, LONDON 11. AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE, TOWER BRIDGE IN THE DISTANCE 12. WHITTINGTON SETTING THE KING FREE FROM HIS GREAT DEBT 13. GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW 14. PLACENTIA, THE OLD PALACE AT GREENWICH 15. THE FIRE OF LONDON 16. ST. PAUL'S FROM THE RIVER Sketch map of Norman London Old St Paul's {6} NO. 2. PART OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE OLD CHARTER HOUSE SCHOOL, ITS CHAPEL AND PLAYGROUND. (See p. 28) STORIES OF LONDON I. SOME VERY OLD STORIES The first story of London should tell who built it, and when, and why. But London is old, very old; it began before its builders had even thought of making books, and so its earliest history is written in the ground on which it stands, in its hills and valleys, its rivers and river-beds; and this is a kind of history which, if only we know how to read it, always tells the truth. Perhaps you are saying to yourself, "There is only one river in London, and that is the Thames; and there are no hills,—London is flat; and as for the ground, who has seen the real ground on which London stands? Is it not all built over, or paved with wood or stones or cement? How, then, can we learn anything from it?" Sometimes old worn-out buildings have to be pulled down to their very foundations so that new houses may be put in their places, or a tube- railway or a tunnel has to be made, or gas-pipes or electric wires have to be laid under the roads;—have you not seen navvies digging deep into the earth to do all these things? Then the secret things hidden in the ground are brought to light, and they teach us something of the very old history of the land. Perhaps you know that the Hampstead and Highgate Hills lie four or five miles north of the Thames; and at about the same distance south of it are other hills, on one of which the Crystal Palace stands. Though we call the land between these hills the Thames Valley, it is not flat; and long ago, before London was built in it, it was much more uneven than it is now; for the more level roads are the easier it is for heavy carriages and carts to be pulled along them, so hollows have been filled up and hillocks cut down to make the ground as flat as possible. Even now, as you ride on the top of an omnibus through the long straight road called Oxford Street, if you watch carefully you may notice the rise and fall of the land,—a little hill, then a little valley, and so on. Once through each of these valleys a stream ran down to the Thames. Where are they now? Some of them are underground—arched over, built over, buried in the dark, out of sight. Look at the map on p. 11; there you will find one of these rivers, which ran from the Highgate Woods southward to the Thames. It was called the Fleet, and has given its name to Fleet Street. {7} {8} NO. 3. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY: THE TOMB OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR WITH ITS VELVET COVERING See pages 17 and 22 There were also some low hills quite close to the north bank of the river. Let us fancy that we have gone back through the ages, many hundreds of years before ever the Romans came to this country, and that we are standing—you and I—facing the river on one of those hills, that on which St. Paul's now stands. What do we see? To our right, under its steep clay bank, so high it is almost a cliff, the Fleet runs on its way to the Thames; to our left is the hill; behind us, all the way up to the hills of Hampstead, are tangled forests, and in the low ground are wide marshes; and in front is the river. It is low-water; on either side of the stream are great stretches of mud and sand, wet marshy places, such as you may have seen at some place by the sea where the shore is very flat and the tide goes out very far. Beyond the marsh, on the southern shore, I think there is a wide shallow lake, for to this day some of the land there is below the level of the river at high-water. As we watch, look! a little rippling wave runs over the flats between the sand-banks; the tide has turned,—how fast it rises, how far it spreads! Before long the wide waste before us is covered with grey waters; it has become a great lake or sea. Nowadays embankments, such as you see in picture 1, keep the river in its place; but in the long-ago times of which we are thinking every high tide must have spread far and wide over what is now dry land. {9} NO. 4. THE FIRST CORONATION IN THE ABBEY <I>See page</I> 21 NO. 4. THE FIRST CORONATION IN THE ABBEY See page 21 Could any people have wished to live in such a watery place? Yes, indeed they did; and under the bed of the Fleet River, near its mouth, traces have been found of their homes. That ancient people must have had many enemies,—other men who fought them, fierce wild animals, wolves and other creatures which have not lived in England for hundreds and hundreds of years; and to defend themselves that people had such poor weapons, perhaps made only of bronze; so they sought for a very safe dwelling-place. Down into the muddy bed of the river they drove great wooden posts, such posts as men drive down now into river or sea when they are building a pier. The worn tops of those old timbers have been found showing up through the soil where once the Fleet ran; and on them once rested a platform of wood on which houses were built. Is not this a piece of history written in the soil? The first men who tried to read it understood more easily the meaning of those worn old posts because to this day the brown people, who live in one of the great islands to the south-east of Asia, build their houses on just such platforms out over the water. How long did the men of that far-off time live in these strange river-dwellings? That we do not know; it may have been for very many years. At last (so some learned men believe) they built for themselves a fort or stronghold on the high land near-by, perhaps where St. Paul's now stands, but more likely lower down the river, on the next hill; this stronghold may have been the beginning of London. If, as some people think, London means "The Fort of the Waters," or "The Lake Fort," was it not well named? Up the river to this fort ships may sometimes have come, bringing merchants to buy pearls and skins of wild animals and slaves; and to pay for them with such things as the fierce Londoners of those days would like—a sharp axe or a gay necklace. {10} LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE NORMANS. LONDON IN THE TIME OF THE NORMANS. The written history of London does not begin until the Romans had conquered and were ruling the land, more than a hundred years after their great general, Julius Cæsar, had first come here. They found London only a little group of huts, very likely made of wickerwork plastered over with mud, and surrounded by a poor wall and ditch. How much they did for it! They built round it the great walls which you see marked in our little map; so strong were they that parts of their foundations and of the walls themselves have been found even of late years. And many other traces of the Romans have been found in London—coins, and weapons, and carvings. Near the Strand is a bath which once, perhaps, belonged to some Roman gentleman's fine house. There were many such houses in and about London; and many a time the beautiful pavements of these houses, and even the pavements of the old Roman streets, have been found in the City down below the present streets and houses. The Romans made great roads which stretched out north, south, east, and west, from London; and they built a bridge over the Thames. In those days the people across the English Channel, the Gauls and Italians, were far wiser than the wild people of Britain; and roads and bridges made it possible for their trade, skill and wisdom to come to the people of London. A flourishing city it became under the Roman rule. The years passed on and evil days befell the Roman Empire; the wild fierce northern races attacked it, and the Roman soldiers had to leave Britain and go back to defend Italy. Then there came to this country also sad days of war and trouble, for the English came over the North Sea, fought and conquered the Britons, and at last settled here. Then came the Danes, and there was more war, more fighting. During these dreadful times we hear little of London. At last Alfred became King. Do you remember how many good things he did for England? One of the best of them was that in the year 886, as the ancient Chronicle or history of our country tells us, he built London Town,—that is, he built again her walls and towers, and made her once more a strong city. Thus, with Alfred as her founder and protector, her later history begins. Year by year she grew greater and more important, until she became the greatest of all English cities and the capital of the land. There is another and a very different story of Old London, and this is how it begins:—"Brute, about the yeare of the world 2855 and 1108 before the nativitie of Christ" (that is, before Christ was born,) "builded this city neare unto the riuer (river) now called Thames, and named it Troynouant"—that is, 'New Troy.' Now, this Brute belonged to the very same family as Romulus who built Rome; and he and his followers came across the sea to this island, in which then only a few giants were living, and he conquered them and took the land, and named it Britain after his own name, and his companions he called Britons. There were more giants in Cornwall than in any other part of the land. One of them was called Goëmagot; he was so strong that he could pull up an oak-tree as if it were only a hazel-wand. Now there was a great fight between the Britons and the Cornish giants, and all the giants were killed but Goëmagot. Then he and a famous Briton fought {12} {13} together, and all men stood by to watch. At first it seemed that the giant would win for he wounded the Briton sorely; but, wounded as he was, the Briton heaved Goëmagot up on his shoulders, ran with him to the shore, and flung him headlong into the sea; and (so says the story) the rock from which he fell is called "The Giant's Leap" unto this day. All this happened near the place where Plymouth now stands. What has it to do with London? In the Guildhall, which is the Council Hall of London, are many statues of great and famous men, and here are also two great wooden giants called Gog and Magog; they are the City's giants. Once they used to be carried in the Lord Mayor's Show and in processions to make the people wonder. The older giant is said to be Goëmagot; the other, the Briton who hurled him headlong into the sea. Long after Brute died, Belinus became King. Of all his wonderful history I can tell you only this,—he placed a great building in Trinovantum (that is, London,) upon the banks of the Thames, and the citizens called it, after his name, Billingsgate. Over it he built a huge tower, and under it a fair haven or quay for ships. "At last, when he had finished his days, his body was burned, and the ashes put up in a golden urn, which they placed with wonderful art on the top of the tower" which he himself had built. Have you ever heard of Billingsgate? It is the chief fish-market of London, and its wharf is the oldest on the Thames, so old that no one knows when fish were first landed and sold there. Many years after Belinus built his great tower, Lud became King. He "not only repaired this Cittie" (that is, Trinovantum,) "but also increased the same with faire buildings, Towers and walles; and after his own name called it Caire Lud, as Lud's towne." And about sixty-six years before Christ was born he built a strong gate in the west part of the city, and he named it, in his own honour, Ludgate; and when he died his body was buried by this gate. Turn back to the little map of London on p. 11; there you will find Ludgate marked. St. Paul's Cathedral stands just to the east of it, on Ludgate Hill. These stories were first written down by a Welsh priest called Geoffrey of Monmouth, who lived in the days of King Stephen; and long ago everyone believed they were true. Then came a time when people said what, perhaps, you are thinking, "These stories are only fairy-tales. Who made them up?" Well, Geoffrey of Monmouth said, in his book written nearly 800 years ago, that he had read them in a still older book which came out of Brittany. Who else had read this old book? No one, so Geoffrey said; so people left off believing them; they were put aside and forgotten. Now wise men think that they are really the old stories of our nation which have been passed down from father to son, and that perhaps the heroes of which they tell are the gods the people once worshipped, that Lud was a God of the Waters. If so, was it not very natural that he was worshipped in Old London on the shores of the Thames and the Fleet Rivers? There is another hero, Bran the Blessed, of whom I must tell you. He too was King of the Isle of the Mighty, as Britain was called. He was so big no ship could contain him for he was like a mountain, and his eyes were like two lakes. In the end of his days he fought with the Irish in their own land until only he and seven of his followers were left alive, and he was wounded unto death. And he said to his followers, "Very soon I shall die; then cut off my head, and take it with you to London, and there bury it in the White Mountain looking towards France, and no foreigners shall invade the land while it is there." Much more he told them of the manner of their coming to London, and all that he said came true, so that many years passed away before in the White Mount, where the Tower now stands, they buried the head. There it lay until Arthur dug it up, for he said, "The strong arm should defend the land." He meant that the men of a nation should be its defence. Arthur himself was proclaimed King in London. Perhaps you remember the old story of the child who was brought up so secretly that, when the King, his father, died, no one knew who was now the rightful King or, indeed, if there was one. Then, as Merlin the Magician had advised, the Archbishop of Canterbury called on all the great lords of the kingdom to come together in London; and there, one day, outside the greatest church in the City (was it St. Paul's, I wonder?) they saw a great stone with a sword sticking in it; and round about the stone, written in letters of gold, were these words:—"Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is right wise born King of England." The great lords tried to pull it out, and not one of them could do so; but young Arthur, who had come to town with his foster-father and foster- brother, pulled it out easily, not because he wanted to show that he was the King,—he does not seem to have known about this,—but because his foster-brother had sent him to fetch a sword and he could get no other. Thus, all men knew that he was "right wise born King of England." {14} {15} {16} NO. 5. A ROOM IN THE TOWER WHERE STATE PRISONERS WERE LODGED. NO. 5. A ROOM IN THE TOWER WHERE STATE PRISONERS WERE LODGED. NO. 6. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER WATCH THE CARTHUSIAN PRIORS GOING AWAY TO DIE. See page 26 II. THE STORY OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY Turn to the picture facing p. 8. If you have ever been in London, I think you will know that this is a picture of part of Westminster Abbey. Even if you have never seen the Abbey, perhaps you know that it is a very old and beautiful church near the River Thames in London. Imagine that you are standing near it now, and that you can see its old grey walls, and the grass and railings which separate it from the busy street with its motors and omnibuses, its carriages and carts. Now, with the roar of the streets in our ears, with the tall London buildings all around us, and busy people constantly hurrying past us, let us try to fancy what this spot was like in the very early times when we first hear of it. Then the Thames was clear and fresh and full of fish, and many a red deer and other wild animal wandered along its banks and drank of its waters. About a mile and a half above London, where the river was wide and shallow, one of those little brooks of which I have told you ran into it; and here, where the waters of the brook and of the river met, was a bank of sandy gravel, which at high tide was an island, so it was called Thorney or Thorn Ey—the Island of Thorns—for it was all overgrown with thorn-bushes. Very lonely, very quiet, Thorney must have been. Who first lived there, what kind of a dwelling-place they had, we do not really know. In later days the monks, whose home it then was, said that once the temple of a Roman god had stood there, and that when the Britons became Christians a good King built in its place a Christian church called the Abbey of St. Peter. Do you remember that, after the Romans left Britain, the English, who were still heathen, came over the North Sea and conquered the Britons and settled on their lands? The monks said that in those days of war and trouble the little Abbey of St. Peter was destroyed. Early in the seventh century, when the English also had learnt the Christian Faith, Sebert, King of the East Saxons, rebuilt the little abbey, and when he died he was buried there. So said the monks, and to this very day there is a grave in Westminster Abbey which is said to be Sebert's. There is a strange story told about this ancient church. It was just finished, and the first Bishop of London, Mellitus, was to come on a certain Monday to consecrate it—that is, to set it apart for the service of God. The evening before a man called Edric was fishing in the river. Suddenly, on the southern bank, he saw a bright light; he pulled his little boat towards it, and saw standing by the water a strange-looking stately man, who pointed towards Thorney and said, "Ferry me, I pray thee, across to yonder place"; and Edric did so. As the stranger landed and went to the new church the air was filled with heavenly light, the church was "without darkness or shadow," and through the light angels came flying from the skies, and with their help the stranger held the solemn service of consecration. All this Edric heard and saw. Do you wonder that he forgot all about his fishing? When the service was ended and, I suppose, the heavenly light had faded away and darkness again covered the place, the stranger came to Edric and asked for food. "Alas!" he answered, "I have none. I have not caught a single fish." Then said the stranger, "I am Peter, Keeper of the Keys of Heaven. When the Bishop comes to-morrow, tell him that I, St. Peter, have consecrated my own church of St. Peter. Go thou out into the river; thou wilt catch many a fish, whereof the most part will be salmon. This I grant thee if thou wilt promise two things;—first, that never again wilt thou fish on Sunday; and, secondly, that thou wilt give one-tenth of thy fish to the Abbey of St. Peter." Next day King Sebert and the Bishop of London came to Thorney. There, by the new church, with a salmon in his hand, Edric, the fisherman, was waiting to tell his story. Did they believe it? How could they help believing? for he showed them the marks of twelve crosses on the church, and the traces of the sacred oil and of the candles which the angels had held! There was nothing left for the Bishop to do but to declare that the church had been well and truly consecrated. These are the wonderful stories the monks used to tell of their abbey. I suppose they loved it so much that they wanted people to think it as old and as wonderful as it could possibly be. But now we have come to real history which we know to be true. In 1042 Edward, called the Confessor, became King of England. Englishmen long remembered him and what he looked like; his hair and beard were milky white, and his cheeks were red; he loved hunting and long services in church; and his people believed that the touch of his hand would heal the sick, and that God spoke to him in dreams and visions. His father had been driven out of England by the Danes, and Edward had grown up in Normandy; so it came about that he loved the Normans, who were more courteous than the rude rough English. Yet I think he loved England too, for we are told that he made a vow to St. Peter that if ever he returned there in safety he would make a pilgrimage {17} {18} {19} {20} to the saint's grave in Rome. He did not keep this vow; his people would not let him, for they said, "The journey to Rome is long and dangerous, and our King is very precious to us. We cannot let him go." But a man, even if he is a King, may not break a solemn vow, so Edward asked the Pope what he must do, and the Pope answered, "Stay at home and rule thy people; yet, as thou hast vowed to make a pilgrimage to Rome, do some other costly thing instead. Build a new church, or rebuild an old one in honour of St. Peter." And King Edward determined to rebuild the little church at Thorney, or Westminster as we must now call it; for the thorns had long since been cleared away, the sandy bank was no longer an island even at high-water, and pleasant meadows lay on either side of the river. For fifteen years the work went on; Edward was so interested in it, so loved it, that he watched over and cared for every part of it. Now at last, at Christmas-time of the year 1065, the east end was finished. How eagerly the King looked forward to its consecration! It was indeed consecrated three days after Christmas, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, but the King was not there; he was very ill, and within a few days he died. The first great service held in the new Abbey was his funeral; he was buried before the high Altar. After this there was no peace or happiness in England for many a day. Edward left no son, so the greatest of the English Earls, Earl Harold, was made King. But William, Duke of Normandy, declared that Edward had promised him the crown; and he came across the sea, and fought and killed Harold on the Sussex Hills at the Battle of Hastings. Thus the Norman Duke became William I., King of England, and he was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. Inside the church with him were the Norman nobles; outside crowded the poor English. When he was proclaimed King at the Altar, the English shouted, as was their custom, "God save the King!" The Normans within the Abbey heard and wondered. What could the shouts mean? Were the English rising against them? Full of fear and anger they rushed out to find everything in confusion, the houses ablaze, and their men, who had been left outside on guard, killing the poor English. In the Abbey William and the Bishops and monks were left almost alone; and thus, in the gloom and darkness of the winter's day, with the sound of tumult and fighting ringing in their ears, the Conqueror was crowned. This was the first coronation in the Abbey; facing p. 9 is a picture of it. Two hundred years later King Henry III. pulled down Edward the Confessor's Abbey, and built in its place the Abbey we still have. In it the Confessor's tomb is behind the altar; for Henry had his body reverently moved from its first grave to a chapel which he had especially prepared for it. When you go to the Abbey you will see that this chapel is higher than any of the others; some people say the reason is that, to do more honour to the Confessor, King Henry sent ships to bring earth from the Holy Land, and this sacred earth was piled up into a mound behind the high Altar, and on it the Confessor's chapel was built. This is the part of the Abbey shown in picture 3; turn back and look at it again. Do you see that the old tomb is covered with purple velvet? Are not the pillars and arches about it beautiful? I have told you only the beginning of the Abbey's history. Not only are all our Kings crowned there but many of them lie buried there too; so also do some of the best and wisest men who have served our country, some of our bravest sailors, and of our greatest poets. Thus it comes about that the history of the Abbey is as long as the history of our country—indeed, it is the history of our country. III. THE STORY OF THE CHARTER HOUSE In 1347 Edward III. was besieging Calais; he was at war with France, and but the year before had won the great victory of Creçy. The siege lasted a whole year, and then at last the men of Calais could hold out no longer, for the French King could not help them and they had no food left. When King Edward heard this he sent to them one of his knights, Sir Walter Manny, with this message, "Give yourselves up to me that I may do with you what I will." This was a hard thing to ask, so hard that Edward's lords pleaded with him to show mercy; and the King gave way and said he would be content if six citizens came to him, barefoot, in their shirts, with ropes about their necks, and bearing the city's keys. "On them," he said, "I will do my will." So the Captain of Calais gave up six of the citizens to Sir Walter Manny, and he brought them to the King and begged him to spare their lives—begged, but begged in vain. Then Queen Philippa, Edward's wife, weeping bitterly, fell on her knees, and prayed the King for love of our Lord to have mercy; and the King's heart was moved to pity, and he answered her, "Though I do it against my will—take them! I give them to you." Can you not fancy how well she treated them, and how happy she was when she sent them home to Calais? In those days, outside the walls of London towards the north-west was a pleasant land of fields and trees, of streams and clear sweet springs, a lonely land with few houses except three great monasteries. Here Sir Walter Manny and the Bishop of London of that time founded another monastery for twenty-four monks and a Prior or chief monk. It was called the London Charter House, for it was one of several Charter Houses which all belonged to the same kind of monks, who all obeyed the same rules and wore the same dress, and so they are said to belong to the same Order. This {21} {22} {23} {24} new Charter House stood on land which had been given (some by Sir Walter Manny, some by a former Bishop of London,) to be used as a burial-ground for people who had died in the great sickness, called the Black Death, in the year 1349. NO. 7. OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER HOUSE. See page 28 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 meal of 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 {25} 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. <I>See page</I> 30 NO. 8. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED. See page 30 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 the world 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 to picture 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. "Moved with 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. {26} {27} 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 had borne 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 to picture 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 2 shows 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. IV. TWO FAMOUS CHARITIES Turn to picture 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 a hospital 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 in picture 8 is 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 men than 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. {28} {29} {30} {31}