 Lessons 52 and 53 of the history of London. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant. Lesson 52. The Terror of Fire. The city of London has suffered from fire more than any other great town. In the year 961 a large number of houses were destroyed. In 1077, 1086 and 1093 a great part of the city was burned down. In 1136 a fire which broke out at London Stone in the house of one Alewood spread east and west as far as Aldgate on one side and St. Erkenwald's Shrine in St. Paul's Cathedral on the other. London Bridge, then built of wood, perished in the fire, which for five hundred years was known as the Great Fire. In these successive fires every building of Saxon erection, to say nothing of the Roman period, must have perished. But the ravages of all the fires together did less harm than the terrible fire which laid the greater part of London in ashes in the year 1666. If you will refer to the map of London you may mark off within the walls the North East Angle, that part contained by the wall and a straight line running from Coleman Street to Tower Hill. With the exception of that corner the whole of London within the walls and beyond as far as the temple was entirely destroyed. The fire broke out at a baker's in Pudding Lane Thames Street. It was early on Sunday morning on the second day of September 1666. It was then, and is now, a place where the houses stood very thick and close together. All round were warehouses filled with oil, wine, tar, and every kind of inflammable stuff. The baker's shop contained a large quantity of faggots and brushwood so that the flames caught and spread very rapidly. The people for the most part had time to remove their most valuable things, but their furniture, their clothes, the stock of their shops, the tools of their trade, they had to leave behind them. Some hurriedly placed their things in the churches for safety, as if the fire would respect the sanctity of these buildings. A stranger Sunday was never spent than this, when those who had escaped were asking where to go, and those upon whom the flames were advancing were tearing out of their houses whatever they could carry away, and the rest of the town were looking on and asking whether the flames would be stayed before they reached their houses. Among those who thought that a church would be a safe place were the booksellers of Paternoster Row. They carried all their books into St Paul's Cathedral and retired. Their stock in trade was safe. But the flames closed round upon the cathedral. They seized on Paternoster Row so that the booksellers like the rest were famed to fly, and presently towering to the sky flamed up the lofty roof of nave and chancel and tower. Then with an awful crash the flaming timbers fell down into the church below. Even the cathedral was burned with the rest and with it all the books. All Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday the fire raged, till it seemed as if there would be no end until the city was utterly destroyed. Happily a remnant was saved as you have seen. The fire was stopped at last by blowing up houses everywhere to arrest its progress. Close by the Temple Church, which barely escaped, they stopped it in this way. At Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and Bishopsgate they used the same means, and at Py Corner Smithfield. Nearly opposite Bartholomew's hospital you may still see the image of a boy set up to commemorate the stopping of the fire at that point. Had it gone further we should have lost St Bartholomew the Great and the Houses of Cloth Fair. When the fire stopped the people sat down to consider the losses they had sustained, and the best way out of them. St Paul's Cathedral, that ancient and venerable edifice with its thick walls and roof so lofty that it seemed as if no fire but the fire from heaven could reach it, was a pile of ruins. The walls of the nave and transept standing, the choir fallen into the crypt below. The parish churches to the number of eighty-eight were burned. The Royal Exchange, Gresham's Exchange, was down, and all the statues turned into lime, with the exception of Gresham's alone. Nearly all the great houses left in the city, the great Nobles' houses such as Beynard's Castle, Colt Harbour, Bridewell Palace, Derby House, were in ashes. All the company's halls were gone. Warehouses, shops, private residences, palaces, and hovels. Everything was levelled with the ground and burned to ashes. Five-sixths of the city were destroyed. An area of four hundred and thirty-six acres was covered with the ruins. Thirteen thousand two hundred houses were burned. It is said that two hundred thousand persons were rendered homeless, an estimate which would give an average of fifteen residents to each house. Probably this is an exaggeration. The houseless people, however, formed a kind of camp in Moorfields, just outside the wall, where they lived in tents and cottages hastily run up. The place now called Finsbury Square stands on the site of this curious camp. We ask ourselves in wonder how life was resumed after so great a calamity. The title deeds to houses and estates were burned. Who would claim and prove the right to property? The account books were all lost. Who could claim or prove a debt? The warehouses and shops with their contents were gone. Who could carry on business? The craftsmen had lost their employment. How were they to live? Of debts, and rents, and mortgages, and all such things little could be said. It was not a time to speak of the past. They must think of the future. They must all begin the world anew. End of Lesson 52 Lesson 53 The Terror of Fire Part 2 They must begin the world anew. For most of the merchants, nothing was left to them but their credit, their good name. Try to imagine the havoc caused by burning all the docks, warehouses, wharves, keys, and shops in London at the present day, with nothing at all ensured. But the citizens of London were not the kind of people to sit down weeping. The first thing was to rebuild their houses. This done there would be time to consider the future. The Lord Mayor and the Aldermen took counsel together how to rebuild the city. They called in Sir Christopher Wren, lately become an architect after being astronomer at Cambridge, and Evelyn. They invited plans for laying out the city in a more uniform manner, with wider streets and houses more protected from fire. Both Wren and Evelyn sent in plans, but while these were under consideration the citizens were rebuilding their houses. They did not wait for the ashes to get cool. As soon as the flames were extinct and the smoke had cleared, as soon as it was possible to make way among the ruined walls, every man sought out the sight of his own house, and began to build it up again. So that London rebuilt, was almost not quite, for some improvements were affected, laid out with the same streets and lanes as before the fire. It was two years, however, before the ruins were all cleared away, and four years before the city was completely rebuilt. Ten thousand houses were erected during that period, and these were all of brick. The old timbered house with clay between the posts was gone, so was the thatched roof. The houses were all of brick, the roofs were tiled, the chief danger was gone. At this time, too, they introduced the plan of a pavement on either side of smooth, flat stones, with posts to keep carts and wagons from interfering with the comforts of the foot passengers. It took much longer than four years to erect the company's halls. About thirty of the churches were never rebuilt at all, the parishes being merged in others. The first to be repaired, not rebuilt, was that of St. Dunstan's, two years after the fire. In four years more another church was finished. In every year after this, one or two, and the last of the city churches was not rebuilt till thirty-one years after the fire. It was at this time of universal poverty that the advantage of union was illustrated to those who had eyes to see. First of all the corporation had to find food, therefore work. Thousands were employed in clearing away the rubbish and carting it off, so as to make the streets at least free for traffic. The craftsmen who had no work to do were employed when this was done on the building operations. The keys were cleared and the warehouses put up again, for the business of the port continued. Ships came, discharged their cargos, and waited for their freight outward bound. Then the houses arose and the shops began to open again. And the companies stood by their members, they gave them credit, advanced loans, started them afresh in the world. Had it not been for the companies, the fate of London after the fire would have been as the fate of Antwerp after the religious wars. But there must have been many who were ruined completely by this fearful calamity. Hundreds of merchants and retailers, having lost their all, must have been unable to face the stress and anxiety of making this fresh start. The men advanced in life, the men of anxious and timid mind, the incompetent and feeble, were crushed. They became bankrupt, they went under. In the great crowd no one heeded them. Their sons and daughters took a lower place. Perhaps they are still among the ranks into which it is easy to sink, out of which it is difficult to rise. The craftsmen were injured least, their companies replaced their tools for them, work was presently resumed again, their houses were rebuilt, and as for their furniture there was not much of it before the fire, and there was not much of it after the fire. The poet tried and thus writes of the people during and after the fire. Those who have homes, when home they do repair, to a last lodging call their wandering friends. Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care, to look how near their own destruction tends. Those who have none sit round where once it was, and with full eyes each wanted room require. Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place, as murdered men walk where they did expire. The most in fields like herded beasts lie down, to dews obnoxious on the grassy floor, and while the babes in sleep their sorrow drown, sad parents watch the remnant of their store. End of Lesson 53 Recording by Ruth Golding Lesson 54 of the History of London This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 54 Rogues and Vagabonds The aspect of the city varies from age to age, the streets and the houses, the costumes, the language, the manners, all change. In one respect, however, there is no change. We have always with us the same rogues and the same roguery. We do not treat them quite after the manner followed by our forefathers, and, as their methods were incapable of putting a stop to the tricks of those who live by trickery, so are ours. Therefore we must not pride ourselves on any superiority in this direction. A large and very interesting collection of books might be formed on the subject of rogues and vagabonds. The collection would begin with Elizabeth, and could be carried on to the present day, new addition as being made from year to year. But very few additions are ever made to the customs and the methods of the profession. For instance there is the confidence trick, in which the rustic is beguiled by the honest stranger into trusting him. This trick was practiced three hundred years ago. Or there is the ring-dropping trick, it is as old as the hills. Or there is the sham sailor, now very rarely met with. When we have another war he will come to the front again. We have still the cheating gambler, but he has always been with us. In King Charles II's time he was called a ruffler, a huff, or a chabaroon. The woman who now begs along the streets, singing a hymn and leading borrowed children, did the same thing two hundred years ago, and was called a clapper-dozen. The man who pretends to be deaf and dumb went about then, and was known as the dummerer. The burglar was then the housebreaker. Burglary was formerly a far worse crime than it is now, because the people for the most part kept all their money in their houses, and a robbery might ruin them. The pick-pocket plied his trade, only he was then a cut purse. The foot-pads lay in wait on the lonely country road, or among the bushes of the open fields at the back of Lincoln's Inn. The punishments, which seemed so mild under the Plantagenets, increased in severity as the population outgrew the powers of the Government. Instead of plain standing in pillory, ears were nailed to the post and even sliced off. Whippings became more commonly administered and were much more severe. Heretics were burned by Elizabeth as well as by Mary, though not so often. After the civil wars we enter upon a period when punishment became savage in its cruelty, of which you will presently learn more. Meantime remark that when the city was less densely populated and when none lived outside the wards and walls, the people were well under the control of the Alderman and their officers. They were also well known to each other. They exercised that self-government, the best of any, which consists in refusing to harbour a rogue among them. If in every London street the tenants would refuse to suffer any evildoer to lodge in their midst, the police of London might be almost abolished. But the city grew, the wards became densely populated, then houses and extensive suburbs sprang up at Whitechapel, Whopping, outside Cripplegate, at Smithfield, north of Fleet Street, Lambeth, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe. The Alderman no longer knew their people. The men of the ward did not know each other. Rogues were harboured about Smithfield and outside Aldgate. The simple machinery for enforcing order ceased to be of any use, and as yet the new police was not invented. Therefore the punishments became savage. Since the government could not prevent crime and compel order, they would deter. Apart from active crime, vagrancy was a great scourge. Wars and civil wars left crowds of idle soldiers who had no taste for steady work. They became vagrants. There was also, and there is, still, a certain proportion of men and women who will not work. They become vagrants by a kind of instinct. They are born vagabonds. Laws and proclamations were continually passed for the repression of vagrants. They were passed on to their native place. They were provided with passes on their way. But these laws were always being evaded, and vagrants increased in number. Under Henry VIII, a very stringent statute was passed by which old and impotent persons were provided with license to beg, and anybody begging without a license was whipped. But, like all such acts, it was imperfectly carried out. For one who received a whipping, a dozen escaped. Stocks, pillory, bread and water all were applied but without visible effect, because so many escaped. London especially swarmed with beggars and pretended cripples. They lived about Turnmill Street, Houndstitch and the Barbican, outside the walls. From time to time a raid was carried on against them, and they dispersed, but only to collect again. In the year 1575, for instance, it is reported that there were few or no rogues in the London prisons. But in the year 1581 the Queen observing a large number of sturdy rogues during a drive made complaint, with the result that the next day, 74, were arrested, the day after, sixty and so on, the catch on one day being a hundred, all of whom were soundly paid, i.e. flogged and sent to their own homes. The statute ordering the whipping of vagabonds was enforced even in this present century, women being flogged as well as men. No statutes, however, can put down the curse of vagrancy and idleness. It can only be suppressed by the will and resolution of the people themselves. If, for a single fortnight, we should all refuse to give a single penny to beggars, if in every street we should all resolve upon having none but honest folk among us, then and only then would the rogue find this island of Great Britain impossible to be longer inhabited by him and his tribe. End of Lesson 54 Recording by Ruth Golding Lessons 55 to 59 of the history of London. This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 55, under George II, Part 1, The Wealth of London If a new world was opened to the adventurous in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, this new world two hundred years later was only half explored and was constantly yielding up new treasures. The lion's share of these treasures came to Great Britain and was landed at the Port of London. The wealth and luxury of the merchants in the eighteenth century surpassed anything ever recorded or ever imagined. So Great was their prosperity that historians and essayists predicted the speedy downfall of the city. The very greatness of their success frightened those who looked on and remembered the past. Though the appearance of the city had changed and its colour and picturesqueness were gone, at no time was London more powerful or more magnificent. There were no nobles living within the walls. Only two or three of the riverside palaces remained along the strand. There were no troops of retainers riding along the streets in the bright liveries of their masters. The picturesque gables, the lattice windows, the overhanging fronts, all these were gone. Instead of the old churches rich with ancient carvings, frescoes in crimson and blue, marble monuments and painted glass were the square halls, preaching halls, of Wren, with their round windows rich only in carved woodwork. The houses were square with sash windows. The shop fronts were glazed. The streets were filled with grave and sober merchants in great wigs and white ruffles. They lived in stately and commodious houses, many of which still survive. See the square at the back of Austin Friars Church for a very fine example. They had their country houses, they drove in chariots, and they did a splendid business. Their ships went all over the world, they traded with India, not yet part of the empire, with China and the Far East, with the West Indies, with the Levant. They had companies for carrying on trade in every part of the globe. The South Sea Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Turkey Company, the African Company, the Russian Company, the East India Company are some. The ships lay moored below the bridge in rows that reached a mile down the river. All this prosperity grew in spite of the wars which we carried on during the whole of the last century. These wars, though they covered the Channel and the Bay of Biscay with privateers, had little effect to stay the increase of London trade. And as the merchants lived within the city in sight of each other, their wealth was observed and known by all. At the present day, when London from nightfall till morning is a dead city, no one knows the wealth of the merchants, and it is only by considering the extent of the suburbs that one can understand the enormous wealth possessed by those men who come up by train every day, and without ostentation walk among their clerks to their offices in the city. A hundred and fifty years ago one saw the rich men, sat in church with them, sat at dinner with them on company feast days, knew them. The visible presence of so much wealth helped to make London great and proud. It would be interesting if it were possible to discover how many families, now noble or gentle, county families, derived their origin or their wealth from the city merchants of the last century. In one thing there is a great change. Till the middle of the seventeenth century, it was customary for the rank of trade to be recruited, in London at least, from the younger sons. This fashion was now changed. The continual wars gave the younger sons another career. They entered the army and the navy. Hence arose the contempt for trade which existed in the country for about a hundred and fifty years. It is now fast dying out, but it is not yet dead. Younger sons are now going into the city again. The old exclusiveness was kept up jealously. No one must trade in the city who was not free of the city. But the freedom of the city was easily obtained. The craftsmen and the clerk remained in their own places. They were taught to know their places. They were taught, which was a very fine thing, to think much of their own places and to take pride in the station to which they were called, to respect those in higher station, and to receive respect from those lower than themselves. Though merchants had not and have not any rank assigned to them by the court officials, there was as much difference of rank and place in the city as without. And in no time was there greater personal dignity than in this age, when rank and station were so much regarded. But between the nobility in the city there was little intercourse and no sympathy. The manners, the morals, the dignity of the city, ill assorted with those of the aristocracy, at a time when drinking and gambling were ruining the old families and destroying the noblest names. There has always belonged to the London merchant a great respect for personal character and conduct. We are accustomed to regard this as a survival of Puritanism. This is not so. It existed before the arrival of Puritanism. It arose in the time when the men in the wards knew each other, and when the master of many servants set the example, because his life was visible to all, of order, honour, and self-respect. End of Lesson 55. Lesson 56, under George II, Part 2 After the Great Fire the number of city churches was reduced from 126 to 87. Those that were rebuilt were for the most part much larger and more capacious than their predecessors. In many cases Wren, the great architect who rebuilt St Paul's Cathedral and all the churches, in order to get a larger church took in a part of the churchyard, which accounts for the fact that many of the city churchyards are now so small. Again, as the old churches had been built mainly for the purpose of saying and singing mass, the new churches were built mainly for the purpose of hearing sermons. They were therefore provided with pews for the accommodation of the hearers, and resembled, in their original design, a convenient square room, where the preacher might be seen and heard by all, rather than a cruciform church. Some of Wren's churches, however, though they may be described as square rooms, are exceedingly beautiful, for instance St Stephen's Wallbrook, while nearly all are enriched with woodwork of a beautiful description. It was the custom in the last century to attend frequent church services and to hear many sermons. The parish church entered into the daily life much more under George II's reign than it does now, in spite of our improved services and our multiplication of services. In forty-four city churches there was service sometimes twice, sometimes once, every day. In all of them there were evening services on Wednesday and Fridays. In many there were endowed lectureships, which gave an additional sermon once a week, or at stated times. Fast days were commonly observed, though it was not customary to close shops or suspend business on Good Friday or Ash Wednesday. Not more than half of the city churches possessed an organ. On Sunday afternoons the children were duly catechised. If boys misbehaved, the beadle or sexton came to them in the churchyard. The laws were still in force which find the parishioners for absence from church, or for harboring in their houses people who did not go to church. Except for Sunday services, sermons, and visitations of the sick, the clergy had nothing to do. What is now considered the work of the parish clergy, the work that occupies all their time, is entirely modern. Formerly this kind of work was not done at all, the people were left to themselves. The clergy were not the organisers of mothers' meetings, country jaunts, athletics, boys' clubs, and amusements. The non-conformists still formed an important part of the city. They had many chapels, but their social influence in London, which was very great at the beginning of the century, declined steadily. Until thirty or forty years ago it stood at a very low ebb, indeed. In the streets the roads were paved with round pebbles, they were cobbled. The footway was protected by posts placed at intervals. The paving stones, which only existed in the principal streets before the year 1766, were small and badly laid. After a shower they splashed up mud and water when one stepped upon them. The signs, which we have seen on the Elizabethan houses, still hung out from every shop and every house. They had grown bigger. They were set in immense frames of ironwork, which creaked noisily, and sometimes tore out the front of a house by their enormous weight. The shop windows were now glazed with small panes, mostly oblong, and often in bow windows. You may find several such shops still remaining, one at the top of the hay market, one in Coventry Street, one in the Strand. There were no fronts of plate glass, brilliantly illuminated to exhibit the contents exposed for sale. The old-fashioned shopkeeper prided himself on keeping within and out of sight his best and choicest goods. A few candles lit up the shop in the winter afternoons. To walk in the streets meant the encounter of roughness and rudeness, which would now be sought intolerable. There were no police to keep order. If a man wanted order, he might fight for it. Fights, indeed, were common in the streets. The wagoners, the hackney-coachmen, the men with the wheel-barrows, the porters who carried things, were always fighting in the streets. Gentlemen were hustled by bullies, and often had to fight them. Most men carried a thick cudgel for self-protection. The streets were far noisier in the last century than ever they had been before. Chiefly this was due to the enormous increase of wheeled vehicles. Formerly everything came into the city or went out of it on the backs of pack horses and pack asses. Now the roads were so much improved that wagons could be used for everything, and the long lines of pack horses had disappeared from the main roads. In the country lanes the pack horse was still employed. Everybody was able to ride, and the city apprentice, when he had a holiday, always spent it on horseback. But for every day the hackney-coach was used. Smaller carts were also coming into use, and for dragging about barrels of beer and heavy cases a tray of iron without wheels was used. All these innovations meant more noise and still more noise. Had Whittington, in the time of George II, sat down on Highgate Hill, still a grassy slope, he would have heard, loud above the sound of bowbells, the rumbling of the wagons on cheap side. End of Lesson 56 Lesson 57, under George II, Part 3 In walking through the city today one may remark that there is very little crying of things to sell. In certain streets, as Broad Street, White Cross Street, White Chapel or Middlesex Street, there is a kind of open street fair or market. But the street cries, such as Hogarth depicted, exist no longer. People used to sell a thousand things in the streets which are now sold in shops. All the little things, thread, string, pins, needles, small coal, ink and straps, that are wanted in a house, were sold by hawkers and balled all day long in the streets. Fruit of all kinds was sold from house to house, fish, milk, cakes and bread, herbs and drugs, brimstone matches, an endless procession passed along, all balling their wares. Then there were the people who ground knives, mended chairs, soldered pots and pans, these balled with the hawkers. We can no longer speak of the roar of London. There is no roar. The vehicles, nearly all provided with springs, roll smoothly over an even surface of asphalt. There are no more drays without wheels. There are no more street fights. There is comparatively little balling of things to sell. In those days people liked the noise. It was a part of the city life. It showed how big and busy the city was, since it could make such a tremendous noise by the mere carrying on of the daily round. Could any other city, even Paris, boast of such a noise? People who came up from the country to visit London were invited to consider the noise of the city as a part of its magnificence and pride. What else had they to consider? What were the sights of London? First of all, St Paul's and Westminster Abbey, then the Tower and the Monument, the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House, Guildhall and the Bank of England, London Bridge, Newgate, St James's and the Horse Guards. These were to be visited by day. In the evening there were the theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and there were the gardens. The citizens were always fond of their gardens. They were opened as soon as the weather would allow, and they continued open till the autumn chills made them impossible. The gardens were those of Vauxhall, still in existence as a small park, Ranley at Chelsea, Merrily Bone opposite the Old Paris Church in High Street, Bagnique Wells which lay east of Grey's Inn Road, Bell's Size near Hampstead, the White Conduit House in the fields near Islington, the Florida Gardens at Brompton, the Temple of Flora, the Apollo Gardens and the Bermond's East Bar Gardens all on the south side. These gardens now built over were all alike. Every one of them had an ornamental water, walks and shrubs, a room for dancing and singing, and a stand for the band out of doors. People walked about, looked at each other, had supper, drank punch, and went home. If the gardens were at any distance from the city, they marched together for safety. The river was still the favourite highway. Thousands of boats plied up and down. It was much safer, shorter and more pleasant to take oars from Westminster to the city than to walk or to hire a coach. The high roads of the country were rapidly improving. Stagecoaches ran from London to all the principal towns. They started for the most part at eight in the evening. They charged four pence a mile, and they pretended to accomplish the journey at the rate of seven miles an hour. You may easily compare the cost of travelling when you remember that you may now go anywhere for a penny a mile, one fourth the former charge at five or six times the rate. The short stages of which there were a great many ran to and from the suburbs. They were like the omnibuses but not so frequent, and they cost a great deal more. Threpence a mile was the usual charge. There was a penny post in London, first set up by a private person. A letter sent from London cost Tuppence the first stage, Threpence for two stages, above a hundred and fifty miles, six pence, Ireland and Scotland six pence, any foreign country a shilling. There were no bank notes under the value of twenty pounds. There were no postal orders or any conveniences of that kind. Money was remitted to London either by carrier or through some merchant. Banks there were by this time, but most people preferred keeping their own money in their own houses. Also banks being few, everybody carried gold. This partly explains the prevalence of highway robbery. Very likely the passengers on any long stagecoach carried between them some hundreds of guineas. A whole railway chain in these days would not yield so much, for people no longer carry with them more money than is wanted for the small expenditure of the day, tram, omnibus, cab, luncheon or dinner. End of Lesson 57 Lesson 58 Under George II Part 4 So far we understand that London, about the year 1750, was a city filled with dignified merchants, all getting rich, and with a decorous, self-respecting population of retail traders, clerks, craftsmen and servants of all kinds, a noisy but a well-behaved people, a church-going, sermon-loving and orderly people. This is in the main, a fair and just appreciation of the city. But there is the other side which must not be overlooked, that side namely which presents the vice and sin and misery which always accompany the congregation of many people and the accumulation of wealth. The vice which has always been the father of most miseries is that of drink. In the middle of the last century everybody drank too much. The dignity of the grave merchant was too often marred by indulgence in port and punch. The city clergy drank too much. Even the ladies drank too much. It was hardly a reproach in any class to be overcome with liquor. As for the lower classes their habitual drink was beer. Franklin tells us that when he was a printer in London every man drank seven or eight pints of beer every day. Nor was this small ale or porter. It was generally good strong beer. The beer would not perhaps hurt them so much, though the money spent on drink was enormous. But unfortunately they had now taken to gin as well, or instead. The drinking of gin at one time threatened literally to destroy the whole of the working classes of London. There were ten thousand houses, one in four, where gin was sold either secretly or openly. It was advertised that a man could get drunk for a penny and dead drunk for tuppence. A check was placed upon this habit by imposing attacks of five shillings on every gallon of gin. This was in the year 1735, and in 1750 about 1700 gin shops were closed. Since then the continual efforts made to stop the pernicious habit of dram drinking have greatly reduced the evil. But it was not only the drinking of gin. There was also the rum punch, which formed so large a part in the life of the Georgian citizen. Every man had his club to which he resorted in the evening after the day's work. Here he sat and for the most part drank what he called a sober glass. That is to say, he did not go home drunk, but he drank every night more than was good for him. The results were the transmission of gout and other disorders to his children. It should be indeed a most serious thing to reflect that in every evil habit we are bringing misery and suffering upon our children as well as ourselves. The habits of drinking showed themselves externally in a bloated body, puffed and red cheeks, a large and swollen nose, trembling hands, fat lips and bleared eyes. In the case of gin drinkers it showed itself in a face literally blue. It is said that King George III was persuaded to a temperate life in a time of universal intemperance this King remained always temperate, by the example of his uncle the Duke of Cumberland, who at the age of 45, in consequence of his excesses in drink, exhibited a body swollen and bloated and tortured with disease. If you look at a map of London of this time, you will see that the city extended a long way up and down the river on either bank. Outside the walls there were the crowded districts of Whitechapel, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, St. Catharines, Whopping, Ratcliffe, Shadwell, Stepney and others. These places were not only outside the wards and the jurisdiction of the city, but they were outside any government whatever. They were growing up in some parts without schools, churches, or any rule, order or discipline whatever. The people in many of these quarters were of the working classes, but too often of the criminal class. They were rude and rough and ignorant to an extraordinary degree. How could they be anything else living as they did? They were so unruly, they were so numerous, they were so ready to break out that they became a danger to the very existence of order and government. They were kept in some kind of order by the greatest severity of punishment. They were hanged for what we now call light offences. They were kept half-starved in foul and filthy prisons, and they were mercilessly flogged. In the army it was not unknown for a man to receive five hundred lashes. In the navy they were always flogging the men. Horrible as it is to read of these punishments, we must remember that the men who received them were brutal and dead to any other kind of persuasion. Drink and ignorance and habitual vice had killed the sense of shame and stilled the voice of conscience. The only thing they would feel was the pain of the whip. End of Lesson 58. Lesson 59, under George II, Part 5 It was estimated, some years later than the period we are considering, that there were then in London three thousand receivers of stolen goods. That is to say, people who bought without question whatever was brought to them for sale. That the value of the goods stolen every year from the ships lying in the river, there were then no great docks, and the lading and unlading were carried on by lighters and barges, amounted to half a million sterling every year. That the value of the property annually stolen in and about London amounted to seven hundred thousand pounds. And that goods worth half a million, at least, were annually stolen from his majesty's stores, dockyards, ships of war, etc. The moral principle, a writer states plainly, quote, is totally destroyed among a vast body of the lower ranks of the people, end quote. To meet this deplorable condition of things, there were forty-eight different offences punishable by death. Among them was shoplifting above five shillings, stealing linen from a bleaching ground, cutting hot binds, and sending threatening letters. There were nineteen kinds of offences for which transportation, imprisonment, whipping or pillory were provided. There were twenty-one kinds of offences punishable by whipping, pillory, fine and imprisonment. Among the last were, quote, combinations and conspiracies for raising the price of wages, end quote. The classification seems to have been done at haphazard. For instance, to embezzle naval stores would seem as bad as to steal a master's goods, but the latter offence was capital and the former not. Again it is surely a most abominable crime to set fire to a house, yet this is classed among the lighter offences. It was therefore a time when there was a large and constantly increasing criminal class, and as a natural cause or a natural consequence, whichever we please, there was a very large class of people as ignorant, as rude and as dangerous as could well be imagined. I do not think there was ever a time, not even in the most remote ages, when London contained savages more brutal and more ignorant than could be found in certain districts outside the city of the Second George. But these poor wretches had one great virtue. They were brave. They manned our ships for and gave Britannia the command of the sea. They were knocked down, driven and dragged aboard the ships by the press gang. Once there they fell into rank and order, carried a valiant pike, manned the guns with zeal, joined the boarding party with alacrity, and carried their cutlasses into the forlorn hope, with faces that showed no fear. They were so strong, so stubborn, and so brave, that one sigh is to think of the lash that kept them in discipline and order. There is one more side of London that must not be forgotten. It was a great and prosperous city. We can never dwell too strongly on the prosperity of the city. But there were shipwrecks many and disastrous. And the fate of the man who could not pay his debts was well known to all, and could be witnessed every day as an example and a warning. For he went to prison, and in prison he stopped. Pay what you owe, they said to the debtor, or else stay where you are. The debtor could not pay. In prison the debtor had no means of making any money. Therefore he stayed where he was, until he died. For the accommodation of these unhappy persons there were the King's Bench and the Marshallsea, both in Suffolk. There were the two comptors, both in the city, and there was the Fleet Prison. The life in these prisons can be found described in many novels. It was a squalid and miserable life, among ruined gamblers, spend thrifts, profligates, broken down merchants, bankrupt tradesmen, and helpless women of all classes. Unless one had allowances from friends starvation might be the end. In one at least the common hall had shelves ranged round the walls for the reception of beds. Everything was carried on in the same room, living, sleeping, eating, cooking. And into such a place as this the unhappy debtor was thrust, there to remain till death released him. This was the London of a hundred and fifty years ago. No longer picturesque as in the old days, but solidly constructed, handsome and substantial. The merchants still lived in the city, but the nobles had all gone. The companies possessed the greater part of the city and still ruled though they no longer dictated the wages, hours, and prices. Within the walls there reigned comparative order. Outside there was no government at all. The river below the bridge was crowded with ships, moored two and four together side by side, with an open way in the middle. Thousands of barges and lighters were engaged upon the cargoes. Every day the church bells rang for a large and orderly congregation. Every day arose in every street such an uproar as we cannot even imagine. Yet there were quiet spots in the city, with shady gardens where one could sit at peace. Wealth grew fast, but with it there grew up the mob with the fear of anarchy and license, a taste of which was afforded by the Gordon Riots. Yet it would be eighty years before the city should understand the necessity for a police. End of Lesson 59, Recording by Ruth Golding Lesson 60-62 of the History of London This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Recording by Ruth Golding The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 60, The Government of the City, Part 1 Let us walk into the streets. You will not observe because you are used to these things and have been brought up among them and are accustomed to them, that all the men go about unarmed, that they do not carry even a stick for their protection, that they do not fight or quarrel with each other, that the strong do not knock down the weak but patiently wait for them and make room for them, that ladies walk about with no protection or escort, that things are exposed for sale with no other guard than a boy or a girl, that most valuable articles are hung up behind a thin pane of glass. You will further observe men in blue, you call them policemen, who stroll about in a leisurely manner looking on and taking no part in the bustle. What do these policemen do? In the roads the vehicles do not run into one another but follow in rank and order, those going one way taking their own side. Everybody is orderly, everything is arranged and disposed as if there was no such thing as violence, crime or disorder. You think it has always been so? Nay, order in human affairs does not grow of its own accord. Disorder, if you please, grows like the weeds of the head side, but not order. Again you always find the shops well provided and filled with goods. There are the food shops, those which offer meat, bread, fruit, vegetables, coffee, tea, sugar, butter, cheese. These shops are always full of these things, there is never a day in the whole year when the supply runs short. You think all these things come of their own accord? Not so. They come because their growth, importation, carriage and distribution are so ordered by experience that has accumulated for centuries that there shall be no failure in the supply. Again you find every kind of business and occupation carried on without hindrance. Nobody prevents a man from working at his trade or from selling what he has made. One workman does not molest another, though he is a rival. You think perhaps that this peacefulness has come by chance? Nay, strife comes to men left without rule, but not peace. You may observe further that the streets are paved with broad stones, convenient for walking, and easy to be kept clean. That the roadways are asphalted or paved with wood, and are also clean. Things that must be thrown away are not thrown into the streets, they are collected in carts and carried away. You think that the streets of cities are kept clean by the rain? Not so. If we had only the rain as a scavenger we should be in a sorry plight. You find that water is laid on in every house. How does that water come? That gas lights up houses and streets. How does the gas come? That drains carry off the rain and the liquid refuse. How did the drains come? You may see as you go along a man who walks from house to house delivering letters. Does he do this of his own accord? You know very well that he does not, that he is paid to do it, that he does his duty. What is the whole of his duty? Who gives him his orders? Or you may see another man going from house to house leaving a paper at each. He is a rate collector. What is a rate collector? Who gives him authority to take money from people? What does he do with the money? Or you may see placards on the walls asking people to vote for this man or for that man, for the school board, the county council, the House of Commons, or the vestry. Why does this man want to get elected to one of those councils? What will he do when he is elected? What are all these councils for? Again the thing has never been otherwise in your recollection and you therefore do not observe it. But if you listen you will find that men talk with the greatest freedom as they walk with their friends. No one interferes with their conversation. No one interferes with their dress. No one asks them what they want or where they are going. Did this personal freedom always exist? Certainly not, for personal freedom does not grow of its own accord. You will also observe, as you walk along, churches in every street a church of all denominations. You will find posted on the walls notices of public meetings for discussion or for lectures and addresses on every conceivable topic. You will see boys crying newspapers in which all subjects are treated with the utmost freedom. You suppose perhaps that freedom of thought of speech of discussion of writing comes to a community like the rain and the wind? Not so. Slavery comes to a community, if you please, but not freedom that has to be achieved. You have seen the city growing larger and wealthier, the people getting into finer houses, wider streets, and more settled ways. Now there is a thing which goes with the advance of a people. It is good government. Unless with advance of wealth there comes improved government, the people fall into decay. But, which is a remarkable thing, good government can only continue or advance as the people themselves advance in wisdom as well as in wealth. Such government as we have now would have been useless in the time of King Ethelred or King Edward I. Such government as we have now would be impossible had not the citizens of London continued to learn the lessons in order, in good laws, in respect to law, which for generation after generation were submitted to the people. End of Lesson 60 Lesson 61 The Government of the City, Part 2 Since all these things do not grow of their own accord, by whom were they first introduced, planted, and developed? By whom are they now maintained? By the collection of powers and authorities which we call the Government of the City and County of London. Thus order reigns in the streets. In the rare cases where disorder breaks out, the policeman is present to stop it. His presence stops it. Not because he is a strong man, but because he is irresistible. He is the servant of the law. He represents authority. Formally the alderman of the ward walked about his own streets, followed by two bailiffs. If anyone dared to resist the alderman, he was liable to have his hand struck off by an axe. In this way people were taught to respect the law. By such sharp lessons it was forced upon them that the law must be obeyed. Thus they gradually grew up among them a desire for order. The policeman, appointed by the Chief Police Officer, stands for a symbol and reminder of the law. You have seen how the people of London had their folks moat, their ward moat, and their hustings. From the first of these has sprung the Common Council, which rules over the City of London within the old boundaries. The folks moat was a parliament of the people, a rude and tumultuous assembly, no doubt, but a free assembly. When the City grew great, such a parliament became impossible. It therefore became an elective parliament. The election was, and still is, conducted at the ward moats, each ward returning so many members in proportion to its population, for the Common Council. The councillors are elected for one year only. If there is a vacancy an alderman is also elected, but that is for life. Formerly every man in London followed a trade. He therefore belonged to a company. And as the commonality all the men of London together assembled, i.e., all the members of all the companies, elected the mayor, so to this day the electors of the Lord Mayor are the members of the companies. None others have any voice in the election. The companies no longer include all the citizens, and the craftsmen have nearly all left the city, but the power remains. The Lord Mayor is the Chief Magistrate. With him is the Court of Aldermen, also magistrates. He has with him the great officers of the city, the Recorder or Chief Justice, the Town Clerk, the Chamberlain, who is the Treasurer, the Remembrancer and the Common Sergeant. The Education of the Young, the Maintenance of the Old, the Paving and Cleansing of the Streets, the Lighting, the Removal of Waste, the Engines for Extinguishing Fires, the Regulation of the Road Traffic, the Preservation of Order, all these things are conducted by the various councils and courts of the city, and the cost is provided by that kind of taxation known as the rates. That is to say every house is rated or estimated as worth so much rent. The tenant who pays the rent has to pay, in addition, a charge of so much in the pound for this and that object. Thus for education, if the rate be one shilling in the pound, a man in the house whose rent is a hundred pounds has to pay five pounds on that charge. He has to pay also for the police, the fire brigade, the poor, lighting and paving. His own water supply is managed by a private company, and another private company gives him his gas or his electricity. In the same way the food is provided by private persons and brought to the city by private companies. Thus you are governed by men whom you are supposed yourselves to elect. Order is kept for you. Education, protection and conveniences are found for you. In a word, life is made tolerable for you by your own government, elected by yourselves and at your own cost. Lesson 62 The Government of the City, Part 3 That is the best government which gives the greatest possible liberty to its people. Only that people can be happy which is capable of using their freedom a right. You have seen how your personal freedom from violence, robbery and molestation in your work is secured for you. How you are enabled to live in comfort and cleanliness by a vast machinery of government whose growth has been gradual and which must always be ready to meet changes so as to suit the needs of the people. One point you must carefully remember that your greatest liberty is liberty of speech and of thought and of the press. It is not so very long since martyrs, Catholic as well as Protestant, were executed for their religious belief. Catholics and Jews until quite recently were excluded from Parliament. A hundred years ago the debates of Parliament could not be reported. One had to weigh his words very carefully in speaking of the sovereign or the ministers. Certain forms of opinion were not allowed to be published. All that is altered. You can believe what you like and advocate what you like, so long as it is not against divine law or the law of the land. Thus if one were to preach the duty of murder, he would be very properly stopped. Therefore when you buy a daily paper, whenever you enter a church or chapel, whenever you hear an address or a lecture, remember that you are enjoying the freedom won for you by the obstinacy and the tenacity of your ancestors. We have spoken of the city companies. They still exist, and though their former powers are gone, and they no longer control the trades after which they are named, their power is still very great, on account of the revenues which they possess and their administration of charities, institutions, etc., under their care. There were one hundred and nine in all, but many have been dissolved. There are still, however, seventy-six. About half of these possess halls, which are now the great houses of the city. The number of livery men, i.e. members of the companies, is 8,765. The companies vary greatly in numbers. There are four hundred and forty-eight haberdasheres, for instance, three hundred and eighty fishmongers, and three hundred and fifty-six spectacle-makers, while there are only sixteen Fletcher's, i.e. makers of arrows. Many of the trades are now extinct, such as the Fletcher's above-named, the Boears, the Gurdlers, the Boestring-makers, and the Armourers. Some of these companies are now very rich. One of them possesses an income, including trust money, of eighty-three thousand pounds a year. It must be acknowledged that the companies carry on a great deal of good work with their money. Many of them, however, have little or nothing. The basket-makers have only a hundred and two pounds a year. The glass-sellers only twenty-one pounds a year. The tin-plate-workers seven pounds, seven shillings a year. If, therefore, you hear of the great riches of the city companies, remember one, that twenty-five of them have less than five hundred pounds a year each, and two, that the rich companies support technical colleges and schools, grant scholarships, encourage trade, hold exhibitions, maintain arms-houses, and make large grants to objects worthy of support. It is not likely that the privilege of electing the Lord Mayor will long continue to be in the hands of the companies. It is not indeed worthy of a great city that its chief magistrate should be elected by so small a minority as eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-five out of the hundreds of thousands who have their offices and transact their business in the city. But while this privilege will cease, the companies may remain and continue to exercise a central influence, at least in London, over the crafts and arts which they represent. Let us never destroy what has been useful. Let us, on the other hand, preserve it, altered to meet changed circumstances. For an institution is not like a tree which grows and decays. If it is a good institution, built upon the needs and adapted to the circumstances of human nature, it will never decay. But, like the Saxon form of popular election, live and develop and change, as the people themselves change from age to age. End of Lesson 62, Recording by Ruth Golding Lesson 63 of the History of London. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding The History of London by Walter Besant Lesson 63 London Greater London It has been a great misfortune for London that when its walls ceased to be the true boundary of the town, and when the people began to spread in all directions outside the walls, no statesman arose with vision clear enough to perceive that the old system must be enlarged or abolished, that the city must cease to mean the city of the Edwards, and must include these new suburbs, from Richmond on the west to Poplar on the east, and from Hampstead on the north to Ballum on the south. It is true that something was done, there are the wards of Bridge Without, which is Southwick, and of Farringdon Without. There should have been provision for the creation of new wards whenever the growth of a suburb warranted its addition. That, however, has not been done. The old London remains as it was, and as we now see it, surrounded by another, and an immense city or aggregate of cities all placed under the rule of a council. This was done by the Act of 1888, which created a county whose boundaries were the same as those of the former Metropolitan Board of Works. In other words, it embraces all the suburbs of London properly so-called. This county extends from Putney and Hammersmith on the west to Plumstead on the east. On the north are Hampstead and Highgate. On the south are Tooting, Stretham, Lewisham and Elton. There are one hundred and thirty-eight councillors, of whom nineteen are Alderman and one a chairman. The conservative tendency of our people is shown in their retention of the old division of Alderman. It is once more kings, lords and commons. But the functions of the Alderman do not differ from those of the councillor. The councillors are elected by the ratepayers for three years, the Alderman for six, but there is a rule as to retiring by rotation. The powers of the county council are enormous. It regulates the building of houses and streets, the drainage, places of amusement. It can close streets and pull-down houses. It administers and makes regulations concerning parks, bridges, tunnels, subways, dairies, cattle diseases, explosives, lunatic asylums, reformatory schools, weights and measures. It grants licenses for music and dancing. It carries on, in fact, the whole administration of the greatest city in the world, and in some respects the best-managed city. In order to carry out these works, the council expend about £600,000 a year. It has a debt of £30 million against which are various assets, so that the real debt is no more than £18 million. The rating outside the city was last year £12.5 in the pound. The first chairman was Lord Rosebury. He has been succeeded by Sir John Lubbock and Mr John Hutton. The list of county councillors contains men of every rank and every opinion. Dukes, earls and barons sit upon the council beside plain working men. An excellent promise for the future. Such is the Government of London. Within the city, what was intended to be democratic has become oligarchic. The election by the whole people has become the election by 8,000 only. Without the city, a great democratic parliament attracts men whose historic names and titles belong to the aristocracy. In the London County Council, the peers may, if they are elected, sit beside the commons. Lastly, what is the chief lesson for you to learn out of this history? It is short and may be summed up in a few sentences. 1. Consider how your liberties have grown silently and steadily out of the original free institutions of your sacks and ancestors. They have grown as the trunk, the tree, the leaves, the flower, the fruit grow from the single seed. The folk-mote, the lawworthiness of every man, the absence of any overlord but the king, have kept London always free and ready for every expansion of her liberties. Respect, therefore, the ancient things which have made the city and the country what it is. Trust that the further natural growth of the old tree still vigorous will be safer for us than to cut it down and plant a sapling which may prove a poison tree. And with the old institutions respect the old places. Never, if you can help it, suffer an old monument to be pulled down and destroyed. Heap before your eyes the things which remind you of the past. When you look on London Stone, remember that Henry of London Stone was one of the first mares. When you go up College Hill remember Whittington who gave it that name. When you pass the Royal Exchange think of Gresham. When you go up Wallbrook remember the stream beneath your feet, the Roman fortress on your right and the British town on your left. London is crammed full of associations for those who read and know and think. You will be better citizens of the present for knowing about the citizens of the past. Two. The next lesson is your duty to your country. What does it mean the right of the folk moat? The moat has now become a house of commons, a county council, a school board. You have the same rights that your ancestor had. He was jealous over them. He fought to the death to preserve them and to strengthen them. Be as jealous, for they are far more important to you than ever they were to him. You have a hundred times as much to defend. You have dangers which he did not know or fear. Show your jealousy by exercising your right as the most sacred duty you have to fulfil. Your vote is an inheritance and a trust. You have inherited it direct from the Angles and the Chutes. As you exercise that vote so it will be ill or well with you and your children. Be very jealous of the man you put in power. Learn to distinguish the man who wants place from the man who wants justice. Vote only for the right man, and do your best to find out the right man. It is difficult at all times. You may make it less difficult by ascending to the various parliaments of the country a man you know, who has lived among you, whose life, whose private character, whose previous record you know, instead of the stranger who comes to court your vote. Above all things, vote always, and let the first duty in your mind always be to protect your rights and your liberties. These are the two lessons that this book should teach you. The respect that is due to the past and the duty that is owed to the present. End of Lesson 63. Recording by Ruth Golding. Author's notes on the history of London Lessons 1 to 20. Recorded Sections 1 to 8. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. The History of London by Walter Besant. Notes for Lesson 1. The Foundation of London Part 1. Ineos, a Trojan prince who escaped from Troy when it was destroyed by the Greeks. Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, was the mother of Ineos. Troy, a famous city in the northwest corner of Asia Minor, it was destroyed by Greek invaders about a thousand years before Christ, and the stories connected with it form one of the chief subjects of Greek and Latin poets. Troy Novant means New Troy. Constantine the Great was Emperor of Rome, that is, of all the then known world, from 305 to 337 AD. He was the first Roman emperor to adopt and favour Christianity. Constantinople is named after him, and was made by him the capital of the empire. Geoffrey of Monmouth was a British historian of the twelfth century. He was made Bishop of St. Assaf in 1152. His histories are largely made up of stories such as that about Brutus, which nobody believes now. Historical document. A piece of writing that can be used to prove some event in the history of past times. Architecture, the art of building, the style in which houses are built. Corn Hill, a street in the city of London running west to east from the royal exchange into Leddenhall Street. It was probably named after a family of that name, and not from any corn market on the site. Bastion, a strong turret or tower at the corner of a fortified building. Wallbrook, a small stream that crossed the city from north to south. It flowed near where the mansion house now stands. Wallbrook is a street aside of the mansion house, and fell into the Thames at Dowgate near where Cannon Street Railway Station now stands. Fleet River, a small stream which fell into the Thames near where Blackfriars Railway Station now stands. Moorfields was a piece of moorland lying to the north of the city outside the walls. The city gate which led to this district was the Moorgate, a name which still survives in Moorgate Street. Ken Wood in Hampstead, Hanelt Forest, a small piece of wood in Essex, about eight miles north east of London, and Epping Forest, a larger portion also in Essex, to the west of Hanelt Forest, are all remaining portions of a great forest that once stretched away from London far into the country. Chelsea, Bermondsey. In all such words E A or E Y is an old word for island. In this way are formed Wintral Sea, Battersea, etc. Thawney, where Westminster is now, is the island of Thawnes, and Jersey, Caesars Island. Southwark, a district of London opposite the city on the south side of the Thames. It was the south work, or fort, and is spoken of as a village as later as 1327, the accession of Edward III. End of Notes for Lesson 1 Notes for Lesson 2 The Foundation of London Part 2 Malerious, causing the air to be bad, and so giving rise to fevers unhealthy Latin Marlos bad, ire, air Waybridge in Surrey, near where the river way, after flowing past Goddelming and Guildford, falls into the Thames. In Trenching, making a trench, or ditch, the earth dug out was formed into a mound. The mound and ditch, together with the stockade, protected the place. Stockade, a barrier made of stakes, stuck in the ground. Gaul, the old name for the country now called France, the land of the galley, or Celts, Gaelic is the language still spoken by the Celts in Scotland. Thanet, a district in the north-east of Kent, containing Ramsgate, Margate, and Broadstairs. The River Stour parts it from the rest of Kent so that it is still an island, though the channel was formerly much wider and deeper. Captain Cook, a famous sailor born 1728, murdered in the Sandwich Islands, 1779. He was among the first to visit Australia and New Zealand, and made many discoveries in the Pacific. Polynesians, the natives of Polynesia, or the smaller islands in the South Pacific. They are brown-skinned and akin in race to the mares of New Zealand and the Malays. Brythonic, that portion of the Celts whose descendants are now the Welsh, Bretons in Pratanya on the west coast of France, and Cornishmen. Basques, the natives of a part of northern Spain near the Pyrenees. Their language is unconnected with any other except perhaps that of the Finns. The province and bay of Biscay is named after them. Finns, the natives of Finland in Russia. Like the Basques, they are the remains of a nation which once spread over all Europe and has now nearly disappeared. Barrow, a mound raised over a grave. Verulam, an old British and then a Roman town, on the site of which is Nas and Albans in Hertfordshire. End of notes for lesson two. Notes for lesson three, Roman London, part one. Stationery camp, a fixed or permanent camp, a fort. A Roman army on the march constructed a camp if it only spent one night in a place. Such camps were not stationary. Porchester, a small town on the north side of Portsmouth Harbour. Chester is the Latin castra, a camp, and occurs in Leicester, Colchester, Chester, Silchester, etc. Rubble, small rough stones often used inside piles of masonry. Silchester, a place near Reading at which remains of old Roman buildings have been dug out. Mintsing Lane, a narrow street in the east part of the city. Tribunal, the place where judges sit to administer justice. Exchange, the place where merchants meet and carry on their business. Stevedores, those engaged in the work of loading and unloading ships. End of the notes for lesson three. Notes for lesson four, Roman London, part two. Tessellated, formed of small pieces of stone or tile of various colors, arranged to form a pattern, like mosaic work. Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, also of the moon. Apollo, the Roman god of poetry, music, and prophecy. Guildhall, the hall of the guild or corporation of the city of London, near Cheepside. Yuzerpa, one who by force seizes and holds a position which does not belong to him. Picts, wild savages from the country which we call Scotland. Scots, also savage men, who though they afterwards gave their name to Scotland, at that time came from Ireland. Hong Kong, an island off the coast of China. Singapore, a large British seaport on an island of the same name, off the south end of the Malay Peninsula. West Indies, a number of islands to the east of Central America in the Atlantic, of those belonging to Great Britain, Jamaica is the largest. End of notes for lesson four. Notes for lesson five, after the Romans, part one. East Saxons were those who dwelt in Essex, the county named after them. Craeford, on the river Crae in North Kent. Here the Saxons, under Hengist, totally defeated the Britons under Vortimer in 457 AD. Canterbury is the burg, borough, or fortified place of the men of Kent. Pull borough in Sussex gives us another form of the suffix. Chronicle, a historian, particularly one living in early times. Saxons, German tribes from the district by the mouth of the Elba. Jutes from a part of Denmark, which still preserves their name, Jutland. Angles from what is now Schleswig and Holstein. Count of the Saxon shore. The Roman admiral set to defend the southern parts of the English coast, which were called Saxon shore, because most liable to attack from the Saxons. Mercenaries, soldiers who do not fight for the safety and glory of their own country, but for hire. End of notes for lesson five. Notes for lesson six, after the Romans, part two. Blackfriars, at the eastern end of the Thames embankment, derives its name from a monastery or house of black friars which stood there. Watling Street, Urmin Street, Visinal Way, made by the Romans, who were famous makers of high roads, many of which are still in use. Newgate was a gate on the west of the walls which enclosed the city. Bishop's Gate on the northeast. Vittling, providing food for. Emergencies, times of difficulty and danger. Isle of Thanet. It must be remembered that the stour at the back of Thanet was once much wider and deeper than it is now, in fact it was the general route for vessels coming up the Thames. Appointments, furniture, fittings. Mimics, actors who played in farces like our panter mimes. Scribes, among the Romans, clerks in public offices. End of notes for lesson six. Notes for lesson seven, after the Romans, part three. Alaric, king of a German tribe called the Visigoths, West Goths, invaded Greece and Italy, and after several defeats, finally took and sacked Rome in 410 AD. It was this state of thing which compelled the Romans to withdraw their troops from Britain. The West, where the Britons still held their own. Wales and Cornwall were never occupied by the invading Saxons. Welsh and Cornishmen are Celts, with a language of their own in Wales, while the Cornish language has only disappeared during the last hundred years. Wessex, the land of the West Saxons, corresponds roughly to England south of the Thames. Oblivion, being forgotten. The River Lee rises in Bedfordshire near Luton, passes Hartford and Ware, forms the boundary between Middlesex and Essex, and falls into the Thames at Blackwall after a course of 40 miles. Quogmires, marshy boggy ground that quakes under the feet. Quake, Maya. End of notes for lesson seven. Notes for lesson eight, the first Saxon settlement. Ecclesiastic, connected with the church. For many centuries, Rome was the centre of Christian influence, and is so still to all Roman Catholics. Ritual, the customs and ceremonies employed in performing service in a church. Gregory I, or the Great, was Pope from 590 to 604 AD. He it was who sent Augustine to attempt the conversion of the English in the year 597. Kinglet, a petty king. England was then divided among many kings, so that the realm of each was necessarily very small. Crucifix, a figure of Christ, fixed to the cross. Bede, a monk and church historian who lived and died at Jarrow in County Durham in 735 AD. Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland. Northumbrians, the men of Northumbria, that is Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland. Mercians, the men of Mercia, or land of the Middle English. Supremacy. Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, were separate kingdoms, which were successively, in the order in which they are given, strong enough to overall or exercise supremacy over the others. The King of Wessex eventually became King of England. Whitten, or in its fuller form, Whittaner-Gomote, the meeting of wise men, was the national council which afterwards grew up into our modern parliament. End of notes for Lesson 8. Notes for Lesson 9. The Second Saxon Settlement Pagan. Heathen, not yet converted to Christianity. King Alfred, called the Great, was King of England from 871 to 901 AD. Alderman, in early England, meant the ruler of a large district, such as a Shire or Kingdom. When Mercia became subject to Wessex, it was ruled by an Alderman. Benfleet, a place in Essex on the North Bank of the Thames, not far from South End. Brunnenburer was the scene of a defeat of the Danes by Athelstan in 937 AD. The place cannot now be identified. Swain, King of Denmark, invaded England with his son Canute in 1013 AD. Redriff is now called Rotherhithe, south of the Thames. King Ethelred II, called the Unredig, or lacking in council, reigned 979 to 1013 AD. Olave, or Olaf and Magnus are Scandinavian names. There were early kings of Norway so called. The Portrieve, the Reeve or Governor of London, was a Chief Magistrate or Mayor of the city. The Staller, or Marshal, led the men of London to battle. The Nightingild was the ruling council of London. They were not chosen by election, but were the chief owners of property, and, like their land, the office was handed down from father to son. Moat, Meeting. Hustings, a general meeting of the citizens, held every week. Later on the word came to mean the platform whence candidates for Parliament addressed their constituents. End of notes for Lesson 9. Notes for Lesson 10. The Anglo-Saxon Citizen. Athelstan, 925 to 940, the grandson of Alfred the Great, and Ethelred II, 979 to 1013 were kings of England. Earl, or Aeol, was what we should now call a gentleman of good family. Thanes, nobles who, for the most part, acquired their titles from the king as rewards for services. Municipal, having to do with the municipality or city. French, Norman French, was the language spoken by the Normans. The meat and fish were salted. In the absence of root crops it was found difficult to keep animals through the winter. Hence, much salt, meat and fish were stored up. Embroidery, the art of working designs on cloth in needlework. Spinster, an unmarried woman, so-called because unmarried daughters worked at spinning and weaving for the household, making homespun cloth for them. Marauding, roving about for plunder. Sola, in early houses the chamber over the hall, used as the bedroom for the master and mistress of the house. Tapestry, thick hangings or curtains with figures worked on them. Mead, a fermented drink made of honey. Methaglinn is another form of the word. Wattle, flexible twigs, whizzies or osear-rods. Dorb, mud. Turbulent, disorderly, riotous. Thames Street, a very narrow street running along the bank of the Thames, between Blackfriars and the Tower. Ward, a division of the city. The Ward Moat or Ward Meeting still exists, and elects the Alderman or Representative of the Ward on the City Council. End of Notes for Lesson 10 Notes for Lesson 11 The Wall of London The White Tower is the keep or central part of the Tower of London, begun by William the Conqueror and finished by the Red King. It is 92 feet high and the walls are 17 feet thick. Dowgate, the site of one of the gates of Old London Wall, is near where Cannon Street Railway Station now stands. Here the Wallbrook fell into the Thames. Queen Highs, the Queen's landing place. Merchants were compelled to land their goods here, so that the dues paid should go to the Queen. Confluence, a flowing together, the place where two rivers meet. The fleet fell into the Thames at Blackfriars. Latin, cum, with, together, fluo, to flow, compare, fluid, fluent. Mont-Fichet's Tower was near Baynard's Castle, at the southwest corner of the old walls in Blackfriars. Both were named after the Norman tenants, who occupied them. Hound's Ditch is now a cross-street, joining Bishop's Gate Street and Old Gate, with a church of St. Bottlef at each end of it. It adjoined the moat or ditch round the city wall. All Hallows, the same as all Saints. All the Saints to whom churches were often dedicated and whose memory is celebrated on November the 1st, which is all Saints' Day. St. Giles Cripplegate contains in its churchyard part of London Wall. Milton was buried here in 1674. End of Notes for Lesson 11. Notes for Lesson 12, Norman London. Bishop and Port Reeve. The two chief officers of the city, one ruling for the church, the other a civil ruler. Charter, a writing confirming or granting privileges. Burgers or Burgesses, citizens of a borough. Guild Hall contains the necessary offices and accommodation for the Guild or Corporation, Town Clark, etc. The City Library, Museum and Law Courts, and a great hall that will hold seven thousand persons. Feudal Claims. Demands made on their tenants by owners under the feudal system. Such demands were usually for military service or something equivalent. Matilda, daughter of Henry I and mother of Henry II, and widow of the Emperor Henry V of Germany, was the opponent of Stephen, 1100 to 1135, in the Civil War of his reign. She gave London as a demean to the Earl of Essex with the Tower as his castle. Dane-Geld, or Dane Money, attacks raised to buy off the Danes. Sheriff, or Shire Reeve, Governor of a Shire, was the King's representative in each Shire. He collected the revenue, called out and led the soldiers and administered justice. Justicia, judge. It was one of the privileges of the city to have a judge of its own to try cases within its own limits. Stipulated, bargained for. Constitution, form of government. Priory, a house for monks or nuns under the rule of a prior or prioress. St. Catherine Cree, this church is in Leddenhall Street, near Aldgate. Cree, in this name, is for Christ. Port Soken is one of the city wards, near Aldgate and the Minerys. End of Notes for Lesson 12 Notes for Lesson 13 fits Stephen's account of the city, Part 1. St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield is part of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. St. Ethelberger is in Bishop's Gate Street, not far from Liverpool Street Railway Station. Crypt is a chapel or vault underground. St. Swithin's Church is near Cannon Street Railway Station. London's Stone, supposed to be a Roman milestone, is let into the wall of this church. St. Swithin, to whom the church is dedicated, was a Saxon Bishop of Winchester, under whose care the youth of Alfred was spent at Winchester. Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his own cathedral by four knights, who thought they were executing the wishes of Henry II. 1170 AD. Conventional, Attached to Convance Palatine usually means held by a nobleman who has had royal powers given him. Westminster is named after a minster first erected there of wood, about 604 AD. It was thus distinguished from St. Paul's, which was the East Minster. The site was a marshy spot, then called Thawney, or Thorn Island. Charing Cross is named from the Memorial Cross built there by Edward I in 1294, in honour of his Queen Eleanor, who was brought for burial from Lincoln to Westminster, and each place, nine, where her body rested, was marked by a similar cross. Charing is a corruption of the French Cherrain, dear Queen. Cheapside, the important street running between St. Paul's and the Mansion House, is so-called because its site was the side, the south side, of the cheap or old London market. East Cheap, or the East Market, has given its name to East Cheap, a street running from the city towards the tower. Mercer, a merchant selling woolens and silks. Folk-moats, the meetings of the folk or tribe, they met in arms in the Saxon Times, and were presided over by the Aldermen. End of Notes for Lesson 13 Notes for Lesson 14, Fitz Stevens, Account of the City, Part II. Tibern, a brook which gave its name to the place Tibern, where the Marble Arch now stands. Westbourne, this brook has given its name to Westbourne Park in Paddington. Holywell may be remembered by Holywell Street in the Strand. Clarkinwell is named after the parish Clarkswell, round which they used to perform their mysteries. Quarterstaff, a long staff used as a weapon of defence, and held in the middle and also one-quarter way from the end. Tabor, a kind of small drum beaten with one drumstick. Consoles, the chief magistrates of Rome, two of them with equal power came into office every year. Senatorial, appointed and controlled by the Senate or Governing Council of Rome. Venison, pronounced Venson, the flesh of dear. Cleric, a clergyman. Abbott, the head of an abbey or monastery. Magnate, a great man, a man of great wealth and rank. Latin, magnus, great. Metropolitan, the bishop of a metropolis or chief cathedral city, as Canterbury is the metropolis of England in this sense. Ordinances, laws, commands. End of Notes for Lesson 14 Notes for Lesson 15, London Bridge, Part 1 Architect, one who designs buildings and superintends the building of them. Jewry, the district in a town inhabited by the Jews, for in early times the Jews were not allowed to live where they liked, but only in quarters assigned to them. The street now called Old Jewry turns out of the poultry on the north side. Essential, something very important and that cannot be done without. Intercommunication, intercourse, dealings between people which are made much easier by having good roads and bridges to travel on. La Rochelle, a seaport in France on the Atlantic, some distance north of Bordeaux. Saint, a French town about 38 miles from La Rochelle. Saint Thomas Beckett, the murdered archbishop of Canterbury who was canonised, that is named a saint after his death. Titula, giving his name to the bridge. Crypt, an underground or lower room used as a chapel or burying place. End of Notes for Lesson 15 Notes for Lesson 16 London Bridge, Part 2 King Edward I, 1272-1307 AD Haberdashers, dealers in small wares such as cotton, tape, needles and pins. Hans Holbein, a celebrated German painter who came to live in England and was introduced to Henry VIII. Marine painters, artists who excel in painting boats, ships and sea scenes. Latin, mare, the sea. Shooting the bridge, passing through the arches in a boat. Queen Henrietta was the Queen of Charles I of England. After the Civil War she withdrew to France where she died in 1669. Rubens, a very celebrated Flemish painter, born in 1577, died at Antwerp in 1640. Sir Thomas Wyatt headed a rebellion in Kent, which was provoked by Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain and the restoration of Roman Catholicism. He was about to cross London Bridge, but finding this impossible crossed the Thames at Kingston. The rising was a failure and Wyatt was executed 1554. Sir William Wallace, a brave Scotch gentleman who led the Scotch against Edward I, who was trying to deprive Scotland of its independence. Wallace was finally taken and executed as a traitor at Tyburn, 1305. Jack Cade headed a rebellion in Kent in 1450 through dissatisfaction with the government of Henry VI. 30,000 rebels gathered on Black Heath, but the movement ended in failure and Cade was slain. Sir Thomas Moore, the good and learned Chancellor of Henry VIII, and author of a famous book called Utopia. He was executed as a traitor in 1535. St. Thomas on the Bridge, that is Thomas Beckett, to whom the Bridge was dedicated. Pageant, a splendid show or procession. Ex-apprentice, one who has been once an apprentice. End of notes for Lesson 16. Notes on Lesson 17, the Tower of London, Part 1. Dominate to Lord over, to over or, to be master of. Latin dominus, a master, lord. Crusade, an expedition under the banner of the cross to recover the Holy Land from the Turks. Richard I went on the Third Crusade in 1191. Antiquaries, people who study ancient things. Medieval, made during the Middle Ages, the period roughly speaking between the time of the Romans and the reign of Henry VII, 400 to 1485. Lieutenant, an officer in command of the Tower. Keep, the strongest part of a fortress or castle. Insignia, the badges of any office. Menagerie, a collection of wild animals. Queen Anne Boleyn, to marry whom, Henry VIII divorced Catherine of Aragon, she was the mother of Queen Elizabeth. Lady Jane Gray was proclaimed Queen by the Duke of Northumberland on the death of Edward VI, but the attempt to prevent Mary's accession was a failure, and Lady Jane Gray was executed in 1554. Guy Fawkes, a conspirator who tried to blow up the King and Parliament in 1605. The unfortunate princes were Edward V, son of Edward IV and the rightful King, and Richard Duke of York, his younger brother, murdered in the Tower by the usurper Richard III, 1483. End of Notes on Lesson 17 Notes on Lesson 18 The Tower of London, Part II Allegiance, the duty due from a subject to his liege the sovereign. Lord Hastings was executed by order of the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III in 1483, for supporting the side of Edward V and his relations. Ordnance, artillery, cannon, big guns. Antipast, after taste. Clock, a clergyman, a scholar, because in early times all learning was confined to the clergy. End of Notes on Lesson 18 Notes on Lesson 19 The Pilgrims Ague, a fever coming on at intervals with fits of shivering. Isolation, living away from outside communication, a lonely position like that of men on an island cut off from the rest of the world. Flemings, the people of Flanders, a district now comprising parts of Belgium, South Holland and North France. Walsingham, a place in the north of Norfolk, where was a famous shrine. Glastonbury, a small town near Wells in Somersetcher. Compostella, a place in Spain where is the shrine of St James, the patron saint of Spain. Chaucer, the great early English poet, born in London, 1328, died 1400. Expeiation, making amends for atonement. Holy Sepulchre, the burial place of our Lord at Jerusalem, to rescue which from the Turks was the object of the Crusades. End of Notes on Lesson 19 Notes on Lesson 20 St Bartholomew's Hospital Endowment, money given for the permanent support of an institution such as a church, hospital or school. Hospitaler, one in charge of a hospital. The term is generally applied to the Knights of St John, who built a hospital for sick crusaders at Jerusalem. Shambles, a slaughterhouse. Whittington, originally an apprentice in London, became a wealthy Mercer, Thrice Lord Mer, and Knighthood. He died in 1423 without children, and left his wealth for public objects, such as the one in the text. Dissolution of the religious houses carried out by Henry VIII in 1536-1540 for the sake of the plunder they afforded. Chloroform, a colourless liquid which, when inhaled, produces complete insensibility to pain. Norman windows, that is, built in a style introduced by the Normans. The rounded tops of doors and windows may be seen in the illustration on page 44 of the book. Lanthorn, a raised construction on the roof with horn or glass sides to give light. Clinical, in attendance at the bedside of patients. Residential college, where they reside or dwell. Convalescent hospital, where those who have had some illness may get quite well and strong again. End of notes on lesson 20. End of notes for lessons 1-20.