the season, he was dragged at a horse's tail through the streets, his head "bumping on the rough stones," all the way to Smithfield, where he was despatched. The apathy of his 52,000 cowed adherents is certainly remarkable, and says little for their fidelity and courage. After his death they tried to make what amends they could by proclaiming him a martyr. They swore his bones worked miracles, and even "pared away the earth that was dabbled with his blood and kept the same as holy relics to heal sick men withal." To Henry FitzOsbert we owe much. He was the proto-martyr of a long line of heroes who fought and died for the liberties we now enjoy. He was one of the earliest of the many half-forgotten builders of England's freedom and greatness.

The news that King Richard had been treacherously killed before Chaluz was received with every mark of sorrow in London. All his faults and sins of omission and commission were forgotten. Requiem Masses for the repose of his soul were said at St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and Londoners, forgetting his exactions, remembered only the glorious side of his career; but no one mourned him like his aged mother, Queen Eleanora, who was destined to survive him until she was long past eighty years of age. She had nursed him, loved him, worked for him, ruled for him, and now he was gone the sun had no more light for her aged eyes. She lived to see her grandson Geoffrey's boy, Shakespeare's Arthur, murdered by his uncle John, and she was alive when John himself was poisoned or died of excess at Swineford. In a letter to the Pope, the once frivolous Crusading Queen expresses her desolation in a concluding and most pathetic line, worthy of the Poetess-Duchess of the Land of Oc"Eleanora, by the wrath of God, Queen of England."

The Lion Heart's successor, King John, does not seem to have troubled London often with his evil countenance. In Richard's reign, when Richard was away, he was there often enough, intriguing against his brother, and assembling the citizens at St. Paul's to promise them liberties and tax reductions. But the people knew him better than he thought they did. Like his brother, he was a man of magnificent presence, he had some courage and no mean ability; but he lacked the frankness and those

occasional beams of sunny brightness which made Richard's personality so bewitching. John may not have been so black as he was painted, but the most sinister pictures of him are those drawn by his contemporaries, who, as a rule, were apt in the case of a king to gloss over certain bloody and tyrannical deeds which we now should deem odious in any man. Their portraits of King John are much the same as Shakespeare's terrible indictment of a crowned criminal. For all that, he gave usthough against his will-the chiefest Charter of our liberties, Magna Charta. Runnymede is not far from London, and when the citizens became aware that the King had signed the parchment a thrill of joy pervaded every class of the community.

In the year 1207, London received a visit from the Emperor Otho of Germany, the King's nephew, and entertained him right royally." He lodged at Westminster, and was banqueted by the city with great splendour.

The famous interdict which fell upon the land in John's reign did not interfere as greatly with the devotions of the citizens as is often stated by historians,-it only affected the cathedrals, abbeys, priories, and parish churches; there were many other semi-public oratories and places of worship where Mass could be heard and the consolations of religion obtained. Yet when the hitherto uninterrupted services in St. Paul's, the Abbey, and all the great churches, ceased suddenly on the Pope's command, a dark shadow must have fallen upon the city. In so essentially theocratic an age the suspension in great part of the religious life of the country could not but produce an appalling effect-the city must have felt itself accursed indeed! When at length the dread sentence was lifted by the King's submission to Rome, and all the bells pealed merrily once more, the people were well pleased—the shadow had passed away!

John, whose domestic life was embittered by the vile and notorious conduct of his Queen, Isabella of Angouleme, died at Newark, on October 19, 1216, poisoned, it was reported. His departure from a world he had not adorned, and from a throne he had polluted, was received with few marks of regret. Yet solemn Masses for the repose of his soul were sung and said both at St. Paul's and Westminster, and in all the churches of the Preaching Friars throughout the kingdom.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GUILDS, COMPANIES, AND THE FRIARS

H

ENRY III. was a mere lad of ten years old when he ascended the throne, and as London was temporarily in the possession of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis VIII., the coronation took place at Gloucester. It was not until after the departure of the French, that Henry made his state entry into London, which, however, was never his favourite residence. From the very first year of his long reign he disliked it, and the Londoners in return bitterly disliked him. Talleyrand, if he had lived in those days, would have described this monarch as worse than a bad king-a weak one." He started his reign by repudiating the Great Charter which had been forced with so much difficulty from his father; declaring that, as he had no hand in the making of it, he had "no cause to maintain it." The Forest Charter fared no better, although the nation had paid very dearly for it -one-fifteenth of all movables-and any interference with it was obviously dangerous.

London had been steadily rising in commercial prosperity, and increasing both her import and export trade, so that even at this early date, our metropolis was considered one of the most important cities in Europe. We get a startling illustration of the wealth of the city in Matthew Paris's account of the coronation of Eleanor of Provence, Henry's first consort. This Princess was the great-granddaughter of the famous Raymond, Count, or, as he is sometimes called, King of Provence.

was a handsome and, for the time, a highly educated woman, but giddy and extravagant. The wedding was celebrated by proxy in Paris, but the solemn union of the royal couple took place on January 28, 1236, at Canterbury. Immediately after the

nuptial service the King and Queen started for London, where Eleanor was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The good Monk of St. Albans describes in glowing colours the gorgeous appearance of the city on this occasion. The streets along the route of the procession were hung with tapestry and cloth of gold and silver: "London was so full of nobles, gentry and folk from the country, and with players and sundry that she could scarce contain them within her capacious bosom. The city was adorned as never before with silk hangings and with banners, crowns, palls, tapers and lamps, and with certain marvellous ingenuities and devices; the streets were delivered from dirt, mud, sticks, and everything offensive"; from which statements we may conclude that for once they were thoroughly cleaned, and that some sort of general illumination was attempted, although the earliest account we possess of any such form of embellishment in this country is connected with the coronation of Henry IV., in the fourteenth century, when there were not illuminations only, but fire-works. "The Citizens," proceeds this quaintest of historians, "met the King and Queen ornamented and trapped and wonderously sporting their swift horses. Some three hundred and sixty citizens went forth in marshalled array, adorned in silken vestments, wrapped in goldwoven mantles with fancifully devised garments, sitting on valuable horses refulgent with new bits and saddles." They carried with them "three hundred and sixty gold and silver cups, the King's trumpeters going before, blowing their trumpets," which it seems was "a marvellous novelty that produced a laudable astonishment" in the spectators.

Other pens, besides that of Matthew Paris, have minutely described the scene in the Abbey, by all accounts a very splendid function. The Queen was crowned by the Bishop of Chichester, and the banquet in Westminster Hall after the ceremony made such a profound impression, by reason of its magnificence and profusion, that it was referred to a hundred years later as a precedent. One particular connected with it is of curious interest: a carpet of "striped English burel," (otherwise, fine felt), was stretched from the Abbey to Westminster Hall for the King and Queen to walk upon. This is the first mention in our history of any sort of carpet of home

manufacture long enough to be used for such a purpose. There was also "an abundant supply of nappery," or table-cloths and napkins. Henry de Hastings, who had them in his charge, claimed them as his perquisites at the finish of the repast. William de Beauchamp, who served as almoner, demanded an enormous silver dish and a tun of wine; while Hugh de Vere received the gold basins and towels. The Earl de Warren was butler and cup-bearer instead of the Earl de Albiniac of Arundel, who was in disgrace. Michael Belot filled the cup with rich wine for the Earl, whereupon the Earl, having tasted it, handed it on bended knees to the King. He, in his turn, put it to his lips, and then pledged the Queen, who rose and bowed to the company. Then every man stood up, touched his neighbour's cup, and cheered three times for the King and Queen. The three hundred and sixty gold and silver cups which had been brought to Westminster with so much ceremony by the citizens were handed round to the company at the upper table, i.e. to the great lords and high Court officials, by Andrew Benkerel, Mayor of London from 1231 to 1257, "because the city of London is held to be the assistant to the chief butler, just as Westminster is represented in the same way in the kitchen to assist the High Steward." For some unexplained reason the King took offence at the officiousness of the Mayor, and rudely brushing him aside would only take the cup from Belot, "who was his man." Thereupon the Mayor and his attendants retired in high dudgeon.

The William de Beauchamp above referred to, enjoyed in his capacity the curious privilege of jurisdiction in the matter of disputes between paupers and lepers. If a leper struck a pauper with a knife, Beauchamp could order the said leper to be burnt. Those who have studied minutely the ways and manners of bygone times, will remember that it was customary for rows of lepers and beggars to stand at the church doors, waiting for the exit of the congregation after Mass. Occasionally there was a scramble for small coin, in which the lepers and beggars came to blows; the former, if disappointed, would try, by biting or scratching, to innoculate the unfortunate paupers with their fell disease -hence possibly Beauchamp's "privilege" of burning them if caught in the act.