Christopher Wren was able to use it as the superstructure of his masterpiece, the present edifice. Unfortunately it has been so choked up with coffins that it is now scarcely worth visiting. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a very fine crypt under the scanty remains of the Church of St. Martin'sle-Grand, but it was pulled down when the General Post Office was built. Beneath the house numbered 153 Leadenhall Street there still exists a very large and remarkable crypt of Early Norman workmanship, which had the honour of being visited, on more than one occasion, by Charles Dickens, who has immortalised as Captain Cuttle the then owner of the premises above ground, which served as a shop for the sale of nautical instruments. My readers will be glad to hear that the famous little wooden midshipman, renowned in Dombey & Son, is still in perfect condition, flourishing but in another part of London, keeping watch and ward over the belongings of a descendant of the kindly old Captain of the hook, so tenderly beloved by Walter Gay and Florence Dombey, and held in awesome veneration even by the irrepressible Nipper.1

Fire has been ancient London's chief foe. The destruction by its agency of the palace of our kings at Westminster was a loss for which even the beautiful and fanciful structure that replaces it cannot compensate, for, with the venerable stones, crumbled nearly a thousand years of historical and romantic association. Nothing now remains but the crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel, the oratory of the present Houses of Parliament, and it, like the Temple Church, has been overrestored.

The Chapel of the Pyx, or rather the sub-structure of the dormitory and the dark cloister, to the south of the south transept, are all that now remains of Norman work in Westminster Abbey. The Confessor's Chapel, and the choir and transepts date from Henry the Third's time, and are in the first Pointed style, which marked the architectural transition introduced during his reign.

1This pleasant information comes to the writer direct from a member of the family which all lovers of Dickens will be glad to learn is "hearty."

CHAPTER VII

LONDON UNDER THE FIRST PLANTAGENETS

THE

HE feudal system, which governed Europe from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, had by this time reached its zenith. England was rapidly being covered, from end to end, with formidable castles, some of which, as for instance Cardiff, Raglan, Windsor, Alnwick, Warwick,1 still stand fairly wellpreserved, at least as to their original outlines; while the majority have either altogether disappeared or only serve, with the stately ruins of their ivy-covered towers, keeps, and crumbling walls, to add a keynote of romantic charm to English landscape. The King, who was but the over-lord of many lords, each absolute in his own fortified keep, was forced by sheer instinct of self-preservation to rely in many an emergency on the goodwill of the townsfolk, and it was his interest, therefore, to court the favour of the citizens of the capital and other large cities-a policy very foolishly neglected by Stephen's successor.

Society in those days was divided, as is our own, into three distinct classes-the nobility, burghers, and lower orders of freemen. But there was yet another class,-a relic of Saxon times, the Theowas, or slaves. Doomsday Book reckoned

1 So closely are these castles set that within a radius of seven miles in the county of Norfolk the writer recently visited the ruins of six-beginning with the noble remains of Castleacre and ending with the scanty vestiges of the once formidable fortress of Mileham. It was in this latter castle that Fleance, son of Banquo, found refuge from the vengeful Macbeth; and here, too, Guiscard's son, whose disappearance from the scene of history has so often puzzled chroniclers, lived and died a peaceful exile, leaving a lefthanded progeny, which still tills the neighbouring fields under the patronymic of Wyskerd (Guiscard). For further particulars see Carthew's Hundred of Launditch.

these unfortunates, probably the descendants of Roman slaves and prisoners of war, at some 20,000. The Church did all in her power to emancipate them, but her efforts and influence long proved powerless. The lot of these Theowas, dire enough in the cities, must have been well-nigh unendurable in the villages, where even the freedmen maltreated them, although they themselves were not much better off. In London they usefully performed the citizens' dirty work in their frequent revolts against oppression. They were much to the front in the momentous insurrection against the Empress Maud, a turningpoint in the history of London, since it taught the people to realise how great was their united power, even when the object of their resentment was their Sovereign.

Henry II. was barely twenty when, on August 5, 1154, he ascended the throne left vacant by Stephen's death. According to Peter of Blois, who knew him from boyhood, he was one of the handsomest young men of his time. He was of towering stature, with a head "of such quantity, that to the neck and to all the body, it accordeth by even proportion. His eyes 'pykeled' fine and clear in the colouring, when he is pleased well, but, if he is angered, like sparkling fires. His hair thickly curled and worn cut square across the forehead." His character left much to be desired, notwithstanding the praises of Peter of Blois. He could be generous enough when it suited his purpose; he could be most cruel and treacherous too. He was a brave soldier, a splendid horseman, and a passionate sportsman; was not devoid of literary culture and encouraged learning in others. Peter of Blois, who was his chaplain and secretary, gives us a lively description of the King leaving his palace: "When King Henry sets out of a morning you see multitudes of big people running up and down as they were mad, horse rushing against horse, carriage overturning carriage, players, gamesters, cooks, confectioners, morrice dancers, barbers, courtesans, and parasites, making so much noise and, in a word, such an intolerable tumultuous jumble of horse and foot, that you imagine the great abyss hath opened and that Hell itself had poured forth all its inhabitants."

King Henry II. brought with him to this country quite the most amazing Queen-Consort that ever shared the throne of England.

Eleanora of Aquitaine, unlike her modest and saintlike predecessor in the honours of Queen-Consort of the Norman line, was a lady with not one, but many "pasts." She was a good dozen years older than her youthful husband, a disparity of age which did not affect his infatuation for her mature charms. There is something weirdly modern about this extraordinary woman's career. Her story, shorn of its romantic environment, is that of a finished adventuress, who divorces, on the flimsiest of pretexts, a dull husband to marry a handsome lad. The background of this sordid story is so extremely picturesque and so little known that it needs to be briefly related, and all the more as it bears indirectly upon the history of London's civilisation, for we owe this queen a debt of gratitude for the remarkable impetus she gave to our commercial and artistic progress. Eleanora, a distinguished poetess, was, moreover, a very observant woman, who, as we shall presently see, had travelled far and wide. Her connection with the Southern States of Europe was intimate and important, and she used it, during her brief period of absolute power in England, to the best advantage of our nascent commerce. Judging from the miniature portraits scattered through a few contemporary MSS., her effigy at Fontevrault, and the descriptions of those who saw and knew her, she was exceedingly beautiful, with regular features and fine eyes. Her complexion, we are maliciously informed, was of her own making, and her long hair dyed red with henna.

Aquitaine, as the Queen Eleanora's domains were called, was formed of the two counties of Guienne and Gascony, and was undoubtedly, at this period, the most highly-cultivated and literary principality in medieval Europe. Learning was there protected as one of the most precious of human possessions, music was loved, and poetry considered a heaven-born gift that raised the lowliest-born poet to the level of a prince. In this nursery of the Muses Eleanora shone like a star. She was worthy of her grandfather, William Ix., the Minstrel Duke whose poems are still in high repute. In 1137 the Princess became the bride of the fat young King, Louis VII. of France, "le gros," retaining her independent position as reigning duchess after the death of her grandfather, who retired, in tardy penance for a very gay youth and middle age, to a hermit's cell near Campostella

in Spain, where he died full of years and strongly perfumed with that subtlest of odours-sanctity.

The European atmosphere was permeated at this period with Crusades and Crusaders. Young men could talk and think of nothing else. The Holy Land had a double attraction for them in that it presented a means of saving their souls, and at the same time of filling their pockets with the spoils of ten thousand harems, whose inmates were reported to be as rich in gold, silver, and gems as they were beautiful and kind. In a word, Palestine was, in countless eyes, a sort of heavenly South Africa, and Jerusalem a sacred Johannesburg. To the Crusades therefore went King Louis, and with him the Queen-Duchess, who had had the advantage of hearing St. Bernard himself preach the spiritual benefits of the enterprise. That side of the question did not much affect the fair Æleanora, who considered the matter from a worldly point of view as a novel form of excitement. She was accompanied by what she was pleased to call her "flying squadron "-otherwise a regiment of ladies equipped in fantastic costumes, consisting of short pleated skirts, light breastplates, helmets with floating plumes, and highly- ornamented spears. The Queen's luggage exceeded that of any modern lady of fashion going on a pilgrimage to Delhi or Monte Carlo, and her ladies' impedimenta were as unwieldy. No wonder King Louis' crusade was a dismal failure! A volume-a very amusing one to boot would scarcely suffice to describe the Queen's vagaries and most unseemly behaviour. At Antioch, where her uncle, Raymond of Toulouse, was Prince, she turned the head of that venerable gentleman, whilst her "squadron" gave itself up to worldly amusements and danced more frequently than it prayed. King Louis was forced at last to hurry his consort and her Amazons out of Antioch to avoid fresh scandals, and decamped in the dead of night for Jerusalem, where, dreadful to relate, the Queen found the Holy Sepulchre less interesting than the handsome Saracen Emir, Sal-Addin. Before long the wretched Louis was half distracted by his domestic troubles, especially as the Queen made no secret of her dislike for his ungainly person. She laughed at him in public, and taunted him in private-said he was gros et vilain, and that with his close-shaven face he looked like a priest.