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souvenirs of long-dead men and women, of whose sorrows and anguish of mind nothing is left but the yellowing paper covered with the almost illegible writing of their times. You will find the cry of Sir Philip Sidney to Jaen Wyer the Court surgeon of His Highness of Cleves, written when he lay dying from his wound at the battle of Zutphen: "Come, my Weier, come. I am in danger of my life and I want you here. Neither living or dead shall I be ungrateful. I can write no more, but I earnestly pray you to make haste. Farewell. At Arnem. Yours, Ph. Sidney." And Sir Walter Raleigh's letter to Queen Anne, the wife of James the First, where he says: "My extreme shortness of breath doth grow fast on me, with the dispayre of obtayning so mich grace to walke with my keeper up the hill within the Tower."

Roy ne suis, ne prince ne duc, ne comte aussy: Je suis sire de Coucy.

Old letters are not the only treasures in this corner belonging to another age. There are beautiful fourteenth-century chests, a bulla carved by Benvenuto Cellini, that prince of goldsmiths and autobiographers, and indeed the greatest treasure of all, that I have kept till the last.

NEVILL'S COURT

"Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts."--DR. JOHNSON.

A stone's throw from the east end of the Record Office is one of the most curious unnoticed corners of old London. Go up Fetter Lane, which is the next turning to Chancery Lane out of Fleet Street, and at No. 34, close to the Moravian Chapel, you will see a narrow passage called Nevill's Court. This passage leads you straight into one of the oldest bits of London still existing, for here in the very heart of newspaper land are little ancient seventeenth-century houses with cottage gardens. They give one the same feeling of unexpectedness as those other queer little wooden houses with their high gables that you may see in Collingwood Street, just on the other side of Blackfriars Bridge . They stand beside the church, just as they stood nearly three hundred years ago, when the Thames washed right up to their doorsteps.

At No. 6 Nevill's Court, secluded in its walled garden, is a big seventeenth-century house, which must once have been inhabited by citizens of wealth and position. It is extraordinary that Time and the Vandal have left it still intact. I think the reason must be that they have never been able to find it, like those other old houses in Wardrobe Court near St. Paul's, whose whereabouts certainly ought to be set as a problem in a London taxi-driver's examination.

But before seeking the house, there is something to notice in Nevill's Court. The main entrance to the Moravian Chapel is in Fetter Lane, at No. 33. I once went to the service there at three o'clock on a Sunday afternoon under the influence of the story of the messenger sent while Bradbury was preaching, to announce Queen Anne's death and the safety of the Protestant succession. I hoped to find something to remind me of the chapel's great age: it is the oldest place of Protestant worship in London, going back to Queen Mary's day, when persecuted Protestants are supposed to have met in the sawpit of the carpenter's yard on this site.

Down the long, narrow passage, I found a bare, uncompromising chapel, with a high, wooden pulpit, that I looked at with more respect than its ugliness warranted, remembering that Baxter had preached here in 1672, and that John Wesley and Whitefield had addressed crowded congregations during the year Wesley spent with the Moravians between the time that he left the Church of England and the founding of the Methodist persuasion in 1740. The boundary line between St. Bride's, Fleet Street, and St. Dunstan's in the West is just in front of the pulpit, so the preacher and his congregation are in different parishes.

The chapel has been used by the Moravian sect since 1738, and as their lease does not expire for about another 250 years, it is not likely to change ownership, in spite of the dwindling congregation.

It has been so many times restored and rebuilt that one gets a much better idea of the antiquity of the building from the back entrance in Nevill's Court, for this is the only part that could possibly have existed before the Great Fire.

CLIFFORD'S INN

"Oh! London! London! our delight, Great flower that opens but at night." R. LE GALLIENNE.

Some of the Inn survived the Great Fire, and in the crazy-looking little old hall the judges sat who decided the many boundary disputes after that catastrophe. At the moment it is the headquarters of some society "duquel je ne s?ais pas le nom."

THE CHARTERHOUSE AND ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S

"At length they all to mery London came, To mery London my most kyndley nurse." SPENSER.

In days of old, when London's present meatmarket was the fashionable jousting-ground of the time, the knights and squires used to ride to Smithfield up a road still called Giltspur Street, either from the armourers who dwelt there, or from the jingling of the champions' spurs as they clattered by.

There was once a na?ve inscription under the statue of the fat boy whose stone image is still to be seen at the corner where Cock Lane joins Giltspur Street, on the left. At this point, once known as Pye Corner, the Fire of London was stopped in 1666 by blowing up the houses, and the writing underneath the figure of this extremely obese youth reminded the passer-by that "the Great Fire ... was occasioned by the sin of gluttony." I do not know what authority there was for this allegation. Whoever was responsible for the tablet probably had running in his muddled head the names of Pye or Pie Corner and Pudding Lane in Thames Street where the conflagration started. The fact that it was from the house of a baker that the flames first spread may likewise have influenced him, though it is unusual to be gluttonous on bread alone.

The Fire gave the moralist good cause for thought. It was an event so tremendous, so far-reaching, so overwhelming, that it is strange that the history books of England do not linger over its significance. For in less than a week practically every landmark that went to make up the most interesting old mediaeval city in the world was swept away. The ancient cathedral of St. Paul's, 89 churches, 4 city gates, 460 streets and 13,200 houses perished in the flames. With the exception, perhaps, of the burning of Rome, there has never been so terrible a fire. Pepys wept to see it.

A wonderful account has been left us by Evelyn:

The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr'd to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and length, the Churches, Public Halls, Exchange, Hospitals, Monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house and streete to streete, at greate distances one from ye other; for ye heate with a long set of faire and warme weather, had even ignited the air, and prepar'd the materials to conceive the fire, which devour'd after an incredible manner, houses, furniture, and everything. Here we saw the Thames cover'd with goods floating, all the barges and boates laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on ye other, ye carts, &c., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strew'd with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor to be outdone till the universale conflagration. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, the light seen above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant my eyes may never behold the like, now seeing above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, ye shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of Towers, Houses, and Churches, was like an hideous storme, and the aire all about so hot and inflam'd that at last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc'd to stand still and let ye flames burn on, wch they did for neere two miles in length and one in bredth. The clouds of smoke were dismall, and reach'd upon computation neer fifty miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. London was, but is no more!

The trade of London ceased for a time; there were no shops, the merchants had lost their goods, the warehouses were gutted, all records of debts and commercial transactions were destroyed, there were no schools, no almshouses.

Yet in four short years the English, with the same dogged energy that they were putting recently into the making of trenches and dugouts, had practically rebuilt their capital city. The churches, of course, took a long time to finish; the beautiful and numerous halls of the City Companies were not replaced in a day, but nearly 10,000 houses were up, and since those seventeenth-century workmen were just Englishmen, with no foreigners at hand to tell them to "ca' canny," everything was in a fair way to completion.

As for Sir Christopher Wren, that amazing architect who stamped the impress of his genius on the great city as we know it, who shall give him enough honour? He designed and erected over forty public buildings, amongst them the lovely and unique cluster of churches that lie around St. Paul's, yet for this work he was rewarded by the miserable salary of ?100 a year, with ?200 a year for the rebuilding of the great cathedral.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE GREAT

"The citye of London that is to me so dere and sweete." CHAUCER.

Opposite St. Bartholomew's Hospital is Smithfield, new and blatant, and smelling hideously of raw meat. Take courage and go on northwards, for in a few minutes you will come to the most wonderful old church in London--older than any other except the chapel in the White Tower. There is something about the almost primitive simplicity of its massive stone pillars that carries one back more directly to the times of the Norman conquerors than a thousand long descriptions gathered from history books.

What you see is only the choir and transept of a much larger church built for the Priory of St. Bartholomew by the founder Rahere in or about the year 1102. His tomb is on the left as you enter, and high up on the right is the lovely oriel window where Prior Bolton, who died in 1532, could sit or kneel at his ease, without even the trouble of coming downstairs from his house, and look down into the church he did so much to rebuild and restore.

St. Bartholomew's has had a turbulent history. There is the dramatic story of Archbishop Boniface of Lambeth Palace, a Savoyard who took it into his crafty head that he would like to annex the offertory of St. Bartholomew's. On a certain Sunday morning he set out from Lambeth, with a train of attendants with mail armour under their robes. The description of what happened is delicious in Matthew Paris's words, as quoted by Stowe:

Amongst other memorable matters, touching this priorie, one is of an Archbishop's Visitation, which Matthew Paris hath thus. Boniface Archbishoppe of Canterbury, in his Visitation came to this priorie, where being received with procession in the most solemne wise, hee said that hee passed not upon the honor, but came to visite them, to whom the Canons aunswered that they having a learned Bishop, ought not in contempt of him to be visited by any other; which aunswere so much offended the Archbishop that he forthwithe fell on the Supprior, and smote him on the face, saying, indeede, indeede, dooth it become you English Traytors so to aunswere mee, thus raging with oaths not to bee recited, hee rent in peeces the rich Cope of the Supprior, and trode it under his feete, and thrust him against a pillar of the Chauncell with such violence, that hee had almost killed him: but the Canons seeing their supprior thus almost slayne, came and plucked off the Archbishoppe with such force that they overthrewe him backwardes, whereby they might see that he was armed and prepared to fight, the Archbishoppe's men seeing theyr master downe, being all strangers and their master's countrimen born at Prowence, fell upon the canons, beat them, tare them, and trod them under feete, at length the Canons getting away as well as they could, ran bloody and myry, rent and torne, to the Bishoppe of London to complaine, who had them goe to the king at Westminster, and tell him thereof, whereupon some of them went thether, the rest were not able, they were so sore hurt, but when they came to Westminster, the king would neither heare nor see them, so they returned without redresse, in the mean season the whole Citie was in an uprore, and ready to have rung the Common bell, and to have hewed the Archbishoppe into small pieces, who was secretly crept to Lambhith, where they sought him, and not knowing him by sight, sayd to themselves, where is this Ruffian, that cruell smiter, hee is no winner of soules, but an exactor of money, whome neyther God, nor any lawfull or free election, did bring to this promotion, but the king did unlawfully intrude him, being utterly unlearned, a stranger borne, and having a wife etc: but the Archbishop conveyed himselfe over, and went to the king with a great complaint against the Canons, whereas himself was guilty.

The final result of that little Sunday morning jaunt of Archbishop Boniface was that he was obliged to build the chapel of Lambeth Palace about the year 1247 as a penance for having tried to encroach on the right of the holy Prior of St. Bartholomew's.

The quaint gateway by which one enters the scene of the exploits of these energetic churchmen adds a special charm to the place. The timbers of the old Elizabethan house above it were only discovered in 1915, when some of the tiles that long concealed them were loosened.

ST. JOHN'S GATE

"For knighthood is not in the feats of Warre, As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong. But in a cause which truth can not defarre." STEPHEN HAWES.

But the old gate still stands, austere and turret-crowned, and we may still "behold it with reverence," like Dr. Johnson. The modern representatives of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which devotes itself to ambulance and hospital work and did admirable service in the war, went back in 1887 to live within its ancient walls.

There are many things of interest in the gatehouse that make the trouble of writing to the secretary of the Order for permission to see them worth while. There are relics from Malta and Rhodes, an Elizabethan chimneypiece in the chancery, and other souvenirs, but the coffer that contains these treasures is more interesting than anything it holds, and that every passer-by may see.

THE CHARTERHOUSE

"I never think of London, which I love, without thinking of that palace which David built for Bathsheba."--LOWELL.

Coming back to Charterhouse Street and turning to the left, five minutes' walk will bring you to Charterhouse Square, where you can find one of the most lovely and gracious things in all London.

People often bewail the passing of old London without knowing that within this short distance from Holborn Circus they can see a perfect specimen of a sixteenth-century nobleman's house. There it stands, only needing the addition of a little furniture of the period, that

would never be missed from South Kensington Museum, and you could see exactly how my Lord Howard lived when he entertained--and plotted against--his royal mistress three hundred years ago.

One does not like to think of the number of people who leave London without ever having seen the Charterhouse. It is one of the most beautiful places in all London, and its story is packed with romance, intrigue, adventure and benevolence.

The tale falls into three parts. It is begun by that gallant Hainaulter, Sir Walter de Manny, as the English called Walter, Lord of Mausny near Valenciennes, who came over to England in the train of Philippa of Hainault.

According to Froissart he was a "very gentil parfyte knighte," and when he saw the ghastly heaps of dead bodies of plague-stricken people lying in the streets in 1349, he bought from St. Bartholomew's Hospital a piece of land called No Man's Land and caused the dead to be decently buried there. Their bodies at rest, he had thought for their souls, and on March 25, 1349, he laid the foundation-stone of a chapel where the relations might pray for their dead. Twenty years later Sir Walter Manny laid another stone, that of the first cell for the Carthusian monks he brought over from France. The wives and sisters of the dead had prayed so long in the chapel that the right could not be taken from them, so for once the strict Carthusian rule was relaxed and a special place was set apart for the womenkind to come and pray.

Sir Walter Manny died in 1372. He was buried at the foot of the step of the great altar in the chapel that may be seen to-day, and in the Charterhouse his Carthusian monks prayed according to the tenets of their faith for a hundred and sixty-five years more before the last prior, John Houghton, having been hung on Tyburn Tree, and many of the brothers tortured, the rest submitted to the king's will. The House of the Salutation of the Mother of God in the Charterhouse near London was dissolved shortly afterwards.

The second phase of the Charterhouse story is a very different one. Twice during the following years it was prepared for the coming of a fair queen, whose head was bowed on Tower Hill instead of in the old chapel.

Charterhouse was granted to that wily old courtier, Sir Edward North, in 1545, and eight years later he "conveyed" it to John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, the father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey. The Earl of Northumberland never wanted it for himself, as he had already Durham House in the Adelphi, but there was his son Guildford with his fair young wife to be lodged fittingly. So he brought up much furniture from Kenilworth and stored it hard by, little dreaming that his bold plans would miscarry and that he would die on Tower Hill a year before the children whose home he had planned shared the same fate.

North was granted the Charterhouse again by Queen Mary, and when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 she stayed six days there before her coronation.

Three years later she paid the old house another visit, but North died in 1564 and Charterhouse passed into the hands of crafty, brilliant, fickle Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk.

Once more Charterhouse, now known as Howard House, was to be prepared for a royal mistress, and in a royal manner.

The new owner, buoyed with hopes of a marriage with Mary, Queen of Scots, began to put his new house in order. He added the screen in the great hall and the "Tarrass Walk," the lovely tapestry room, the duchess's withdrawing-room and the magnificent great staircase.

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