THE LONDON OF DICK WHITTINGTON
All the week, Betty went to a High School, but Saturday was a whole holiday, and greatly to her satisfaction, it was arranged that she should spend her Saturdays with Godmother.
It was just a week since she had visited the London of Roman times, but not till the following Saturday, when she actually saw her Godmother, did the memory of “the magic part” come back to her.
“It’s so exciting to remember the secret directly I see you!” she exclaimed. “How far back are we going to-day? Oh, do let us begin at once, without wasting a single instant.”
Godmother laughed. “We won’t waste a single instant certainly. But you’re not going back into the Past till this afternoon. I’ve ordered the car, and we shall drive again into the City.”
By “the City” Betty knew she meant all the business part of London, to which thousands of people went every day to work in offices or warehouses.
“Why is only this crowded part of London called the City?” she asked presently when they were driving through bustling streets near St. Paul’s. “I should have thought the whole of London was a city?”
“So it is,” returned Godmother. “But as it all gradually spread, east and west, north and south, from London Bridge, it has become usual to speak of this busiest and earliest part of it as the City, and of all the rest by different names, such as the West End, North London, South London, and so forth. It’s such a huge place, you see, that such divisions as these are necessary.”
“Now we’re coming to London Bridge. I’m glad we’re going over it again,” Betty said presently, as they passed the Monument from which the previous week she had looked far and wide.
“We will drive very slowly, and I want you to notice several buildings that can be seen from the bridge.”
“There’s the Tower!” said Betty, looking to the left, where the solid square of the main building, with a tower at each corner, was visible. “And there’s St. Paul’s,” she added, turning to the right, and gazing at its dome and cross.
“Look at all these wharves and warehouses lining each bank of the river, with the great cranes hanging from them,” advised Godmother. “I want you to remember this scene. Try to get a clear picture of it in your mind.”
Betty looked with interest at the crowded shipping below the bridge, and at the bales of goods, some being lowered into boats, others hoisted up into the warehouses. She saw how, left and right, the river was spanned by bridges, and how, as far as she could see, warehouses and quays stretched in a continuous line, while smoke from thousands of factory chimneys rose into the air.
“Now we are on the south side of the river,” said Godmother, when the end of the bridge was reached. “All this district is called Southwark, and beyond it there are miles of dingy streets and houses, making up the parts of London called Bermondsey and Newington and Camberwell, and so forth. But it’s houses, houses, and most of them ugly houses, all the way. That black, dingy bridge overhead, spanning the road, belongs to London Bridge railway station.”
“But here’s one beautiful place at least!” Betty remarked, pointing to the right, where a fine church was hemmed in between walls of hideous sheds and other buildings belonging to the railway. A narrow churchyard, with a flagged path across it, separated the church from these ugly dirty surroundings, and a few trees just breaking into leaf showed brilliantly green against its ancient walls.
“Yes, I particularly want you to notice that church. It’s called St. Saviour’s, Southwark. Look at it well, and don’t forget its name. We’ll go back now to the north end of the bridge, and drive a little way along that street which runs beside the river towards the Tower.”
“Thames Street,” murmured Betty, reading its name on the wall as they turned into it.
So crowded was this particular street, so full of heavy lorries and wagons outside its warehouses, that they were soon obliged to leave it, and drive into Cheapside, quite close, but farther back from the river. Through St. Paul’s Churchyard, down Ludgate Hill into Fleet Street they drove, and straight on down the Strand.
“There’s the Savoy Hotel, and the Savoy Theatre next to it, where I saw ‘Alice in Wonderland’ once,” observed Betty, as they passed these buildings.
“Remember that also,” said Godmother, “and try to get some of the names of the streets into your head. These streets, I mean, that lead out of the Strand. All of them, you see, go down to the river.”
Betty had already noticed some of them, as the car passed, and had murmured their names. They were soon in Whitehall now, with the well-known Abbey in sight, and therefore near home.
“Westminster Hall,” said Godmother, when they passed the Houses of Parliament. She pointed to its long sloping roof, and added, “That’s one of the buildings you must remember.”
Every time Godmother drew her special attention to something, Betty gave a little smile of excitement, for she knew she would see that particular place or building again—by magic. And the magic made all the difference.
It was two or three hours later before she followed Godmother into the white-panelled room.
“Oh, I do hope it will be nice this time!” she exclaimed, full of excited anticipation.
Godmother laughed as she went to the cabinet.
“Last Saturday the talisman was a Roman ring. What is it going to be now?” Betty asked, as her godmother selected two objects from the cabinet. One she saw was an old book, the other, when she held it in her hand, she found to be a beautifully engraved gold chain.
“This book,” said Godmother, “was written by a poet—Geoffrey Chaucer by name—who lived more than five hundred years ago. You will discover to whom the chain once belonged, later on. Now, shut your eyes, hold the chain in both hands, and say, after me, these words written by old Chaucer, five hundred years ago.”
Betty obeyed, and repeated slowly after Godmother:
“ ... When that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the foules sing,
And that the floures ginnen for to spring,
Farewell my booke and my devotion....”
“Open your eyes,” said Godmother, after a silence. “We have gone back to the year 1388. Richard the Second is king. This is London Bridge, and it is May Day.”
Betty’s eyes, now wide open, wandered right and left. The London she looked upon, was completely changed from the scene she had beheld on her last magic visit. Gone were the Roman villas, gone the fortress, gone the Roman Hall of Justice. But the wall that had then encircled the city—or one very like it—was still there, for from where she stood, she could see parts of it, with its massive gates at intervals opening into the green country beyond. The bridge on which she stood, was now built of stone, firm and strong. At either end, stood fortified towers, with gates, and in the middle of the bridge, was a beautiful little Chapel. Leaning over the parapet, Betty saw that the chapel was in two parts, one built above the other, and from the lower one, steps descended into the water.
“We’ll look at the people as they pass, before I tell you how all this change has come about,” Godmother said. And indeed the people were interesting and picturesque enough to occupy all Betty’s attention.
“How gay they are! What beautiful coloured clothes they wear!” she cried. “Oh, Godmother, do look at this young man coming. Isn’t he splendid?”
She pointed to a boy of eighteen or nineteen who came swinging along the bridge, dressed in a short tunic edged with fur, and embroidered all over with flowers. The tunic had long wide hanging sleeves tapering to a point which almost reached the young gallant’s knee. He wore long green silk stockings, boots ending in a peak, and his crimped fair hair fell on either side of his face down to his shoulders.
“What a lot of monks there are!” she exclaimed, when the beautiful youth had gone by. Some of these were in rough grey habits with a knotted rope round their waists; others wore white robes under a black cloak, and there were many of them going to and fro upon the bridge.
“The grey ones are the Franciscans, or Grey Friars, and those with the black cloak are the Dominicans, or Black Friars,” Godmother told her.... “Here is an old countrywoman coming in from the southern gate with her butter and eggs! Doesn’t she look comfortable?”
She was a stout old lady, with folds of white linen round her neck drawn up on either side of her face under a flat broad-brimmed hat. Her woollen skirt was very short, showing scarlet stockings and buckled shoes, and she carried an enormous basket on one arm.
“That white linen arrangement round her face is called a wimple,” said Godmother. “Nuns, if you remember, still wear the same sort of thing.”
“She isn’t a bit like a nun though,” laughed Betty, watching the fat old woman as she waddled past her.
The next moment her attention was attracted by a group of children who came running along the bridge shouting and singing. They all had flowers in their hands, and some of the little ones wore wreaths of bluebells or primroses.
“Oh! don’t they look pretty!” exclaimed Betty in delight. “And they must have picked the flowers in the fields and woods just outside that gate at the end of the bridge,” she added.
“You remember what is at the end of the bridge as we saw it this morning? A railway station, and a railway arch over an ugly street, with miles and miles of streets beyond. The Church of St. Saviour’s, was the only beautiful thing visible—a change indeed,” said Godmother.
Betty watched the children and looked at their clothes with the greatest interest. The little girls wore frocks looped up on one side over a girdle, some of the boys had long stockings and short tunics and wore tiny capes of linen, with a hood buttoned under the chin.
The whole merry party presently ran into one of the recesses of the bridge where there was plenty of room, and began to play a singing game, dancing as they sang.
Though some of the words sounded strange in Betty’s ears, she understood most of them, and the verses of the song, if they were put into the English to which we are now accustomed, would run something after this fashion:
“London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over, my Lady Lee;
London Bridge is broken down
With a gay ladee.
How shall we build it up again?
Dance over, my Lady Lee;
How shall we build it up again?
With a gay ladee.
Build it up with stone so strong,
Dance over, my Lady Lee,
Then ’twill last for ages long
With a gay ladee.”
“That song is old even now—in this year 1388,” said Godmother. “The great-grandmothers of these children may have sung it. It probably celebrated the time when the last of the timber bridges was broken down in a storm, and this stone one, upon which we are standing, was built in its place about the time when Richard the First was reigning.”
“And we are in the reign of Richard the Second now, nearly two hundred years later,” Betty replied.
“The children are right when they say London Bridge will last for ages long,” Godmother remarked. “It lasted more than six hundred years—almost to our own time. My Grandfather, for instance, Betty, was born the year this Bridge upon which we are standing, was pulled down, and the one you saw this morning, built.”
But Betty’s eyes were still fixed on the children who at intervals in their game ran to offer their bunches of flowers to the passers-by, shouting “May Day! May Day!”
Presently one little girl with a pretty voice, began to sing (in words which were nearly, though not altogether, like the English of our own day) a little song which, written down, was this:
“Summer is icumen in;
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springeth the wude nu—
Sing cuccu!”
It was easy to put this into modern English, and Betty knew what it meant:
“Summer is a-coming in;
Loud sings cuckoo!
Groweth seed, and bloweth mead,
And springeth the wood new.
Sing cuckoo!”
“That’s the first verse of a song that is more than a hundred years old even in this year 1388 to which we’ve gone back,” said Godmother. “Yet you can understand it pretty well, can’t you? It shows how near to the language we speak to-day, the speech of the fourteenth century is growing.”
“Yes. And isn’t it lovely for those children to hear the cuckoo and pick flowers just on the other side of London Bridge? Oh, I wish the country came right up to the City now—like this,” sighed Betty, nodding towards the fields and woods that made a green belt close behind the wall.
“Godmother!” she exclaimed suddenly, pointing to a sort of castle near the river bank. “There’s something I know! Why, surely it’s the Tower of London? Only there’s not so much of it as there is now,” she added.
“Yes, it’s the Tower right enough—three hundred years old already in 1388, and eight hundred years old in our own time. But now, my dear, before you get too distracted by all you’re seeing and hearing, I’m going to take you in here to talk history for a few minutes.”
Betty followed her into the porch of the chapel on the Bridge, where they sat down on a bench out of sight of all the gay life outside.
“We left London,” Godmother began, “empty and deserted, with a group of our Saxon ancestors whom we may call English people, standing uncertainly outside the walls built round the city by the departed Romans. What happened next?”
“Those English people settled in London, and in time made it alive and busy again.”
Godmother nodded. “And what became of the British who used to live here?”
“They were driven West, into Wales, and are the Welsh people now.”
“Yes. And then?”
Betty reflected. “Oh! Why, the Danes came, didn’t they? Yes. The English king, Alfred the Great, fought against them. And then afterwards the Normans came and conquered England. And they spoke French!... I don’t see why you call those Saxon people who stood outside London, our ancestors, Godmother? Because we must be all mixed up with the Danes and the Normans—especially with the Normans, who were quite different, and had a different language. So I don’t understand how those first English could be our ancestors exactly?”
“I’ll tell you how. When you say the Normans spoke a different language, you’re right. But in saying they were ‘quite different,’ you’re wrong. What does the word Norman mean? Merely a Northman. They came from the same northern countries as the English, and were originally of the same race. The reason they spoke French, was, that for two or three hundred years before they came to England they had been living in the north of France. But when they conquered this island and settled down here, what happened? Did the English people learn to speak the language of their conquerors? Far from it. The conquerors learnt to speak the tongue of the men they conquered, ‘mixed up,’ as you say, with some of their own French. Three hundred years after William the First landed, the people—conquerors and conquered alike—have become one people, speaking one language, the English language. Altered, of course, from the kind of language spoken by those wild-looking men blowing their horns outside London walls. If you had heard them talking, you wouldn’t have understood a word (even though it was the foundation of the English we talk to-day). But now, in this year 1388, three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, you can understand most of it, can’t you? Out of the mixture of the Norman’s French and the English people’s early English, has come the language we now speak. Well, now that the history lesson is over, let us see all we can of the London the poet Chaucer knew in the reign of Richard the Second. We may even meet Chaucer himself—if we’re lucky!” she added.
“I want to see the Tower,” said Betty. “Dad took me there once. But it looked different, from the Tower we can see from this bridge.”
“That’s because parts have been added to it since the reign of Richard the Second. But you saw the keep, or White Tower, as it is called, when you went with your father the other day. That keep, or central tower, has been standing ever since William the Conqueror built it. Look at the moat full of water round the castle. That was made when Richard the First was king.”
“There’s no water there now,” Betty said. “When Dad and I went over the Tower the other day, soldiers were drilling in the moat! Oh, Godmother,” she went on after a moment, “isn’t it strange and—uncanny to think that none of the people on this bridge, know all the things that are going to happen in that Tower?”
“The things we know because we live in a later time, you mean? Yes. Can you think of some of them?”
“The poor little princes are soon going to be murdered there, for one thing,” began Betty eagerly. “And Sir Thomas More, a good deal later on, will be beheaded. And——” she hesitated.
“Ah, yes, in the years to come many, many poor prisoners will go under the Traitor’s Gate there, never to return,” said Godmother. “But we won’t think of them now. Let us look at this beautiful little chapel beside us on the bridge. It’s dedicated to the latest on the list of saints. Can you guess who that is?”
Betty looked puzzled.
“St. Thomas à Becket. You remember all about him, and how he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral?”
“Yes! and there used to be pilgrimages to his tomb,” put in Betty.
“Later on we may see some of the pilgrims starting on their journey,” Godmother told her. “Now let us take a boat and go westward up the river.”
“That will lead to Westminster, won’t it? Oh, Godmother, do let us see how Westminster has got on!” exclaimed Betty suddenly, remembering the low swampy island of Roman times.
“That’s just what we’re going to do. We’ll take a boat from the steps down there that lead from the lower chapel of St. Thomas to the water. We shall be in time, if we make haste, to join that party of monks who have been to say their prayers in the chapel, and are just going away by boat.”
Betty hurried after her from the upper to the lower chapel, and she and Godmother stepped into the boat with three or four of the Black Friars as they were called—a merry party, and, as Betty thought, not at all monk-like, in their conversation. Though she could not understand all they said, because many of the words were pronounced in a way strange to her, she gathered enough to know that they were talking about a pilgrimage to Canterbury, to which they seemed to be looking forward as a delightful pleasure trip.
Interesting as the friars were to watch, the river banks were still more fascinating. Except for the landing-stages and a few quays and wharves near London Bridge, they might have been floating on a country river, and Betty thought suddenly of the unending line of warehouses, the smoke of a thousand chimneys, the noise and bustle near the river she had seen only this morning.
“There’s the Strand,” exclaimed Godmother presently, pointing towards the right-hand bank of the stream.
“The Strand?” echoed Betty, scarcely able to believe her eyes.
The Strand along which she had so recently driven, was a bustling street of shops and theatres, with tall-steepled churches at the end of it. Now she saw a country road lined with hedges, across which ran swift streams hurrying to empty their waters in the main river. There were bridges over the streams, and along the tree-shaded road, and across the bridges, rode or trudged a constant procession of people.
“It’s the main road from the City to Westminster, you see,” said Godmother, “so that’s why it’s so crowded.”
“I never knew what the Strand meant before,” declared Betty, all at once enlightened. “A strand is a shore, isn’t it? So that road is just the shore of the river.”
“Just as it is now,” Godmother returned. “Nearly all the narrow streets on the right of the Strand, as you walk up it from Charing Cross station, lead down to the river. But except for lucky people like ourselves, it needs a great deal of imagination to picture it as we see it here, back in the fourteenth century, doesn’t it?”
Betty was now gazing with admiration at a line of beautiful great houses whose gardens sloped to the water and were closed at its brink by a stone gate.
“Those are the palaces of the great nobles,” Godmother told her. “The one we are passing, is called the Savoy, and it belongs to John of Gaunt.”
“Why, there’s the Savoy Hotel, and the Savoy Theatre in the Strand now!” exclaimed Betty. “We passed them to-day.”
“Yes, they stand on part of that very ground where now you see this grand palace. Nearly every street leading from the Strand to the river still bears the name of some nobleman’s palace, and shows where it stood. Essex Street, Buckingham Street, Cecil Street—you noticed some of them this morning? They all mark the site of some great house, now vanished. Many of them—in this reign of Richard the Second—are not yet built, and some of these at which we are looking, will be pulled down and re-built before they are finally destroyed. We are only in the fourteenth century as yet, remember.”
“This Savoy Palace is splendid!” Betty cried with enthusiasm. “Look, Godmother. There are ladies and gentlemen walking on the terrace. Oh, how beautifully they are dressed. Aren’t the colours lovely? I do wish we had dresses like that now, don’t you? Do look at that lady with a thing like a sugar-loaf on her head, and a gauzy veil floating from it.”
“Yes, the costumes of this fourteenth century are certainly beautiful,” Godmother agreed. “Now you will understand why the English in the fourteenth century had the reputation for being the most gaily dressed people in Europe.”
“They look simply lovely on that terrace, and it’s such a beautiful house—that Savoy Palace, isn’t it?”
“It’s a wonderful looking place,” agreed Godmother. “I don’t think King John of France had a bad sort of prison, do you?”
“King John?” Betty looked puzzled.
“Don’t you remember how he was taken prisoner by John of Gaunt’s brother—the Black Prince—at Poitiers, and how because he was unable to pay his ransom, when he was set free, he returned to London like an honourable gentleman, and lived here, at the Savoy, till his death?”
“And that isn’t so very long ago, is it? I mean, counting that we’re in the fourteenth century now?”
“Twenty years ago. The Black Prince, King Richard’s father, has been dead about ten years, and he must often have come to this Savoy Palace to see John of Gaunt, his brother, and his so-called prisoner King John, of whom every one was very fond.”
They had fortunately lingered some time before the palace of the Savoy, to allow the Black monks to land at steps near it. Afterwards there was a long wait while the waterman who rowed the boat, followed them up a narrow lane over-arched with white hawthorn, and was seen to enter a little house with tiny latticed-paned windows and a swinging sign-board above its porch.
“That’s a tavern, and he’s gone to drink what he no doubt calls ‘a stoup of wine,’” said Godmother. “The muddy lane there, all overhung with trees, is now one of the narrow streets near the Savoy Hotel, leading into the Strand. At this moment of the twentieth century, it is blocked with motor omnibuses and taxicabs!” she added with a smile.
Betty was glad of the delay, for it gave her time to look long at the stately palace, and at the other great houses lining the right bank of the river, with their backgrounds of gardens and orchards melting into green fields and woods where now, streets and innumerable buildings stretch for miles and miles. Presently the boatman returned, whistling a cheerful air, and wiping his lips on the sleeve of his leather jerkin. Springing into the boat he began to row very quickly, and in a few minutes, as it seemed, Godmother said, “Here we are at the Palace of Westminster.”
All Betty could see from the river, was a strong brick wall, turreted and pierced with gates.
“The Palace of Westminster? There isn’t one now, is there?” she asked, as they went up steps from the river.
“Not in reality. There is no actual palace here in our time. Yet because it stands on the same ground, another name for our modern Houses of Parliament is ‘The Palace of Westminster.’”
“Why, yes! The wide road outside it, is called Old Palace Yard, of course. I remember now. But there isn’t any of the old palace left, is there?”
“There is just one building left of what was the home of all the Kings of England from long before William the Conqueror till the time of Henry the Eighth.”
They were passing under the arch of the gateway at the moment—a fine stone gateway.
“This has only just been built by the present King,” Godmother observed. “It is quite a new gate, as you see.”
But Betty gave a cry of amazement when on passing through the gate she found herself in what was practically a little walled town, apart from the rest of London. The wall enclosed not only the Palace, and the great Abbey, but also little streets full of houses in which lived carpenters, stonemasons, armourers, jewellers, the makers of priestly robes, goldsmiths, blacksmiths—in fact, traders of every kind who worked either for the Palace or the Abbey, or for both.
Her thoughts went back to the swampy island of a thousand years ago. Here she was, standing on the very same isle. Yet how changed! Instead of a forest of reeds and bushes, here was a stately Palace and a still more stately Abbey. Busy men and women lived, where formerly only birds and water-rats made their homes. The island had, in fact, become a little town, divided from the greater city by massive walls.
“We are facing the Palace now,” said Godmother presently. “Do you see anything about it that looks familiar?”
“Why, surely that’s Westminster Hall?” Betty exclaimed after a moment, pointing to a long steep-roofed building in the midst of towers and pinnacles that were strange to her.
“Yes, and the only part of the Old Palace that will remain to the time in which you and I live. It was built by William Rufus, so it is old, even in this fourteenth century.”
“But it looks so new.”
“That’s because it has just been altered and almost rebuilt by the King now reigning. Let us go and look at the beautiful inner roof of the Hall.”
“The next time I see it, when we’ve moved on to our own time, it won’t look like this,” Betty observed, gazing up at its rafters as they entered Westminster Hall. “It will be all dark and old, won’t it? But it will be awfully interesting to think I saw it just after it was rebuilt and improved.”
“That’s Richard’s coat of arms up there below the line of windows,” said Godmother. “You see the white hart is repeated again and again. Don’t forget to look out for it when you see this Hall again—in ordinary circumstances, I mean, without the ‘magic.’ And don’t forget either that, except for the Tower, there’s no building in our history that has seen so much misery,” she added. “Think of all the famous people who have been tried here, and condemned to death.”
“Poor Charles the First was one, wasn’t he? Oh, Godmother, isn’t it strange to think it hasn’t happened yet—and won’t happen for—let me see?—about two hundred years!”
“Now for just a glimpse of the Abbey,” said Godmother after a moment, “and then we’ll slip back into our own day for a little while. It won’t do to see too much all at once.”
“I could stay for ever in this London!” Betty declared. “You’ll bring me back again, won’t you, Godmother? I mean to just this time in the fourteenth century. It’s so frightfully interesting.”
She had turned round to gaze at the beautiful Abbey in front of the Palace, the very Abbey so near to which her godmother lived. But at first sight she scarcely recognized it as the old grey place she knew, blackened by the years and the smoke of ages.
“It looks so clean and white,” she said. “And where are the towers that you see when you come up Victoria Street? And where is Henry the Seventh’s Chapel?”
“Now there’s a silly child!” cried Godmother. “How could there be a Henry the Seventh’s Chapel when we are only at the reign of Richard the Second—nearly a hundred years before Henry the Seventh reigned?”
“I forgot,” said Betty meekly.
“As for the towers you mention, they weren’t built till the eighteenth century, long after Henry the Seventh’s time.”
“But though the Abbey looks different, it’s quite as big as it is now, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, it covers quite as much ground, though, as you see, a good deal of it looks different from the Abbey of our day. That’s because from time to time, certain parts have been pulled down, and built in another way. We’ll sit down here in the porch a moment and watch the people going in.”
As they rested in the deep sculptured porch with the image of the Virgin above it, men, women, and children of all ranks were continually entering or leaving the Church. Now it was a soldier in a tight leather cap, leather tunic or jerkin, and long hose. Now a great lady arriving in a litter borne by serving-men from which she alighted in the porch, and swept into the Church. One of these wore a short velvet jacket edged with ermine, over a long silken skirt. Her hair was twisted up into bosses on either side of her ears, and covered with a golden net, and her cloak, kept together in front with a jewelled clasp, trailed behind her as she walked.
Following her came a boy, perhaps her son, as fantastically dressed as the young man Betty had recently seen on London Bridge. All of the people, she noticed, crossed themselves as they passed the statue of the Virgin on entering the Abbey, and this reminded her that England was still a Roman Catholic country.
She thought she would never be tired of watching the scene before her, nor of letting her eyes wander over all the monasteries and gardens enclosed by the walls of Westminster.
The bells began to ring for service within the Abbey.... They were still ringing when she found the white-panelled walls of Godmother’s parlour round her, and rubbed her eyes as though to clear them of a vision....
“The Abbey bells!” exclaimed Godmother. “Ringing just as they rang long ago, when Chaucer was alive.”
“You said we might perhaps see him,” said Betty. “But we didn’t.” She knew something about Chaucer, for she had read one or two of the stories from the “Canterbury Tales,” and now that she had looked at London as it was when he lived in it, she was anxious to see the great poet himself.
“Plenty of time. Didn’t I promise you should go back again? As soon as we’ve taken a little walk about the Westminster of to-day, we can slip into fourteenth-century London as soon as we please.”
“The best of this magic is that it doesn’t really take any time, and yet it seems that we’ve been away hours and hours!” remarked Betty, as they turned out of Godmother’s quiet road.
They were in Victoria Street now, with the Houses of Parliament shutting out the view of the river, and on their right the Abbey. There was a roar of traffic, and all the ground on the left was covered with great modern buildings.
Betty remembered the walled town she had just seen, with its quaint houses, its shops full of workmen, its gardens and monasteries. Nothing of that olden Westminster remained, except the Abbey itself and Westminster Hall, just opposite to her, with its sloping roof, which at the moment modern workmen, standing upon scaffolding, were busy repairing.
She gave a long sigh. “Isn’t it wonderful to think it has changed like this,” she said. “Even the Abbey doesn’t look the same because of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel at the back there and the towers in front,—which weren’t built the last time we saw it.”
“I might go on telling you about that Abbey and its changes, all day,” was Godmother’s answer. “There’s so much to learn about it that I only propose to talk about a little bit at a time. We’ll just walk through it now, and out into the cloisters.”
Betty followed her, looking up at the beautiful soaring arches as they passed quickly across the Church and out at a little leather-covered door into a wonderful colonnade, enclosing a square of emerald-green grass.
“This is a very, very old part of the building,” said Godmother. “But long before even this colonnade, or cloister as it is called, was built, there was a church here. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a pretty story about the first Abbey. Now,” she began, “you must think of the swampy island you saw in Roman times, and remember that our feet are on that very island now. Well, as you know, time passed, the Romans went, and our ancestors, the first English people came. They were heathens, worshipping wild gods like Thor and Woden, of whom you may have heard. Then, after years had gone by, they were converted to Christianity by Roman monks, and Sebert, one of their kings (who was really only what we should call the chief of a warlike tribe), built a church on this very spot, which though it had become by this time fairly dry, was so covered with rough thickets that it was called the Isle of Thorns, or Thorney Island. The church, which we must picture to ourselves as a very simple building, was to be called St. Peter’s. At last it was finished and ready to be consecrated, that is, dedicated to God, and the Bishop Mellitus, who was the first Bishop of London, was coming to perform the ceremony.
“Now the day before the consecration, was a Sunday, and in the twilight that Sunday evening a certain fisherman called Edric, was busy with his nets on the banks of this Isle of Thorns, when he saw near the newly-built church of St. Peter a mysterious light. Presently he saw approaching, a venerable-looking man who asked to be rowed across a stream which lay between the shores of the island and the church. Edric consented, and on reaching the opposite bank, followed the stranger towards the church. On the way the old man struck the ground twice with his staff, and to the fisherman’s amazement, each time, a spring of water gushed forth from the earth. But his wonder was increased when he saw the new building a blaze of light, and on entering, found it radiant with angels, each of whom held a candle. Then in the midst of the heavenly light the old man went through all the ceremonies of consecrating the church, while above its roof in a shining stream, Edric saw angels ascending and descending.
“When this lovely vision had disappeared, Edric rowed the old man back over the stream, and was bidden to tell the bishop next day that the church was already consecrated by no less a person than St. Peter himself! He was also to tell the bishop that the church must be called the Abbey of Westminster.
“The old man, who was no other than St. Peter, also said that Edric might always be sure of catching many fish, on two conditions. First that he should never again work on a Sunday, and secondly, that he never forgot to take a certain quantity of the fish to the monks of the Abbey.
“So next day, when Bishop Mellitus came to perform the ceremony of consecration, Edric told him all that had happened, and showed him the crosses on the doors, and the wax spilt on the floor from the candles the angels had held, and the springs of water (which, as wells, remain to this day). The bishop was convinced of the truth of the fisherman’s story, and changed the name of the island from Thorney, to Westminster. So in remembrance of this appearance of St. Peter to Edric, the Thames fishermen for nearly four hundred years from that time, always brought a tithe of their fish to the Collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster, for that is the full and proper name of Westminster Abbey.”
“It’s a nice story,” said Betty. “The fisherman in it reminds me of the time when we came to this place in Roman days in a fisherman’s boat. But that was long before it was called Thorney Island, of course.”
“Well,” continued Godmother, “part of what I’ve just told you is only a legend. Now we come to real history. That first church built by Sebert, stood here for about four hundred years. Then Edward the Confessor came to the throne. He, as his name tells you, was a very pious king, and he had made a vow to God to build a great church. So he pulled down the one already standing on Thorney Island (as it was still called by the people) and on its foundations built another huge one—quite as large as this present Abbey. It was finished just before he died, and the very next year, in 1066, William the Conqueror took possession not only of the palace in which Edward the Confessor and the kings before him, had lived (that old palace we have so lately seen, you know)—but of the great new church belonging to it.
“It stood as Edward the Confessor left it, for two hundred years. Then King Henry the Third pulled nearly all of it down, so that very little is left of the first ancient building now. The Chapel of the Pyx, which we will see one day, is, however, a part of Edward the Confessor’s Abbey, and so are some of the walls of this very cloister we are in.
“Edward the First, Henry’s son, went on with the re-building, and while Chaucer was alive, a great deal was added to it. The famous Jerusalem Chamber, for instance, was only just finished when you saw the Abbey by magic this morning, and so was the greater part of this cloister in which we are sitting.”
“No wonder the Abbey looked all bright and new,” said Betty. “What is the Jerusalem Chamber?”
“We’ll go and see it, and I’ll tell you about it when we’re there.”
They went through a little ancient court into a beautiful old room with a stained-glass window at one end.
“Chaucer may have seen that glass,” said Godmother, “for it was painted long before he was born. This room was built during his lifetime, for the use of the Abbot’s guests when they came to stay with him. It was probably called the Jerusalem Chamber because there used to be tapestry on its walls showing the history of Jerusalem. And about that there is a curious story.”
“Do tell me!” Betty urged.
“I will, when we go home. Or rather, I’ll let Shakespeare tell you, because he has used the story in one of his plays.
“Many things have happened in this Jerusalem Chamber from the days when Chaucer saw it, up to our own time. Not so very long ago, for instance, when the Bible was revised—(that is, translated again, and much of the wording altered) the learned men who worked at it sat here.... Now we’ve seen as much of the Abbey as was in existence when Richard the Second was king. But of course an enormous amount of its history comes after his time.”
“Does the story of the Jerusalem Chamber come after?” Betty asked.
“Yes, but so soon afterwards that we’ll read it in the play of Henry the Fourth.”
“He was the very next king after Richard, wasn’t he? Oh yes, of course. He was the man who usurped the throne, and had poor Richard murdered.”
Directly they reached the parlour at home, Betty ran to the bookcase for a “Shakespeare,” and Godmother turned to the play.
“I must tell you what had happened before the few last words which are all I’m going to read!” she said. “King Henry the Fourth was setting out on a journey to the Holy Land, and just before he started, he went to pray in the Abbey. But there, before the altar, he was suddenly taken ill, and became unconscious. They carried him into the Abbot’s guest-chamber—the Jerusalem Room which you’ve just seen, but later moved him to another apartment. There when he was dying, remembering the place to which he had first been carried from the Abbey, he said:
‘Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?’
and Earl Warwick answered:
‘’Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord.’
“Then the king, remembering a prophecy about the place of his death, replied:
‘Laud be to Heaven!—even there my life must end.
It hath been prophesied to me many years,
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:—
But bear me to that chamber; there I’ll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.’”
“And that’s true? He really did die there?” asked Betty.
“Yes. So in a way the old prophecy, you see, was fulfilled, for he died in a room called ‘Jerusalem.’ There too, according to the old story which Shakespeare also tells in the same play, Prince Henry, when he was watching by his father’s bedside, put on the crown he was afterwards to wear as Henry the Fifth. But we’re getting too far away from the days of Richard the Second, and as we’re going back to them as soon as we’ve had tea, I mustn’t confuse you.”
Later on in the afternoon, when the magic rite of book and chain had been duly performed, to her great delight Betty found herself again standing at the gate leading on to London Bridge. After a short interval of modern days, she was delighted to be once more back in the Middle Ages.
“You remember Thames Street?” said Godmother,—“the street so crowded this morning with motor lorries that we had to turn out of it? Well, here it is!”
She pointed to the entrance of a lane open on one side to the clear sparkling river, and on the other lined with the quaintest of what Betty called “fairy-book” houses. They were built of wood, with timber beams across the front, each story projecting farther than the one below it, so that the topmost windows hung far out above the street below. Boards painted with various signs, such as fiery dragons, golden fish, and green bushes, swung over the dark little shops on the ground floor. The street upon which they opened, was muddy and unpaved, but it was filled with a bustling crowd of gaily-dressed people. Recalling the Thames Street of this morning’s visit, the river hidden by enormous warehouses, motor vehicles blocking the roadway, Betty could scarcely believe this to be the same spot.
“I want you to look at that house,” said Godmother, pointing to one of the gabled dwellings that had a wine shop below it. “Because there, Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, was born and lived for some years. His father, as you may guess, by the sign over the door, was a wine merchant—or vintner as he would say.”
“Doesn’t Chaucer live there still?”
“No, he’s an old man now, and he’s living in that little walled town of Westminster, close to the Abbey. The year we’re in—1388—is the last year of his life, and he has still to write his most famous poem.”
“That’s the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ I know!”
Just at the moment, and before Godmother could answer, there was a stir and commotion in Thames Street. Children began to run, shouting to one another, “The Pilgrims!” “The Pilgrims come!” and there was a general rush in one direction.
Betty and her godmother followed the crowd. “Let us stand here in the middle of the bridge, outside the Chapel of St. Thomas,” suggested Godmother. “Then we shall see them come in at the north gate and go out at the one at the other end of the bridge, into Southwark.”
They had just taken their places, when an elderly quiet-looking man dressed in a long brown garment, with a hood whose long peak hung to his shoulder, came up, stepping softly, and stood beside them.
“Do you know who this is?” Godmother asked. “No other than Geoffrey Chaucer, the great poet!”
Betty was torn between her desire to look at him, and her excitement at the approach of a train of people on horseback, who now came clattering through the gateway on to the bridge.
“This is a company of pilgrims just setting out on their journey to Canterbury to visit the tomb of St. Thomas à Becket,” Godmother told her. “Do you notice how intently the poet is watching them?”
Betty glanced at him, and saw him smiling quietly as the procession passed by.
“He will go home presently and perhaps begin to write the ‘Canterbury Tales’ this very day, making an Introduction or Prologue to it which will describe all those people on horseback just as you see them.”
“Do look at that pretty nun. How she’s laughing!” exclaimed Betty. “Oh! what a lovely coat!” she cried again, as a handsome young man rode by, gaily and beautifully dressed. “And look at the fat woman with the scarlet stockings, and the enormous hat.... But what a lot of monks and nuns there are, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” agreed Godmother, “London is full of them. Everywhere there are great rich monasteries, and some of the monks and nuns are becoming very lazy and neglecting their duties. You may read in the Introduction to the ‘Canterbury Tales’ how Chaucer makes fun of them. Though he doesn’t forget to do honour to those of them who are good,” she added. “Look at that kind-faced priest with the shabby robe. No doubt Chaucer is at this moment planning how he will describe that very man as the good priest, who practises what he preaches.”
Betty glanced at the poet again, and wondered what he was thinking.
“Let us follow the pilgrims a little way,” Godmother suggested. “Before they actually leave London they are sure to go into some inn to have a meal or to drink wine, and you would perhaps be interested to see what fourteenth-century inns were like?”
Betty was more than willing, and glancing back she saw that the quiet-looking, brown-clad poet was following them.
“Now we are in Southwark,” Godmother said as they went off the bridge through the gateway under the tower. “Think of Southwark as you saw it this morning! There,” she pointed to a meadow golden with buttercups, “ran the railway bridge over which trains were thundering, and where as far as you can see now, there are hedges and woods, if we had walked this morning we should have gone through miles of streets in Bermondsey and Newington.”
“Oh! And look at the church!” exclaimed Betty. “It’s the St. Saviour’s we saw this morning, isn’t it? But that beautiful great building near it is a monastery, I suppose?”
She remembered the narrow strip of churchyard she had seen a short time previously, and gazed with astonishment at the gardens and broad green lands that now surrounded the church.
“Oh, how different. What a pity!” she sighed. “I wish we didn’t live at the time we do, don’t you, Godmother?”
“Our times have some advantages,” said Godmother. “We’ll count up our blessings some day. But I agree that we haven’t improved Southwark,” she went on, smiling. “A few houses, but only a few, as you see, are standing on this side of the river in the fourteenth century, and most of these, as you may notice, are inns.”
The train of pilgrims was entering the courtyard of one of them at the moment, and soon Betty and Godmother stood in the archway looking round at the quaint old place.
“This inn is called the Tabard,” Godmother told her. “It is the very one that Chaucer, now, as you observe, talking to the fat landlord, is going to describe as the meeting-place of his pilgrims.”
“What does the Tabard mean?” Betty asked, looking at the sign-board over the main door. “There’s something painted on that sign, but I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s meant for a coat worn by a herald, and sometimes also by knights over their armour. Such a coat is called a tabard in these fourteenth-century days. Now look well at this particular inn, because most of the other taverns are very like it, and this fashion of building lasted for years. In fact, there were some left in Southwark till quite lately, and even now there is just a corner of one still remaining. The inn you see follows three sides of this square courtyard. Look at the curiously-carved galleries running round two floors of it, and at the quaint gables above.”
“How pretty it looks to see all the pilgrims walking and sitting about,” exclaimed Betty. “And how they are chattering and laughing!”
She could have stayed for hours watching them and was sorry when presently they all remounted and with loud farewells to the jolly host of the Tabard, clattered out into the country road.
“Just think what miles of dull streets they would have to ride through if they were riding to Canterbury in our time,” she said.
“As it is,” said Godmother, “they’re in leafy lanes already, where the birds are singing and the banks are covered with wild flowers. That road they are taking to Canterbury, is still called the Pilgrim’s Way. The next time we take a country motor drive I’ll show you the continuation of it that runs over the green Surrey hills which by the end of the day those pilgrims will reach....”
“What shall we do now?” Betty inquired when the long procession was out of sight.
“Would you like to look on at a Miracle play?”
“What is a Miracle play?”
“Come and see. Fortunately there is one going on now at the Church of St. Margaret’s, not very far from St. Saviour’s.”
“Is St. Margaret’s Church still standing? We didn’t see it this morning when we went in the car, did we?”
“Not a stone of St. Margaret’s is left in our time. Some day you shall see all that there is now, to remind us of a church which in this fourteenth century is very celebrated for its Miracle plays. They don’t as a rule begin till Whitsuntide, but there happens to be a special performance because it’s May Day, and a general holiday.”
“A play in a church?” exclaimed Betty.
“Yes. Most of the acting in this fourteenth century, takes place either in churches, or in churchyards. Scarcely any of these people you see about you, can read, and so the priests and monks have hit upon the plan of teaching them the Bible stories by means of acting. Sometimes religious plays are performed inside the churches, but more often—as in the case of the one we are going to see—outside them, where there is more room for the people. There! isn’t that a curious sight?”
They stood before a church which seemed to be part of a great monastery, whose buildings rose at the back of it. In front of the church was a wide grassy space where a great crowd of people was gathered, gazing breathlessly at strange figures moving about upon platforms raised up on scaffolding, close to the church door.
There were three of these platforms. On the lowest, near the ground, swarmed a number of boys dressed as demons, dancing round an ugly creature with claws and a long tail, who was meant for the Devil.
“That platform represents Hell,” said Godmother. “The next one, which as you notice is on a level with the top of the church door, is Earth, and the two people upon it are Adam and Eve. You see there are one or two trees, to show that it’s meant for the Garden of Eden.”
“And there’s the serpent!” exclaimed Betty. “He’s wriggling!”
“Yes, there’s a boy inside that painted case representing the serpent, tempting Eve to take the apple. Now look up at the highest platform, level with the church windows. That is Heaven, and the figure with the golden crown, and the priestly robe, stepping from the window on to the platform, means God to the people. You have only to glance at them to understand how full of awe and reverence they are.”
Looking at the faces in the crowd, Betty saw that this was true, for the people were silent and grave. Many of the children, frightened by the black demons and the clanking of their chains, were hiding their heads in their mothers’ skirts, and some were crying.
“It all seems very childish and even absurd to us, doesn’t it? But remember these are simple ignorant people who can neither read nor write, and to them, it is wonderful. It is through these plays that they have learnt most of the Bible stories they know.”
“It’s awfully interesting!” Betty murmured, feeling that though at first she had been inclined to laugh at what seemed to her a funny performance, the people were so serious that she must be respectful.
“This fourteenth century is the great time for Miracle plays,” explained Godmother, as they walked away from the gaily-coloured crowd grouped round the church. “Most of the people have still very childlike minds, and they depend upon the priests and monks to teach them. We have noticed already how full London is of these priests, and everywhere, as you have seen, there are monasteries. Pay attention to them as we pass, because the next time we see London, nearly all of the monasteries will be in ruins.”
“In ruins? Why?”
“Think of your history. The Reformation is coming, when all the monks will be turned out of their homes, and the great buildings in which they lived will be pulled down, and all the enormous wealth now belonging to the Church will be taken away from it, and given to the State. England will become a Protestant country, and the old form of worship will disappear in London, as in every other town in the land.”
“What a pity about the monasteries,” Betty said. “They are so beautiful and splendid. It’s awful to think of not seeing them again.”
“Yes. You see London now when the Church is all-powerful. The next time you come, its power will be broken, and London will be a Protestant city....”
“Where shall we go now, Godmother?” asked Betty as they left the south side of the city, and recrossed London Bridge.
“Well, it’s almost time we slipped back into our own day. But before we do that, you shall just have a glimpse of the Chepe.”
“The Chepe? What does that mean?”
“Didn’t we drive down Cheapside this morning?”
“Yes. I remember it. That busy street near St. Paul’s, was Cheapside.”
“And do you remember Bow Church in Cheapside?”
“Yes,” said Betty eagerly. “It has a lovely steeple with a dragon on the top. I always remember it because the bells that Dick Whittington heard, were the bells of Bow Church.”
THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS
“Well, come and see Cheapside as it looks now at the end of the fourteenth century. It isn’t called Cheapside yet. The people of London call it the Chepe, which is an old English word for market. The Chepe (Cheapside in our day) is the great market-place of London. We needn’t walk to it. Just shut your eyes and wish yourself there. A magic visit such as this has many advantages. One of them is that we needn’t tire ourselves with walking.”
Betty did as she was told, and a second later looked round her.
“Oh, Godmother, what a nice place! But it isn’t a bit like our Cheapside. It’s much wider, for one thing—and of course the houses are all different. Oh! it’s lovely.”
They stood in a broad open space paved with cobblestones. On either hand there were quaint houses like those in Thames Street, and among them a few much finer and larger, with carved balconies, and coloured and gilded coats of arms on their walls. “Those are the houses of the wealthy merchants,” said Godmother, pointing to the grander buildings. “Do you remember when we were in the car this morning passing a street out of Cheapside called Wood Street?”
“With a big tree at the corner? Yes!”
“Well, we are standing just about there.”
Betty gasped with astonishment.
“Oh! how difficult it would be to imagine all this if I wasn’t actually seeing it,” she murmured.
Down the middle of the market-place, at intervals, were stone fountains, and close to where she stood (opposite the modern Wood Street), rose a beautiful stone cross.
“That’s one of the crosses put up by Edward the First, in memory of his wife, Eleanor. You remember the story? And that church on the right, is Bow Church.”
“But it doesn’t look a bit like the Bow Church I know!”
“Except for the foundations it’s not the Bow Church we know, but another, built on its ruins. You have to remember that all this market, and in fact nearly the whole of London, is going to be swept away by a fire nearly three hundred years later on.”
“In the Great Fire, you mean? In the reign of Charles II? So I suppose that’s why London looks so different in our time?”
“It had to be almost rebuilt, so no wonder it’s different.”
“What a pity!” sighed Betty. “I like it so much better as we see it now.” She scarcely knew which to look at first, the quaint timber houses surrounding the market-place, or the amusing crowd with which it was filled. In the open space before her were arranged wooden booths upon which bread, milk, fruit, poultry and meat were sold, just as in a modern country market. But the crowd round the stalls was very different in appearance from a modern crowd. The noise was terrific, for from every booth came cries from the sellers to buy, buy, buy! and everywhere there was laughter and screaming and singing.
“Why are the houses decorated, I wonder?” asked Betty presently. For beautiful draperies of scarlet and blue and purple were hung over most of the balconies, and banners fluttered from the windows.
“Don’t forget it’s May Day. The Lord Mayor is going to ride through the Chepe. He must be coming now. See how the people are hanging out of the windows, and crowding on to the balconies! Let us stand up here on the steps of the cross, and watch.”
In a few moments a pretty May Day procession was seen crossing the market-place, led by a boy playing on a pipe, and followed by young girls and children crowned with flowers, and singing. Then came the clanking of horses’ feet, and soon a stately-looking man riding on a horse whose gay trapping hung low, came into sight. He wore a rich crimson cloak trimmed with fur, and a flat cap of crimson velvet with a plume, and by his side rode several other splendidly-dressed gentlemen.
“Those are the Sheriffs, the men who help the Mayor to govern the city,” Godmother explained. “This Lord Mayor is very popular. Listen to the cheering of the people! And see, they are showering flowers upon him from the windows.”
Just as he passed the cross, the Lord Mayor reined in his steed, lifted his cap and bowed to the applauding crowd, and at the moment, Betty caught sight of the heavy gold chain that lay about his shoulders, and across his tunic.
“Godmother! There’s the very chain you took out of your cabinet,” she cried.
“It is. And do you know the name of the Lord Mayor who wears it? No? Then I’ll tell you. Sir Richard Whittington.”
Betty stared at her. “Not Dick Whittington?”
“Yes—that’s Dick Whittington grown up, and this is the third time he’s been Lord Mayor of London.”
“Why, I’ve been to a pantomime about him!” exclaimed Betty. “I never knew he was a real person.”
“He’s a very real person, as you see.”
“Then it’s true, about his cat, and Bow Bells ringing ‘Turn again, Whittington,’ and Alice, the beautiful girl he married, who was his master’s daughter?” asked Betty, all in one breath.
“I’m afraid it’s not all true, though a great deal of it is. In the story, he’s a poor boy who leaves London with a bundle on his back, to seek his fortune. Stopping to rest on Highgate Hill he hears the bells of Bow calling him to return, for he shall be Lord Mayor of London. Well, I’m afraid he wasn’t a poor boy. He was the son of a country gentleman, and he was sent to live with a relation of his, a great London merchant called Sir John Fitzwarren. Dick was an industrious boy while he was learning his trade, and now he has grown very rich. His wife is Alice Fitzwarren, his master’s daughter, and he is Lord Mayor. So a good deal of the story is true after all.”
“But the cat?” said Betty. “Isn’t it true about his lovely cat?”
“Something must be true about the cat, because later on, the image of a cat was put on all the houses that were built with the money Dick Whittington left for that purpose. So a cat must have had something to do with his success. I only wish we knew exactly what it was! Dick Whittington is now so wealthy that he sometimes gives banquets to the King, and he has a splendid house not far from the Chepe.”
“He looks nice and kind,” said Betty.
“He is very generous, and has done much for London. Already he is building a monastery and some almshouses for poor people.”
“Why, there are some Whittington Almshouses at Highgate.”
“Yes. But they were only built about a hundred years ago. They were built, however, with Dick Whittington’s money, and it was a nice thought, wasn’t it, to put them where, according to the story, he heard Bow Bells?”
“They said ‘Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London!’ And now he is Lord Mayor, and there he goes riding by. It seems too good to be true that I’ve actually seen him, Godmother!” declared Betty excitedly. “I used to love the picture-book of Dick Whittington we had in the nursery when I was little. And I loved the pantomime about him too. It was so jolly to hear the bells ringing when Dick sat on the stile at Highgate and listened to them.”
“There’s another old rhyme about Bow Bells, which tells a pretty story about these young ’prentices you see all round you, standing at the doors of their masters’ shops and shouting, ‘Buy! buy! buy!’ This is the tale. At one time an order was given by the Lord Mayor that Bow Bell should ring every night at nine o’clock. It was the signal for the shops to be closed. But according to the ’prentices the bell always rang late, and so kept them at work longer than there was any occasion. They were angry about this, and made a rhyme which they wrote out and put up against the clock:
‘Clerk of the Bow Bell, with the yellow lockes,
For thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.’
To which the bell-ringer replied in another rhyme,
‘Children of Chepe, hold you all still,
For you shall have the Bow Bell rung at your will.’”
“Oh, how nice of him,” said Betty. “I like the part about the yellow locks. Look! there’s a young man going past now with fair hair almost to his shoulders. He must be rather like that clerk who had to ring Bow Bell.”
“You will remember that rhyme the next time you go down Cheapside in an omnibus and pass Bow Church. Many other things you may remember also. For instance, when you look at the names of some of the streets leading out of the modern Cheapside, they will recall this market-place of the Middle Ages. Do you see, for instance, how certain articles of food like milk and bread and honey are sold in separate places? All the milk sellers have their stalls together, you see, and all the bakers are together over there, and so on. Well, certain streets in or near the modern Cheapside are still called by such names as Milk Street, Bread Street, and so forth, and they mark the very spots where now, bread and milk are being offered for sale. So you will perhaps find Cheapside a more interesting place now that you have seen the Chepe of which it is the remains,” added Godmother with a smile.
“Oh, every time I see it, I shall remember this!” Betty declared as her eyes wandered over the beautiful market-place with its cross and fountains, its picturesque houses brilliant with coloured draperies, and its throng of quaintly-clad lively people. The bells of many churches were ringing and clashing merrily, but she heard the sweet chimes of one above all the rest.
“Bow bells!” she said, looking up at the church. “I wonder if the Lord Mayor is listening to them now, and remembering the time when they said ‘Turn again, Whittington’!”
But the last words were uttered in Godmother’s parlour, and outside, a newspaper boy was calling the latest racing news. “All the winners! All the winners!” he shouted.
Two or three days later, when Betty happened to be walking down St. James’s Street with her mother, it suddenly occurred to her that they were near the London Museum.
“Do let us go in for a minute,” she urged. “I want to see if there’s anything there that will remind me of the reign of Richard the Second.”
“Why are you interested in Richard the Second?” asked her mother. “Are you doing his reign at school?”
“No. But somehow I seem to know how London looked then. I’ve got a picture of it in my mind, and I can’t think why.”
“Well, we shan’t find any room labelled Richard the Second, of course,” said her mother as they entered the building, “so we’d better look for a room that has to do with the Middle Ages.”
“Here it is!” cried Betty presently. “It says Mediæval London on that doorway. That’s the same as the Middle Ages, isn’t it?”
In this room, when they had looked at cases full of things that were made and used in the fourteenth century, such as bowls, jugs, lanterns, keys, ornaments and a hundred other objects, Betty’s mother all at once said, “Come and see this picture of London in the fourteenth century. Isn’t it a little place? How curious to think it was once like that.”
Betty gazed eagerly at a picture which represented the painter’s idea of the appearance of London about the year 1400.
“Yes, it’s very good,” she declared. “There’s London Bridge, with just a few old houses at one end of it. And there’s all that was built then of the Tower. And that’s the first St. Paul’s Cathedral, with a spire instead of a big dome. Oh! and look, mother! There’s St. Saviour’s in Southwark at the other end of the bridge. Behind it there’s another church called St. Margaret’s, where they used to have Miracle plays. Such funny plays. Only of course they taught the people about the Bible.”
Her mother looked surprised. “You know quite a lot about it, Betty!” she declared.
“It seems somehow as though I’d seen it,” said Betty in a puzzled voice.
“How wonderful it is to think of the country coming up close to that wall that goes round the tiny city,” her mother remarked, still examining the picture. “Fancy being able to walk through green fields in Southwark!”
“The children picked flowers there,” said Betty, rather dreamily, “and came running back over London Bridge with them, and sang, ‘London Bridge is broken down.’”
“My dear child, what an imagination you have!” laughed her mother.
That same evening, Betty had another reminder of London in the Middle Ages. In the library at home, when she was looking for something to read, she found a book full of poems about London. Some were by new poets and some by writers of long ago. A rather long one was called London Lackpenny, and though the spelling and some of the wording was curious, she could make out its sense. It seemed to be about a poor young man who long, long ago came to London, and found it was a difficult place to live in unless one had plenty of pennies.
“Why, he’s talking about the very Chepe I saw!” she thought as she came to a certain verse.
“Then to the Chepe I began me drawne
Where mutch people I saw for to stand.
One offered me velvet, sylke, and lawne,
And other he taketh me by the hande,
‘Here is Paris thred, the fynest in the lande.’
I never was used to such thyngs indede
And wanting mony I myght not spede.
Then I hyed me into Eastchepe;
One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye;
Pewter potts they clattered on a heape,
There was harpe, pype, and mynstrelsye.”
“What have you got hold of there?” asked her father, looking over her shoulder. “Oh, that funny ballad written by old John Lydgate in the Middle Ages. I expect it’s quite a good description of Cheapside as it was then.”
“It’s just right. It was exactly like that,” Betty exclaimed, thinking of the booths in the Chepe, piled with goods, and all the noise and bustle and shouting, and the sound of music from harps and pipes, mingled with the clashing of church bells.
“How do you know?” asked her father, smiling.
But Betty hadn’t the slightest idea—till she saw Godmother again.