“Oh, what a lovely place!” exclaimed Betty.
“It has such a wonderful history,” Godmother said, “that I must tell you at least some of it.”
“It was built by a merchant, a rich grocer called Sir John Crosby, in the reign of Edward IV, so already in this reign of Elizabeth it’s a hundred years old.”
“Who lives in it now?” asked Betty.
She was watching with interest the men and women moving about the courtyard in the costume of Elizabeth’s time, the men with slashed sleeves to their bright-coloured doublets, and the women in brocade skirts, with big ruffs standing up at the back of the neck.
“The Mayor of London, a merchant called Sir John Spencer, owns Crosby Place now. You see what splendid homes the merchants of this reign possess! The nobles are leaving London and selling their palaces to the rich traders. But before Sir John Spencer bought it, many famous people from time to time had lived at Crosby Place. One of them was Richard the Third before he became king, and it was in that great hall that he heard the news of the murder of his little nephews in the Tower. Another celebrated man who lived here for a time, was Sir Thomas More, and here, as it is thought, he wrote his most famous book.”
“You mean Utopia, don’t you?” Betty asked. “We had a lesson about it in school yesterday!”
“Yes, I’m glad you have heard of it. After he had been here some years, Sir Thomas More sold Crosby Place to a great friend of his, an Italian merchant, who, after the execution of his friend, let the mansion to the husband of Margaret Roper—More’s daughter.”
“Poor Margaret Roper!” exclaimed Betty. “I expect she was glad to come back to the house her father had lived in, don’t you, Godmother? But she’s dead now, I suppose—in this reign of Elizabeth, I mean?”
“Yes. Crosby Place belongs now to the Mayor of London, as I’ve already said, and before long, his daughter, a very extravagant lady, married to Lord Northampton, will come to live here. I’ll show you (when we slip back into our own day) an amusing letter from her to her husband in which she explains how she must have all her houses furnished. She was so rich that this Crosby Place was only one of them. But no doubt she filled it with all the things she mentions in her letter, ‘cushions, carpets, silver warming-pans, fair hangings,’ and so forth.