Godmother laughed. “Haven’t you had enough sight-seeing yet? Well, as what we’ve just been looking at isn’t beautiful, however interesting it may be, we’ll end our excursion at Charterhouse. You shall see there, not only a really lovely place, but the only one of the great London schools which in our day looks more or less as it did in the sixteenth century. This same omnibus will take us near it, so on the way I’ll tell you a little of its history.”
“You said it was a monastery before it was a school, didn’t you?”
“Yes, it was a monastery when your friend Richard the Second was reigning, and remained a monastery till the time of Henry the Eighth, when the monks were turned out. In Elizabeth’s reign, the place was sold to the Duke of Norfolk, who altered it to make it suitable for a private house. A little later—and here the school part comes in—the Duke of Norfolk sold it again to a rich man called Thomas Sutton, who turned it into a home of rest for old gentlemen and a school for boys. The school, as you know, has in our day moved into the country, but as a home for poor gentlemen who are still called ‘the Brethren,’ Charterhouse goes on to this day.
“We must get down here, at the Church of St. Sepulchre’s in Holborn, and walk through Smithfield,” she broke off to say, as the omnibus at the moment, stopped.
“Smithfield? Is this where the martyrs were burnt?” asked Betty while they crossed a wide space in front of the modern market.
“Yes. It’s full of memories, and all round about it there are wonderful buildings that we shall have no time to see to-day. Here we are at the entrance gate of the Charterhouse.”
They passed into a courtyard so quiet and old-world that for the moment Betty forgot that “the magic” was not working now, and thought herself once more back again in the sixteenth century. Indeed but for the modern clothes of the porter who showed them the place, she was as completely there, as she had been a few hours previously.
As they presently went up a splendid carved oak staircase, Godmother said, “You see here a beautiful private house and the remains of a monastery and of a great school, all in one, and that’s what makes Charterhouse specially interesting.”
A little while later Betty cried out in delight when they entered the dining-hall where once upon a time Queen Elizabeth was entertained by the Duke of Norfolk in the sixteenth century, and where that very evening of the twentieth century the poor gentlemen, “the Brethren” as they are still called, would dine as usual.
“What a beautiful room!” she exclaimed, looking at its arched roof and panelled walls.