The History of London

In the year 1384, being then about twenty-six years of age, Whittington was elected a member of the Common Council. In the year 1389 he was assessed at the same sum as the riche...

Such was Paul's in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth the Reformation came. The candles were all put out; the shrines were destroyed; the altars were taken out of the chape...

Abroad, the Roman Empire was breaking up. The whole of Europe was covered with war. Revolts of conquered tribes, rebellions of successful generals, invasions of savages, the mur...

Of all the prisoners who suffered death at the termination of their captivity in the Tower, there is none whose fate was so cruel as that of Lady Jane Grey. Her story belongs to...

~Jewry~: the district in a town inhabited by the Jews; for in early times the Jews were not allowed to live where they liked, but only in quarters assigned to them. The street n...

That is the best Government which gives the greatest possible liberty to its people: only that people can be happy which is capable of using their freedom aright. You have seen...

~Venetians~: before the discovery of the sea route to India and the East Venice was the first maritime and commercial power in the world. The route round the Cape of Good Hope w...

They must begin the world anew. For most of the merchants nothing was left to them but their credit--their good name: try to imagine the havoc caused by burning all the docks, w...

English trade, that is to say, trade in English hands, practically began with Edward III. and, slowly increasing under his successors, gained an enormous development under Eliza...

Consider, again, the position of London. It stood, as you have seen, originally on two low hills overlooking the river. A strong wall built all along the bank from Blackfriars (...

Let us walk into the streets. You will not observe, because you are used to these things, and have been brought up among them, and are accustomed to them, that all the men go ab...

The White Tower is the only building in modern London which belongs to Norman London. Portions remain--fragments--a part of the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, a part of th...

The City of London has suffered from fire more than any other great town. In the year 961 a large number of houses were destroyed: in 1077, 1086, and 1093, a great part of the C...

'In the year 1108 B.C., Brutus, a descendant of AEneas, who was the son of Venus, came to England with his companions, after the taking of Troy, and founded the City of Troynova...

You have seen the City as it appeared to one who walked about its streets and watched the people. It was free, busy and prosperous, except at rare intervals, when its own intern...

We must think of Roman London as of a small stronghold on a low hill rising out of the river. It is a strongly-walled place, within which is a garrison of soldiers; outside its...

If a new world was opened to the adventurous in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, this new world two hundred years later was only half explored and was constantly yielding up new tr...

For nearly fifty years after this Whittington leads an active, busy, prosperous life. It was a distracted time, full of troubles and anxieties. A Charter obtained in 1376, two o...

On these low hillocks marked on the map London was first founded. The site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it overlooked the river, which here was...

After the Great Fire, the number of City churches was reduced from 126 to 87. Those that were rebuilt were for the most part much larger and more capacious than their predecesso...

Houses were erected in course of time along the Bridge on either side like a street, but with intervals; and along the roadway in the middle were chain posts to protect the pass...

It was estimated, some years later than the period we are considering, that there were then in London 3,000 receivers of stolen goods; that is to say, people who bought without...

After the religious dramas, the Pageants gratified the desire for spectacle and show. Pageants were held on every grand occasion: to welcome the sovereign: to honour the new Lor...

London was anciently the resort of 'foreign' merchants. It was rich because 'foreign' merchants brought and exchanged their goods at this port. There were no ships built in Engl...

Between the Pageant and the Play stands the Masque, a form of entertainment which achieved its greatest splendour both in stage mounting and in the words and songs in the reigns...

In the month of May it was found that twenty City parishes were infected. Certain preventions, rather than remedies, of which there were none, were now employed by the Mayor. In...

When London was converted to Christianity, in the year 610, the first Bishop of London, Mellitus, built a church on the highest ground within the walls of the City. This church...

In an age when every noble's house was a castle, and when every castle was erected in order to dominate, as well as to defend, the town and the district in which it stood, the T...

We have passed over two hundred years. We left London under the Three Edwards. We find it under Elizabeth. It was a City of Palaces--monasteries, with splendid churches and stat...

So far we understand that London about the year 1750 was a city filled with dignified merchants all getting rich, and with a decorous, self-respecting population of retail trade...

Outside the walls, he says, there were many places of pleasant resort, streams and springs among them. He means the Fleet River winding at the bottom of its broad valley: farthe...

In walking through the City to-day, one may remark that there is very little crying of things to sell. In certain streets, as Broad Street, Whitecross Street, Whitechapel, or Mi...

The story of Dick Whittington has been a favourite legend for many generations. The boy coming up to London poor and friendless; lying despairing on the green slope of Highgate;...

Through the Religious Drama, the Pageant, the Masque, we work our way to the Play itself. The first beginnings of the modern Drama must here be passed over: there were the rough...

The Romans, when they resolved to settle in England, established themselves on the opposite hillock, the eastern bank of the Walbrook. The situation was not so strong as that of...

A map of Elizabethan London, drawn by one Agas, which is almost a picture as well as a map, shows us very clearly the aspect of the City. Let us lay down the map before us. Firs...

Nobody knows who built the first Bridge. It was there in the fourth century--a bridge of timber provided with a fortified gate, one of the gates of the City. Who put it up, and...

The merchants got their Exchange. What did they do in it? They did most wonderful things with it. Greater things were never done in any Exchange. For the first time they were en...

What happened during this long interval of seven generations? Not a word reaches us of London for two hundred years except once when, after a defeat of the British by the Saxons...

The population of London at this time was perhaps, for it is not certain, 150,000. There were no suburbs, unless we call the Strand and Smithfield suburbs; the London citizen st...

There were no theatres in England, nor any Plays, before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This is a statement which is true, but needs explanation. It is not the case that there wa...

Since all these things do not grow of their own accord, by whom were they first introduced, planted, and developed? By whom are they now maintained? By the collection of powers...

~St. Swithin's Church~ is near Cannon Street Railway Station. 'London Stone,' supposed to be a Roman milestone, is let into the wall of this church. St. Swithin, to whom the chu...