Decorated windows. The tombs in this church-once like a cathedral, the present edifice being only part of the ancient nave—were amongst the most magnificent in London—and it still contains the remains of a vast number of eminent persons, including Richard Fitz Alan, Earl of Surrey, beheaded in 1397 by Richard II. for joining the league against Vere and De la Pole; Humphrey de Bohun, godfather of Edward I., who fought in the Battle of Evesham ; Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, who was so powerful in the reigns of John and Henry III.; Edward, eldest son of the Black Prince and of the Fair Maid of Kent, who died in his seventh year, 1375; the 10th Earl of Arundel, executed at Cheapside in 1397; John de Vere, 12th Ear! of Oxford, beheaded on Tower Hill in 1461; the barons who fell in the Battle of Barnet, buried together in the body of the church in 1471; William, Lord Berkeley (1492), and his wife Joan; and Edward Bohun, Duke of Buckingham, beheaded in 1521, through the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey,of whose death Charles V. said that " a Butcher's son (Wolsey) had devoured the fairest buck in all England.” It will scarcely be believed that the monuments of all these illustrious dead were sold by the second Marquis of Winchester for £100! The monastery had been granted by Henry VIII. to the first Marquis, who is celebrated as having lived under nine sovereigns, and who, when asked in his old age how he had contrived to get on so well with them all, said "by being a willow and not an oak." He was the builder of Winchester House in Austin Friars, which was sold to a city merchant by the 4th Marquis, but only pulled down in 1839. In this house the famous Anne Clifford, who "knew everything from predestination to slane silk," married her first husband, Richard, Earl of Dorset, February 25, 1608-9. Winchester House is commemorated in Great Winchester Street, which till lately contained more ancient houses than almost any street in London. Now many of them are rebuilt, but the street has an old-world look, and ends in a quiet court surrounded with ancient brick houses, with a broad stone staircase leading to the principal doorway. The Hall of the Pinners Company is in this street. Turning to the right from the gate of Austin Friars, we find ourselves at the western front of the Royal Exchange, before which is the seated Statue of George Peabody by W. Story. Dr. Donne. R CHAPTER VIII. BISHOPSGATE. ETURNING to the Royal Exchange, we must follow Threadneedle Street, properly Three-Needle Street, which belongs to the Merchant Tailors. On the right, concealed by a row of houses (for which an annual rent of £3 per foot is paid), is the Hall of the Merchant Tailors Company, which was incorporated in 1466. It was built after the great Fire by the city architect Jarmin, and sur1ounds a courtyard. It can only be visited by a special order from the Master or Clerk of the Company. The Hall is a noble chamber (90 feet by 48), rich in stained glass and surrounded by the arms of the members. At the end are the arms of the Company-the Lamb of their patron St. John Baptist, and a pavilion between two royal mantles, with camels as supporters. A corridor beyond the Hall has stained glass windows which commemorate a quarrel for precedence between the Merchant Tailors and Skinners Companies in 1484-5. The Lord Mayor (Sir R. Belesdon) was called upon to decide it, and ordained that the Companies should have precedence by alternate years: and in commemoration of their peace the Skinners Company dines with its rival every year in July, when the Master of the Merchant Tailors proposes the toast "Skinners and Merchant Tailors, and in August the Skinners return the hospitality, giving the same toast and reversing the order in which the Companies are named. The Court Dining-Room contains George III. and Queen Charlotte-copies of pictures at Hatfield by Sir T. Lawrence. George Bristow, clerk of the Company-Opie. George North, clerk-Hudson. Samuel Fiske-Richmond. A noble staircase, the walls of which bear portraits of former masters, leads to the Picture Gallery, containing— Charles I.-School of Vandyke. Duke of Wellington-Sir D. Wilkie. Lord Chancellor Eldon with his favourite dog-Pickersgill. *Henry VIII.-Paris Bordone. William Pitt-Hoppner. The Drawing-Room contains In the Court Business Room are Sir Thomas White, 1561, Founder of St. John's College at Oxford, said to have been painted, after his death, from his sister who was exactly like him. In the Kitchen eighteen haunches of venison can be cooked at once and are cooked for the great dinner on the first Wednesday in July. A small but beautiful vaulted Crypt is a relic of the Hall destroyed in the great Fire. The magnificent collection of plate includes some curious Irish tankards of 1683, and the silver measure by which the Merchant Tailors had the right to test the goods in Bartholomew Fair. On the north of Threadneedle Street was the South Sea House, rendered famous by the "bubble" of 1720. Threadneedle Street falls into the picturesque and irregular Bishopsgate Street, which, having escaped the great Fire, is full of quaint buildings with high roofs and projecting windows, and is rich in several really valuable memorials of the past. The most interesting of the remaining houses is one which we see on the right immediately after entering Bishopsgate Crosby Hall, with a late lath and plaster front towards the street, but altogether the most beautiful specimen of domestic architecture remaining in London, and one of the finest examples of the 15th century in England. Sir John Crosby, "Grocer and Woolman," was an Alderman, who represented the City of London in 1461. In 1471 he was knighted by Edward IV. He obtained a lease of this property for ninety-nine years from Alice Ashfield, Prioress of St. Helens, and built "this house of stone and timber, very large and beautiful, and the highest," says Stow, "at that time in London." But he died in 1475; so that he only enjoyed his palace for a short time. It was here, says Sir Thomas More, that Richard, Duke of Gloucester, "lodged himself, and little by little all folks drew unto him, so that the Protector's court was crowded |