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London

second Earl of Oxford), lies the large parish (anciently known as Tyburn) of St. Marylebone, and the still larger borough of the same name. The brook Tyburn ran through it, and the parish derives its name from the erection of a church dedicated to St. Mary le bourne-i.e. at the side of the brook. At the foot of the great Roman highway, which now, under the name of Edgware Road, bounds St. Marylebone on the w., stood Tyburn gallows. Marylebone was the residence of many celebrities, including Gibbon, Charles Wesley, Hoyle (an early authority on whist), and Hogarth. Madame Tussaud's great waxworks exhibition is in the Marylebone Road. The ancient manor of St. John's Wood in the w. takes its name from its original possessors, the Knights of St. John; in it lies the famous Lord's cricket ground. Marylebone also possesses Regent's Park (472 ac.), the largest of the London parks, containing the Zoological and Royal Botanic Gardens. Just north of the park is Primrose Hill, the only one of the little hills of N. London that is not covered with houses.

Crossing Edgware Road, we enter the borough of Paddington, which contains the ancient manor of Westbourne, so called after the little stream which once fed the Serpentine river in Hyde Park. South-west of Paddington is Kensington, at its southern end one of the finest and richest residential districts of London. Here are the public pleasure grounds of Kensington Gardens (200 ac.), which contain the old palace of Kensington, purchased by William III. from the Earl of Nottingham in 1689, and given to the nation in 1899. On the s. side of the gardens is the Albert Memorial (1872), and opposite is the Albert Hall (1867-71), an enormous circular building used as a concert hall, and capable of seating some 10,000 persons. In the near vicinity are Olympia (an exhibition building), the S. Kensington and Royal Natural History Museums, and the Imperial Instítute (opened 1893). To the east of the Imperial Institute is the Brompton district. Earl's Court is a district of West Kensington. Vying in historical importance with Kensington Palace is the quaint Elizabethan building of Holland House (1607), where dwelt at different times Fairfax, the parliamentary general; Addison, who died there; Penn of Pennsylvania; and Charles James Fox, through whose occupancy the house became a great Whig meeting-place up to the beginning of the 19th century.

The boundary borough of London county on the w. is that of

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Hammersmith, which touches the Harrow road on the N., and southward abuts on a bend of the river crossed by a fine suspension bridge. The Uxbridge road runs eastward through Hammersmith to Acton and Ealing. Next in order along the river-bank is the borough of Fulham. Here, on the river, stands Fulham Palace, the residence of the bishop of London, said to be the oldest inhabited house in England. A little farther down the river is the fashionable Hurlingham Park, the headquarters of pigeon-shooting and polo-playing in England. The next borough is that of Chelsea. Its eastern portion known as Pimlico, at the beginning of the 19th century was a marshy waste where snipe were shot; while Chelsea parish itself was, in the middle of the 18th century, only an outlying village. Chelsea (Chesil-ey, the shingly island') has been fenced from the river by an embankment between the Victoria and Battersea Bridges, and on the embankment stands Chelsea Hospital for disabled soldiers. Chelsea is still, as it has long been, a favorite residential quarter. Here, in the 16th century, lived Sir Thomas More, Princess Elizabeth, Anne of Cleves, and Queen Catherine Parr; later, Walpole, Steele, Swift (who lived opposite Dean Atterbury's house, and used to drive into London by the sixpenny stage') and Sir Hans Sloane, whose name is commemorated in Sloane Square and Sloane Street; and, later still, Leigh Hunt, Rossetti, George Eliot, and Carlyle.

The next and greatest of the London boroughs is the City of Westminster. It is the richest, architecturally the finest, and historically by far the most interesting, of any part of London outside the City. Beginning at Temple Bar (now marked by a griffin on a pedestal) in the Strand, which is the boundary between the two cities of London and Westminster, we plunge at once into the stateliest part of the metropolis. On one side are the Royal Courts of Justice, and, fronting the Strand, the newlyconstructed crescent of Aldwych, whence the thoroughfare of Kingsway furnishes a new route to Holburn; and on the other, farther down the street, are buildings and names-Essex Street, Arundel Street, Somerset House, the Savoy Hotel, Villiers Street, and Northumberland Avenue-that remind us of the great houses of princes and nobles which stretched down towards the river-front, now fenced between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges by the noble Victoria Embankment. At the west end of the Strand is Trafal

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gar Square, where the Corinthian column (145 ft.) to the memory of Nelson rears aloft, its pedestal guarded by Landseer's four lions; near it is a statue of General Gordon of Thornycroft.

From Trafalgar Square debouch S.W. Pall Mall, the home of many of London's greatest clubs, and (through Spring Gardens) the Mall, which separates Marlborough House (the residence of the Prince of Wales) and the Palace of St. James from the park of the same name. Facing the w. end of the Mall stands Buckingham Palace in its spacious grounds, while across Constitution Hill to the N. spreads the beautiful Green Park (60 ac.). South from Trafalgar Square run Whitehall and Parliament Street, past the Admiralty, the Horse Guards, and other government buildings, to end in the approaches to the House of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. North from Trafalgar Square we can pass up the Haymarket to the great nodus of west-end London, Piccadilly Circus. Thence radiate, northeast, the recent thoroughfare of Shaftesbury Avenue, and Long Acre (the home of the carriage and automobile trade); north, Regent Street, which, with Bond Street, New and Old, boasts London's richest shops; and west, Piccadilly. Narrow at first (though a scheme is in hand for widening it eighty feet between the Circus and Sackville Street), Piccadilly speedily becomes _perhaps the finest street in London. It contains stately buildings such as Apsley, Devonshire, and Northampton Houses; for half its length it is bordered on the south by the Green Park, and ends at Hyde Park Corner, near a fine triumphal arch which is one of the entrances into Hyde Park (480 ac.), the most fashionable park in London.

Northward and south-westward from the w. end of Piccadilly spreads the huge parish of St. George's, Hanover Square, nearly all of which belongs to the Duke of Westminster, whose family name, Grosvenor, is of frequent occurrence in the street names. Passing over the City of London, which has already been dealt with, and continuing along the river, we arrive (in startling contrast) at the grimy region of Stepney, which lies south of Bethnal Green. Eastward of the old City wall lie the Tower of London and the Royal Mint (1817) on Tower Hill. The principal traffic artery of this region is Commercial Road East (s. lies Ratcliffe Highway, now St. George Street, once notorious for robbery and murder); but the main activity of the district centres in the

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LONDON PALACES AND OFFICIAL RESIDENCES.

1. Lambeth Palace (Archbishop of Canterbury). 2. Fulham Palace (Bishop of London). 3. No. 10 Downing Street (official residence of the Premier). 4. Westminster Palace (Houses of Parliament). (Photo by H. N. King.) 5. Buckingham Palace. 6. St. James's Palace. 7. Marlborough House. (Photo by H. N. King.) 8. Kensington Palace.

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divisions bordering the river, and known as Wapping, Shadwell, and Limehouse. Here begin the docks, the first of the series, close to the Tower, being St. Katherine's Docks (24 ac.); next, the London Docks (120 ac.); and next, Shadwell and Limehouse Basins. (See LONDON PORT.) After Limehouse begins the borough of Poplar, of which the southern portion consists of the low-lying Isle of Dogs, and the northern of Bromley and Bow, which border the river Lea. The name 'Bow' commemorates an arched bridge over the Lea, at or near a point where it was crossed by the 'stratford,' the ford in the Roman 'street' known as the Vicinal Way. In the Isle of Dogs are the oldest of London's docks, opened in 1802, the West India Docks (295 ac.); below them is Millwall Dock; and in Blackwall, close to where the Lea joins the Thames, the East India Dock. There the County of London ends. But farther down, on the north bank of the Thames, are the Victoria (90 ac.) and Royal Albert Docks (72 ac.); and farther yet, 26 m. below London Bridge, Tilbury Docks (76 ac.).

To the east of Poplar (outside Greater London) is the borough of West Ham, and still farther east (7 m. G.E. Ry. from Fenchurch Street) the town of Barking.

The industries and manufactures of London are enormous and most varied. Some of the more special_industries may be specified: Brewing, distilling, sugarrefining. These three industries have no particular locality. Silk is manufactured in Spitalfields and Bethnal Green; tanning, soap-boiling, and candle-making are carried on in Bermondsey and Southwark; Lambeth, Millwall, and Deptford have engineering works; potteries are established at Lambeth; and Clerkenwell has an industry of watch-making and clock-making.

There are close on three hundred different authorities which control the various interests of London, and which spend on the work about $75,000,000 annually. But the supreme municipal authority is the London County Council. (See LONDON-Government.) The council's accounts for 1904-5 amounted to $45,242,070, the total county rate being 2s.93d. Up to the year 1904 the council hrovided rehousing of 24,465 persons, and in addition to providi gymnasiums, bands, games cheap steamboats on the Thames, etc., has since 1901 secured the following parks and open spaces for the people: Marble Hill, Twickenham (66 ac.); Eltham Park (41) ac.); Avery Hill, Eltham (84 ac.); Hainault Forest (803 ac.); and Springfield, Clapton (82 ac.).

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Thanks to these measures, and to a careful supervision of drainage and street nuisances it has brought down the death-rate of London to 15.2 per 1,000.

The Education Committee of the County Council administers both elementary and secondary education within its area. In 1905 there were 554,646 scholars (average attendance, 493,975) on the rolls of the council schools, and 205,323 (average attendance, 175,149) on the rolls of the nonprovided schools, or an elementary school population of 759,969. The expenditure on the maintenance of elementary schools for the financial year ending March 31, 1905, was $18,752,110.

HISTORY (by the late Sir Walter Besant). The origin and foundation of London are, and will always continue to be, matters of dispute and controversy. My own theory entirely satisfies, in my judgment, all the difficulties of the case. It may be briefly presented as follows.

We must first consider the site of the city with respect to its local conditions, and next the site with reference to the country generally.

First as to the local conditions. The river on which the city stands winds in a serpentine course from Hampton to its mouth through a vast swamp, bordered on the N. and on the s. by a low cliff, the course of which may still be traced by the rising ground which has taken the place of the cliff. Thus, Battersea Rise, Clapham Rise, Brixton Rise indicate the position of the cliff on the s. side; while the slopes in Thames Street, the Haymarket, and St. James's Street, for example, show where it stood on the N. side.

The swamp is the first point of importance to note on the site of London. Reference to any map will show that at Westminster the river bends round toward the N., again at Charing Cross towards the E., that it walls in the Isle of Dogs, a peninsula, and then continues its course eastward to the mouth. The city proper lies between the Fleet R. on the w. and the Tower of London on the E. On the s. side of the Thames stretched the marsh, four miles long from w. to E., and one mile or a mile and a half broad from N. to S. On the E. side of the city the marsh lay along the riverside for two miles before it was crossed by the river Lea, which flowed through a broad marsh of its own on either bank. On the w. side the Fleet also flowed through its own mud banks into the Thames, while the present Fleet Street and the Strand lay at the foot of the cliff, covered with water at high tide, and forming part of the

great western swamp.

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On the

N. of the river, beyond the cliff stretched a vast moor, intersected with small streams and dotted with ponds. The moor was quite useless for purposes of cultivation. Beyond the clearing

afterwards called Iseldon or Islington began the immense forest of Middlesex and Essex, covering the whole ground between Harrow and the site of Hainault Forest, and stretching into Hertfordshire and the heights beyond.

The only farm-land available for the city was thus a breadth of pasture-land between Oxford Street and the Strand, the rest of the environment being forest or marsh. This is the second important point to remember. From the outset, when it was little more than a village, London was dependent for its supplies on the settlements and cultivated lands beyond what we now call the suburbs.

Three streams, not to speak of many small brooks, flowed into the Thames on the N. The first, starting from the w., was called the Fleet or the Holbourne. It rose in the northern heights, received the waters of many springs, drained a large expanse of country, and was navigable for a very short distance above its mouth. Through the middle of the site on which afterwards the city was built flowed the smaller stream, called the Walbrook. This rose in the northern moor as a tiny rivulet, was joined by other rivulets, and when it gained the Thames was a stream of some importance running through a valley about 130 feet broad, at the point where is now the Poultry, and becoming broader at the mouth. The Walbrook served for many centuries to divide the city into two-E. and W. London. Outside the walls, nearly three miles to the E., the swift and then important river Lea ran into the Thames, through a succession of marshlands which remain to this day. Although drained, they are below the level of high tide, and serve at least to make us understand the marshes of the Thames. Between the Fleet and the Walbrook, and again on the E. of the Walbrook, the northern cliff advanced to the edge of the river, which it overhung.

The advance of the cliff at these points is the third point of cardinal importance concerned with the site of London. These, then, are the local conditions of the place: a tidal river almost 1,000 feet wide; marshes on either bank; a wild moorland on the N. useless for agriculture; an impenetrable forest on the N., and another on the s.; a comparatively small area in the w. available for pasture; protection against an enemy

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by river, marsh, and forest; dependence on supplies, save of fish, birds, and game, from the outside. Add to these an excellent natural port for small ships sailing up the river, at Dowgate, at the mouth of the Walbrook.

The next point to consider is the site with reference to the country.

The foundation of London has no connection at all with the arrival of the Romans. It is described by Aulus Plautius in the 1st century, and only a few years after the conquest, as a great commercial resort; it took the place of Thorney gradually, but fong before the Romans came. The natural advantages of London over Thorney were the ports of the Walbrook and the Fleet, the existence of the high northern cliff running down to the river above the malarious and aguestricken marsh, and the easy defence of the place by reason of its natural position. The site was also well watered, and capable of being converted, by quays built on piles, into a place of commerce far more extensive and more convenient than the small, low-lying, defenceless islet of Thorney.

In this way London was founded and gradually grew. Its name signified probably the 'ship-fort,' and is of Celtic, not of Roman or Saxon, origin. The old line of traffic which ran down the Edgware Road, and so across the Park to the river, was diverted at the spot which is now the Marble Arch, and ran along the present Oxford Street and Holborn, crossing the Fleet R. by a ford and afterwards by a bridge, and so into the city.

Roman London, then, consisted of the citadel first, with the bridge; there was no wall; and the trade of the place, which seemed to Tacitus so considerable, was in reality very small compared with its subsequent development.

The history of the city during the Roman occupation contains few events. In 61 A.D. the place was taken, and the defenceless people were massacred. Two hundred years later it was held by the usurpers Carausius and Allectus, the latter of whom was defeated and slain by the Roman general Asclepiodotus in a battle fought close to London. When, in the 4th century, Roman roads made it possible for an invading army from the N. to march upon London, the wall was constructed. Its length proves the extent of the population of the city, because it was never the custom of the Romans to build more than they could defend. The area enclosed by the wall was 380 acres; the length of the

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wall, including the riverside part, was two miles and three-quarters. There is evidence that it was hastily built. There was no time to procure stone enough for the purpose from the quarries of Kent; the remaining portions and foundations have disclosed the fact that wherever stones existed in the city they were seized and built into the wall. Thus altars, millstones, funeral monuments, statues, columns on walls of villas, the walls of the citadel, the walls of every public building, including the forum, the imperial offices, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, were used in the construction of this huge wall, erected in the fear of invasion from the north. This was towards the end of the 4th century.

The retirement of the Romans and the coming of the Saxons followed. Nothing is then known of the city until the year 457 A.D., when we hear of the fugitives from the victorious Saxon invaders flying for safety across the bridge of London.

Early in the 7th century we hear of London again; it then belonged to the E. Saxons, and there was founded a Christian church under Mellitus as first bishop. Trade slowly revived, merchants began to return, and London in the 7th and 8th centuries became once more a great commercial centre.

Then the Danish invasions took place, and London, taken by the invaders and apparently pillaged, again lay desolate and deserted until it was recovered by Alfred. He repaired the defences, and made of London the strongest and, before long, the richest city in the island.

The history of London itself is difficult to separate from the history of the country. Successive charters secured the liberties of the citizen. The sovereign might and did tax and assess the people heavily, but when from time to time the citizens presented a passive resistance to taxation, no monarch had the power to coerce them. As London grew more powerful, the demands of the sovereign grew greater; and the people of London became more exacting over the extension of their liberties, and more jealous of encroachment. This is the keynote for the historian. There existed among the people of London a traditional resolveunwritten, but part and parcel of themselves to maintain and to defend their liberties.

This side of the city history is best illustrated by a few notes on the growth of the municipality. On the resettlement of the city by Alfred, the whole of the area included within the wall was parcelled out into manors. Every

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manor was called after the name of its owner, who was its alderman, and exercised authority, holding courts and being responsible for order on his own land. It is not certain how many wards or manors there were. There was no corporate government of the city. The king's officer was the port-reeve, whose functions were those of treasurer, guardian of customs and dues, and assessor of the same; he corresponded to the sheriff or shire-reeve of a county. The bishop exercised ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which then included a good deal of the temporal government. There was a folk-mote, or parliament of the people, called together on important occasions at Paul's Cross; and there was the ward-mote, whose powers and tenure of meeting seem to have depended at first mainly on the aldermen of the wards. The export and import trade of the port was regulated by the merchants, subject to the king's dues; the retail trade was subject to the rules of the market, and the ordinances of the guilds, which existed from a very early period. The merchant guild, found in all medieval cities, was probably regulated, perhaps in a nameless and informal manner, at the port itself.

The defence of the city was entrusted to a military organization called the knighten guild, whose duty it was to see that the citizens were duly armed for purposes of defence. This guild administered a tract of land outside Aldgate, called the Portsoken, and the Tower lands, whose revenues were devoted to the protection of the city. The guild consisted of the aldermen, notables, and some of the chief citizens. The time came when the defence of the city was practically taken over by the Normans, who had their fortresses in the east and the west; then, by permission of the king, the guild dissolved itself, surrendered its property, and gave it to the priory of the Holy Trinity at Aldgate, receiving in return for themselves, their ancestors, and their own kin, the 'fraternity' of the monastery.

As the guilds arrived at the possession of great power, they were regarded with jealousy by the Norman kings, especially by Henry II., who suppressed twenty of them' as 'adulterine'-i.e. erected without royal license. The chief cause of this jealousy was the establishment of the 'commune' in many of the continental cities, including Rouen, between which place and London there was an intimate connection. 'Never,' says the chronicler, 'would the king grant a commune to London.' Yet London, when the advantages of such a corpo

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rate body were understood, never ceased to plan the concession. This opportunity arose when Richard I. was in the Holy Land, when the government under Longchamp had become intolerable, and when the barons, headed by John, desired to enter and to take possession of the city, in order to depose Longchamp, which they could only effect by the permission of the citizens. They were admitted; on the same day John gave them the commune, and Longchamp was deposed. The first mayor was Henry Fitz Aylwyn, or Henry of London Stone, who was elected for life, and held the office for twenty-five years.

Within these limits it is not possible to trace the gradual growth of the municipality. The immediate effects of the first concessions were of the most revolu

tionary kind. A city council was formed, at which the whole city was represented by the mayor, while the aldermen in their wards lost a great deal of their authority. The merchant guild, under whichever form or name it had existed, ceased to exercise authority in matters of trade; the ordinances of the trade guilds were referred to the mayor; the port-reeve disappeared, and the power of the sheriffs, his successors, was greatly curtailed; the folk-mote, preserved in form, no longer had any power except, for purposes of popular demonstration. The city, instead of a collection of manors lying side by side, became one incorporation under one government. Fortunately for the country-paradoxical as it sounds-it was never free from factions, which, while they weakened the city for a time, prevented its separation from the country or its domination over the country..

The medieval population of London was as mixed as it is at present. The trade with the Baltic and with N. Europe was chiefly in the hands of the Hanseatic League, which enjoyed great and most valuable privileges. There was a large trade with Bruges, Ypres, and Ghent; many Flemings were settled in

the

country, and there were English houses of business in Bruges corresponding to the firms of the Hansa merchants in London. The Men of the Empire' were represented by a colony from Cologne; there was a constant intercommunication between London and Normandy, especially Rouen; Bordeaux sent merchants to conduct the wine trade; the great galleys of Venice and of Genoa arrived every year in the port of London, and were received by Italian merchants; there was an extensive trade in English

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ships with the Levant; the Jewish money-lenders, after their expulsion, were succeeded by Lombards and Coursines,' licensed by the Pope to receive his taxes and to lend money under the form of gifts for which 'expenses' were charged instead of interest. The immigration of foreigners to London never ceased, and the early chronicles are full of names which denote their origin.

The influence of the church was also a very powerful factor in the government of the city. The bishop of London, even when he was personally unpopular, continued to stand for the city in ecclesiastical matters, and was regarded by the people as part of their own grandeur, and an illustration of their own wealth and strength. The dean and canons of St. Paul's owned a considerable portion of the city, and were patrons of many city churches. The monastic houses Occupied large premises, and owned, in addition, whole streets; while there were now a hundred parish churches, each with its rector or vicar, its chantry priests, and its endowments of masses and various charities. The people employed in the service of the church-the architects, lawyers, notaries, scriveners, illuminators, bailiffs, gardeners, butlers, brewers, bakers, carpenters: makers of vestments, paternosters, crucifixes, candlesticks, altar-cloths, painted windows, and the likenumbered many thousands, perhaps a fifth part of the whole population.

The monastic houses formed a chain within and without the city wall. Thus, without the wall, beginning at the E., were St. Katherine's by the Tower, St. Mary of Graces, the Sisters of St. Clare, Bethlehem, St. Mary Spital, Holywell, Charter House, St. Francis Nunnery, the House of the Knights Hospitallers, St. Bartholomew's Priory and Hospital, White Friars, St. Mary of Roncesvalles, Westminster Abbey, and the Temple. Within the walls, following the same direction, were the Crutched Friars, the Holy Trinity, St. Augustine's, St. Helen's, Elsyng Spital, St. Francis's Hermitage, Gray Friars, Black Friars, and St. Martin's-le-Grand. On the s. side of the river were the foundations of St. Mary Overies and St. Thomas, and Bermondsey. The ecclesiastical foundations hindered the growth of London in most directions. The vast manor of Stepney, which belonged to the bishop of London, and extended N. so as to include Hoxton and Houndsditch, was kept free from The any but farm-buildings. moor was only built upon without Bishopsgate and Aldersgate.

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The lands of Westminster extended eastward as far as the Fleet R. The manors of Gray's Inn, St. Pancras, St. Giles, Bloomsbury, Islington, and St. Luke, as well as Old Strete, belonged to the canons of St. Paul's. Most of Clerkenwell and Highbury belonged to the Knights Hospitallers; Canonbury to the canons of St. Bartholomew; Paddington, Westbourne, Kilburn, and Hampstead to Westminster Abbey; part of St. Marylebone to Hackney Abbey, with other manors and country places.

The belt of ecclesiastical manors was largely the cause of the crowded condition of the city. We find, for instance, that there were in the 12th or 13th century four belts of population. First the 'service,' including the people who lived by the riverside, in streets reclaimed as space was wanted from the foreshore on either side of the artificial ports. Then came the merchants' and the nobles' houses, lying between W. and E. Chepe and Thames Street. Then the great retail markets of West and East Chepe, with the Poultry, Newgate Street, Cornhill, Leadenhall Street, and Gracechurch Street. Lastly, occupying the N. part of the city, was the industrial quarter, in which everything was made. It is a rough division, not to be taken literally, but it will serve. The last part consisted of hamlets separated from one another by orchards and gardens, with narrow lanes leading to the markets, and one church to several hamlets.

The successive kings either tried to oppress or to conciliate the city. Its greatest enemy was Henry III. During his long reign trade decayed, and the city fell into a kind of anarchy, in which lawlessness and violence seemed to defy the authorities. Edward I. took the reins into his strong hands, and restored order after a ten years' suspension of the mayoralty; under the miserable rule of Edward II. lawlessness again broke out, to be repressed under his successor; and so on. It is noteworthy that in the history of the country London has been the chief instrument in the election and deposition of the king. The city upheld Edmund Ironside against Canute; accepted William I.; elected Henry 1. in place of his elder brother; elected Stephen; joined the queen in the deposition of Edward II.; sent out its army for the arrest of Richard II.; elected Henry IV.; stood by his son, and supported his unfortunate grandson until the death of the Prince of Wales after Tewkesbury; welcomed Henry VII.; stood by Queen Mary; joined the parliamentary cause against Charles 1.; restored

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