The Children's Book of London Part 9

We can imagine children crying for bread, and their mother going out at last to try to find something for them to eat, and never coming back.

Then the eldest boy would begin to be afraid that she had caught the plague and had died in the streets, and he would leave his little sisters and brothers and creep along the streets until he met the awful death-cart; and then he would ask, and perhaps the man would tell him where to go to find out about his mother, and someone might be able to describe a woman who had fallen down in the street seized by the plague, and had at once been carried off and buried. The boy would guess that that must have been his mother; and yet he could never be quite certain, for she had been buried in a plague-pit with dozens of others, and he would never see her. Perhaps he would beg a little oatmeal, and run back hastily to his brothers and sisters, and when he got there find them all frightened and crying, for the eldest girl was very sick. He might turn down her dress, and see on her neck the awful plague-spot, and know that she, too, would die. And very likely by the next day the whole of that family would be dead. Many people must have died of starvation, for all work was stopped, but for the money given by charitable persons. The King himself gave 1,000 a week.

There is a story of a man who had a good deal of money, and he shut himself and his household up in his house, and allowed no member of his family to go out. The doors and windows were closed, so that it was all dark, and food was only got by tying a basket to a string and letting it down at a certain time each day, when a person who had been paid to do so filled it with food. In the morning the whole family had breakfast together in a lower room, and afterwards the children were sent up to play in the garret. In this way the greatest danger of infection was escaped.

Of course, so soon as foreign nations heard of the plague they sent no more s.h.i.+ps to England, and instead of being covered with vessels from all lands, the Thames was deserted and silent. Worse than that, numbers of people threw the dead bodies of their friends who had died into the water, and these floated down with the tide, or, catching in some pier or beside some boat, hung there until the air was filled with the dreadful smell of the rotting bodies. Cats and dogs were drowned, too, for fear that they should carry the infection, and their dead bodies made the river loathsome. Everywhere there were awful sights and sounds and smells; not even by the water could anyone escape. When the hot weather came in summer the plague grew worse; in one week four thousand persons died of it. Four thousand! It is difficult to imagine. But this was not the worst: the deaths went on until London was a city of the dead, and the living were very few. Fathers had lost children, husbands wives, children parents; there was no household that had not suffered from the plague. A preacher who used to go about the streets dressed only in a rough garment of fur like John the Baptist had prophesied that the gra.s.s should grow in the streets, and that the living should not be able to bury the dead. It was long since the first part of this had been true, and now the second became true, too. The people who were left were not enough to bury those who died, and even in the streets the bodies lay unburied. St. Paul's itself was used as a pest-house--that is to say, as a hospital for the plague-stricken. We can imagine that the people who were left alive felt as if they were living in some nightmare dream from which they could not awake. They must have lost all hope of ever seeing London restored to itself, and the streets clean and bright once more. It was not until the summer was past and the cold weather began that the deaths were fewer, and when the number was only one thousand a week everyone began to get hopeful again. People who had fled into the country began to come back, a few shopkeepers opened their shops, the country people came timidly to bring vegetables for sale, and so gradually things got a little better.

The houses were cleaned and whitewashed, the streets were cleansed, and large fires were lit to burn up any rubbish that might still hold infection. St. Paul's Cathedral was cleaned out, and the beds that the patients had used were burned, and all seemed better.

Then happened another terrifying thing, even more alarming than the plague to the unfortunate people who lived in London at that time. One night, when everyone had gone to bed, the church bells in the city began tolling, and soon feet were heard hurrying on the streets; cries of alarm woke even the laziest, and everyone hurried out to see what was the matter. Against the darkened evening sky they saw a lurid colour like a crimson flag, and this changed and waved as columns of smoke pa.s.sed in front of it; there was no doubt that a big fire had been lighted somewhere.

At first some may have thought this was only one of the bonfires that the police had lighted to burn up the rubbish, but they soon found it was much worse than that. Whole streets were on fire and burning, and, worse than all, a strong wind was blowing the flames right over London.

The houses then were nearly all of wood, and, being old, were very dry.

They burned splendidly; no man could have made a better bonfire. The flames seemed alive; they leaped from one to the other, they licked up the woodwork on the gable fronts, they danced into the windows and in at the doors--no one could stop them or save the houses once they had been touched. The great red demon Fire licked up house after house as if he swallowed them with his great red mouth, and the more he ate the more he wanted; his appet.i.te grew larger instead of less. There were only old fire-engines, not like those we have to-day, and water was very scarce, and at first the people stood terrified, staring stupidly, and then began to run away. It was not for some time that the authorities thought of pulling down some houses so as to make a gap over which the great red flames could not leap. But it is not easy work to pull down houses, and before it could be done the flames leaped on again and again and drove them back. At first the poor people whose houses had caught fire threw their furniture and goods into the streets to save them. But they very soon saw this was no use; the flames got them just the same, for there was no time to carry the goods away, and what the flames did not get thieves in the crowd seized and ran away with.

Now the wind seemed fairly to get hold of the fire, and drove it on with a roar like a steam-engine; the shrieks of people in the streets were drowned by the crash of the burning timbers as the roofs fell in. The heat was so great that some persons, pressed too near to the fire by the crowd, covered their scorched faces with their hands and screamed aloud.

Everywhere was confusion and running to and fro, and yet no one could do anything to stop those terrible flames. When a big brewery was attacked by the fire, men rushed in and pulled out the casks into the street, and then, forgetting the perils of the plague and of the fire, drank until they reeled about the streets, and some even fell into the flames and were burnt.

The place where the fire began was not far from London Bridge, and the red light reflected in the water lit the city up with an awful glare.

Some of the people in the houses which were then standing on the bridge got into boats, and, without heeding the awful heat and the showers of s.m.u.ts, rowed away up the river to a safer place.

The churches began to go soon, and when one was fairly caught its high spire was seen to quiver for a moment as if it were in pain, and then topple right over with a crash. The dangers were increased by the falling of such great ma.s.ses of stone. The whole of that night the flames roared on, and devoured everything in their course. Even those whose houses were at the west end began to tremble. King Charles II.

himself had now come back to London, and when he was told of the great danger that threatened his city, he was the first to go to help and to suggest that houses must be pulled down to stop the flames. This was very difficult, because the houses to be pulled down had to be a long way in front of the fire, or there would not have been time to get them down before the fire reached them. And when the people to whom they belonged were told that they must come out because their houses were to be destroyed, they very naturally objected, and said they were quite sure the fire would never get so far as that; and, anyway, why should their houses be pulled down and not others?

The fire had begun first in a poor quarter, but it soon came on to the houses of wealthy merchants, and then a strange sight was seen: these men, hastily gathering up their gold and silver, their rich bales of stuff and merchandise, hurried westward, and the streets were filled with carts and men laden with goods jostling, pus.h.i.+ng, and hurrying in both directions. At the end of that day the fire still burned as if it would never stop; surely never before had there been such a bonfire. Not a single person in London could go to bed. How did he know that he might not be awakened by the flames leaping in at his windows? No, everyone was in the streets, either watching or talking or shouting, and very few did any good or knew what to do; they mostly got in the way of others who were trying to stop the flames.

When that second awful night was past, the day dawned; but there was little light, for a great cloud of black smoke hung over everything, blotting out the sun. On the river were boats and barges and vessels of all sorts laden with goods; in the streets the same weary, excited crowd.

Out in the fields there were tents put up for the people whose houses had been destroyed, and numbers of people camped there, crying and bemoaning their losses; many of them had lost all they possessed in the world, and had no clothes and sometimes no food.

At last it was seen that the flames must reach St. Paul's Cathedral, and even those who were most careless held their breath at the thought of the destruction of so splendid a building. At that time St. Paul's was being repaired, and the scaffolding round the walls served as fuel for the flames, which leaped upon it and got such hold of it that the very stones became red hot. The roof and the tower of the cathedral were a blaze of fire; soon the lead with which the roof was covered began to melt, and ran down in golden rain from every gutter into the street below. You have perhaps seen in fireworks showers of golden rain, but that was harmless; this was real boiling lead, and if it had struck anyone would have scorched him up. Streaming as it did from that great height, it came down with force, and set everything that it fell on in a blaze. The flames got inside the cathedral, and roared upwards through the staircases as through so many funnels, and then it was seen that the fall of the roof was inevitable. It came at last with a tremendous crash, and showers of sparks shot upwards, lighting up the country for miles around.

For the whole of the next day the flames continued, and on into the day after that; and then the wind fell, and the fire burnt with less fury.

By this time, too, people had pulled down houses, and made great gaps which could not be bridged over by the flames, and so the Great Fire ceased.

A most curious thing was that the fire had begun in the house of a baker in Pudding Lane, and the part where it was finally stopped was at Pye Corner, near Smithfield. It was very odd that both these names should have had to do with eating. No one knows how it began, but the general idea is that a servant-girl who was drying some sheets let them fall into the fire, and then, seeing them flame up, was afraid, and thrust them into the chimney; so the chimney caught fire, and the house, which was very dry and built of wood, flamed up, and the fire spread. But other people say it was done on purpose by a man throwing a light into the house window.

Close to the spot where it began was put up later a tall monument, a great column, which is hollow inside, with a staircase to the top, and anyone may go up by paying threepence; and on the summit there is a little platform, which is caged in to prevent people from falling or flinging themselves over. From here there is a fine view of London; you can see the river, and the s.h.i.+ps going up and down, and the bridges, and the tall steeples of all the churches built by Sir Christopher Wren for the new London that rose out of the ashes of the old.

At the place where the fire is said to have stopped there is the figure of a funny little fat boy put up, and that you can see at Smithfield if you care to go there.

The greater part of London was completely wiped out; the streets were all gone--none knew even where their own houses had stood; there were heaps of ashes everywhere, so hot that the boots of those who walked over them were scorched. For long afterwards, when the workmen were opening a pile to take away the rubbish and begin to build a new house, flames which had been smouldering below burst out again. The great task of rebuilding the city demanded all the energy and sense of which the people were capable. There were many quarrels, of course, between people who claimed more land than they ought to have had, and between others who were both quite sure their houses had stood on one spot. It was a long time before a new London was built. But though the fire cost the Londoners many millions of pounds, and though it ruined many persons and caused fearful loss, it was really a blessing, for it burnt away things that might have carried the plague infection; and it burnt the old unwholesome dirty wooden houses, and in their place were built better houses and wider streets, and health and comfort were greater.

BOOK III

THE SIGHTS OF LONDON

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TOWER OF LONDON

If anyone were staying in London for the first time, what do you suppose he or she would want to see most? It would depend on the character and age of that person. If it were a boy, he would be almost sure to say the Zoological Gardens. A girl might choose Madame Tussaud's. But besides these there are many other things that could be chosen--St. Paul's Cathedral; the British Museum; Westminster Abbey. Also places of entertainment, like Maskelyne's Mysteries, where there is conjuring so wonderful that, having seen it no one can believe the sight of his own eyes. At Christmas time many of the large shops turn themselves into shows, with all sorts of attractive sights to be enjoyed free, so that people may be brought into the shop and possibly buy something. All these things are attractive. But there is one thing not yet mentioned, which is the best of all, and interesting to both boys and girls alike, as well as to men and women. This is the Tower of London.

I am now going to imagine that you are staying with me on a visit, and every day we will do something enjoyable, and go to see something fresh.

We could go on for days and days doing this in London, and not come to the end of the sights. But the first thing to see, the very first, ought to be the Tower, because it is one of the few old buildings left in London, and there are so many stories connected with it they would make a big fat book in themselves.

On the first morning of your visit to London you would get up in a rather excited frame of mind, and be anxious to start off at once. That would be as well, because if we are to go to the Tower it will take us a long time to get there.

Before the west end of London was built the Tower was in the important part of London. All that could then be called London cl.u.s.tered round it.

In those days, when the country was unsettled and enemies appeared suddenly outside a town, and might burn and destroy houses, and steal all that they could lay hands on, it was necessary to have a wall all round the city. This wall was very strong and high, and could be defended by men with spears and arrows. It ran right round the city on three sides, and on the fourth was the river.

In the reign of William the Conqueror there was no strong castle or palace for the King in London, but only an old fortress on one side of this wall, the east side, quite near to the river. This fortress had stood there for a long time. No one knew when it had been built. King William ordered it to be pulled down, and in its place he caused a strong castle to be built. Part of the city wall was pulled down to make room for this castle, and so began the Tower of London.

If we, living in the West End, want to get to the Tower, we must take an omnibus or train and go right through the City until, at the place where the City and the East End meet, we shall find the Tower.

It is a very fine building, with a great square tower in the middle.

Round it are the gardens, and round the gardens, again, there is another line of buildings, which have smaller towers set here and there upon them at intervals. Circling round the outermost walls is a huge, deep ditch, as big and broad as a river. This was once a moat full of water.

The water from the Thames ran into it and filled it, and it formed a strong barrier of defence for the Tower, and attacking forces would have found it a difficult matter to swim across that water with the archers and soldiers shooting down from the walls above, with flights of arrows as thick as flights of pigeons. And, of course, the enemies would never have been allowed to put a boat on the water, for the archers would have shot them while they were doing it. In old times the kings who lived here must have felt very safe with their huge thick stone walls and the great rolling stream of gray water all round. The windows were made very small, so that arrows could not get into them easily to wound the people inside the rooms, and the staircases were of stone, very narrow, and they wound round and round up into one of the towers. They were made so because then, if ever the enemies did manage to get inside the Tower and tramped upstairs, they would find that only one, or perhaps two, of them could get up the steps together to fight, and the men who were guarding the tower could keep them back for a long time. As I said also, the gardens are inside the Tower, so the people who lived there could walk safely in them surrounded by the great gloomy high stone walls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MARY-LE-STRAND AND BUSH HOUSE.]

Oh, how many stories that Tower has to tell! Every stone of it must have heard something interesting. But saddest of all must have been the groans and cries of sorrowful prisoners, for besides being the King's palace, as I have told you, it was also a prison. That seems very odd to us now. Fancy if we made part of Buckingham Palace, where the King lives, into a gaol! But in old times palaces and prisons were often in one building, partly because it was necessary for both to be very strong and to resist force, and it was not easy to build two strong buildings in one place, so they made one do for both. When William the Conqueror died he had not finished his building, and William Rufus, his son, went on with it. Rufus finished the square building in the middle, which has four little corner towers, and this is called the White Tower, not that it is white at all, though it may have been when first built. Now it has been blackened by many centuries of smoke. It was not until the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion that the moat was made, and by that time the Tower had grown very much, and was a strong place. John, Richard's brother, who tried to get the throne for himself while Richard was away fighting in the Holy Land, knew that the stronger he could make the Tower the better, for if he could hold it he would be King in London, and no one could seize him and punish him. We shall hear something more about John later. The moat was made when Richard was away in the Holy Land.

When we draw near we see the White Tower standing up above all the rest.

To cross the moat we have to go over a bridge, once a drawbridge--that is, a bridge which could be drawn up and let down again as the people in the Tower liked.

Close by the drawbridge was, until just before Queen Victoria's reign, a place where lions and tigers and all sorts of wild animals lived. It seems curious they should have been kept there, where they could not have had any room to wander about, and when they were moved to the Zoological Gardens it must have been much better for them. The animals were here through the reigns of all the kings and queens of England, from Henry I. to Queen Victoria. If we go to the front of the Tower, which faces the river, we shall see a fine sight. There is the splendid Tower Bridge that we read of before; there is the gray, glittering river; and there are many s.h.i.+ps and barges floating up and down on the water.

Underneath our feet is a deep channel, now dry, where the river once ran in to fill up the moat. It flowed under a great gloomy archway with a gate, and when the river was running here everyone who came to the Tower by water had to land at that gate. It has an awful name, and some of the very saddest memories belong to it. It is called Traitor's Gate.

In those old days, when people used their river much more than we do now, they owned barges, great boats covered with an awning, and when they wanted to go from Westminster to the Tower they did not think of driving, for the streets were narrow and badly paved, the roads between London and Westminster quite dangerous; and they could not go by train, for no one had ever imagined anything so wonderful as a train, so they went by water.

When the prisoners who were in the Tower had to be tried before judges they were taken up the river in barges to Westminster, where all the evidence was heard, and then they were brought back again. How many of them made that last sad journey and entered the Traitor's Gate never to come out again! They had been to Westminster to be tried, feeling quite sure something would happen in their favour, and they would be set free; and then they had heard the sentence that they were to be beheaded! They came back down the river, and the suns.h.i.+ne might be just as gay, the water as sparkling, as when they went, but to them it would all seem different. The journey was short, too short for a man who knew it was his last! Then when they reached the Tower the barge would sail on up to the Traitor's Gate, and the dark shadow of the heavy walls would fall on the prisoner, and he would feel a chill at his heart as he stepped out on to those cold gray stones.

Of some of those who suffered in the Tower you have heard. Sir Thomas More landed here when he came in his barge from Chelsea, but we know that he was too brave and good to feel much fear. Lady Jane Grey landed here when her father and father-in-law brought her here, calling her Queen; she came as a queen, but stayed here afterwards as a prisoner.

Did any warning tell her this when she stepped out of the boat?

Queen Elizabeth came here, too, when she was only a princess. Her sister Mary was on the throne, and Mary feared that people would make Elizabeth queen, so she sent her as a prisoner to the Tower. We know the very words Elizabeth said as she landed, though nearly three hundred and fifty years have pa.s.sed since then. She exclaimed: 'Here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed on these stairs, and before Thee, O G.o.d, I speak it, having none other friends but Thee.' Then she sat down on a stone, and said: 'Better sit on a stone than in a cell.'

And only the entreaties of her attendant moved her to get up and go on.

She was a prisoner for several years, and at first was not allowed to go out of her cell at all. Afterwards, when she became Queen on Mary's death, one of the first places she visited was the Tower, perhaps because she felt pleased at being a Queen instead of a prisoner, and wanted to enjoy the contrast.

There were many, many others who landed here, never to come forth again as free men. Some died in imprisonment; some were beheaded; some suffered for their crimes; some were innocent, but suffered because they had aroused the anger of a jealous king. Some went into those walls to suffer tortures worse than death--tortures of the thumbscrew and rack, to make them betray the names of their companions. Some came here as martyrs, because they believed in G.o.d, and thought the suffering of the present time as nothing to the glory hereafter.