dead about ten years, and he must often have come to this Savoy Palace
to see John of Gaunt, his brother, and his so-called prisoner King
John, of whom every one was very fond.”
They had fortunately lingered some time before the palace of the Savoy,
to allow the Black monks to land at steps near it. Afterwards there was
a long wait while the waterman who rowed the boat, followed them up a
narrow lane over-arched with white hawthorn, and was seen to enter a
little house with tiny latticed-paned windows and a swinging sign-board
above its porch.
“That’s a tavern, and he’s gone to drink what he no doubt calls ‘a
stoup of wine,’” said Godmother. “The muddy lane there, all overhung
with trees, is now one of the narrow streets near the Savoy Hotel,
leading into the Strand. At this moment of the _twentieth_ century, it
is blocked with motor omnibuses and taxicabs!” she added with a smile.
Betty was glad of the delay, for it gave her time to look long at the
stately palace, and at the other great houses lining the right bank of
the river, with their backgrounds of gardens and orchards melting into
green fields and woods where now, streets and innumerable buildings
stretch for miles and miles. Presently the boatman returned, whistling
a cheerful air, and wiping his lips on the sleeve of his leather
jerkin. Springing into the boat he began to row very quickly, and in a
few minutes, as it seemed, Godmother said, “Here we are at the Palace
of Westminster.”
All Betty could see from the river, was a strong brick wall, turreted
and pierced with gates.
“The Palace of Westminster? There isn’t one now, is there?” she asked,
as they went up steps from the river.
“Not in reality. There is no actual palace here in our time. Yet
because it stands on the same ground, another name for our modern
Houses of Parliament is ‘The Palace of Westminster.’”
“Why, yes! The wide road outside it, is called Old Palace Yard, of
course. I remember now. But there isn’t any of the old palace left, is
there?”
“There is just one building left of what was the home of all the Kings
of England from long before William the Conqueror till the time of
Henry the Eighth.”
They were passing under the arch of the gateway at the moment—a fine
stone gateway.
“This has only just been built by the present King,” Godmother
observed. “It is quite a new gate, as you see.”
But Betty gave a cry of amazement when on passing through the gate
she found herself in what was practically a little walled town, apart
from the rest of London. The wall enclosed not only the Palace, and
the great Abbey, but also little streets full of houses in which lived
carpenters, stonemasons, armourers, jewellers, the makers of priestly
robes, goldsmiths, blacksmiths—in fact, traders of every kind who
worked either for the Palace or the Abbey, or for both.
Her thoughts went back to the swampy island of a thousand years ago.
Here she was, standing on the very same isle. Yet how changed! Instead
of a forest of reeds and bushes, here was a stately Palace and a still
more stately Abbey. Busy men and women lived, where formerly only birds
and water-rats made their homes. The island had, in fact, become a
little town, divided from the greater city by massive walls.
“We are facing the Palace now,” said Godmother presently. “Do you see
anything about it that looks familiar?”
“Why, surely that’s Westminster Hall?” Betty exclaimed after a moment,
pointing to a long steep-roofed building in the midst of towers and
pinnacles that were strange to her.
“Yes, and the only part of the Old Palace that will remain to the time
in which you and I live. It was built by William Rufus, so it is old,
even in this fourteenth century.”
“But it looks so new.”
“That’s because it has just been altered and almost rebuilt by the King
now reigning. Let us go and look at the beautiful inner roof of the
Hall.”
“The next time I see it, when we’ve moved on to our own time, it won’t
look like this,” Betty observed, gazing up at its rafters as they
entered Westminster Hall. “It will be all dark and old, won’t it? But
it will be awfully interesting to think I saw it just after it was
rebuilt and improved.”
“That’s Richard’s coat of arms up there below the line of windows,”
said Godmother. “You see the white hart is repeated again and again.
Don’t forget to look out for it when you see this Hall again—in
ordinary circumstances, I mean, without the ‘magic.’ And don’t forget
either that, except for the Tower, there’s no building in our history
that has seen so much misery,” she added. “Think of all the famous
people who have been tried here, and condemned to death.”
“Poor Charles the First was one, wasn’t he? Oh, Godmother, isn’t it
strange to think it hasn’t happened yet—and won’t happen for—let me
see?—about two hundred years!”
“Now for just a glimpse of the Abbey,” said Godmother after a moment,
“and then we’ll slip back into our own day for a little while. It won’t
do to see too much all at once.”
“I could stay for ever in this London!” Betty declared. “You’ll bring
me back again, won’t you, Godmother? I mean to just this time in the
fourteenth century. It’s so frightfully interesting.”
She had turned round to gaze at the beautiful Abbey in front of the
Palace, the very Abbey so near to which her godmother lived. But at
first sight she scarcely recognized it as the old grey place she knew,
blackened by the years and the smoke of ages.
“It looks so clean and white,” she said. “And where are the towers
that you see when you come up Victoria Street? And where is Henry the
Seventh’s Chapel?”
“Now there’s a silly child!” cried Godmother. “How could there be a
Henry the Seventh’s Chapel when we are only at the reign of Richard the
Second—nearly a hundred years before Henry the Seventh reigned?”
“I forgot,” said Betty meekly.
“As for the towers you mention, they weren’t built till the eighteenth
century, long after Henry the Seventh’s time.”
“But though the Abbey looks different, it’s quite as _big_ as it is
now, don’t you think so?”
“Yes, it covers quite as much ground, though, as you see, a good deal
of it looks different from the Abbey of our day. That’s because from
time to time, certain parts have been pulled down, and built in another
way. We’ll sit down here in the porch a moment and watch the people
going in.”
As they rested in the deep sculptured porch with the image of the
Virgin above it, men, women, and children of all ranks were continually
entering or leaving the Church. Now it was a soldier in a tight leather
cap, leather tunic or jerkin, and long hose. Now a great lady arriving
in a litter borne by serving-men from which she alighted in the porch,
and swept into the Church. One of these wore a short velvet jacket
edged with ermine, over a long silken skirt. Her hair was twisted up
into bosses on either side of her ears, and covered with a golden net,
and her cloak, kept together in front with a jewelled clasp, trailed
behind her as she walked.
Following her came a boy, perhaps her son, as fantastically dressed
as the young man Betty had recently seen on London Bridge. All of the
people, she noticed, crossed themselves as they passed the statue of
the Virgin on entering the Abbey, and this reminded her that England
was still a Roman Catholic country.
[Illustration]
She thought she would never be tired of watching the scene before her,
nor of letting her eyes wander over all the monasteries and gardens
enclosed by the walls of Westminster.
The bells began to ring for service within the Abbey.... They were
still ringing when she found the white-panelled walls of Godmother’s
parlour round her, and rubbed her eyes as though to clear them of a
vision....
“The Abbey bells!” exclaimed Godmother. “Ringing just as they rang long
ago, when Chaucer was alive.”
“You said we might perhaps see him,” said Betty. “But we didn’t.”
She knew something about Chaucer, for she had read one or two of the
stories from the “Canterbury Tales,” and now that she had looked at
London as it was when he lived in it, she was anxious to see the great
poet himself.
“Plenty of time. Didn’t I promise you should go back again? As soon as
we’ve taken a little walk about the Westminster of to-day, we can slip
into fourteenth-century London as soon as we please.”
“The best of this magic is that it doesn’t _really_ take any time, and
yet it seems that we’ve been away hours and hours!” remarked Betty, as
they turned out of Godmother’s quiet road.
They were in Victoria Street now, with the Houses of Parliament
shutting out the view of the river, and on their right the Abbey. There
was a roar of traffic, and all the ground on the left was covered with
great modern buildings.
Betty remembered the walled town she had just seen, with its quaint
houses, its shops full of workmen, its gardens and monasteries. Nothing
of that olden Westminster remained, except the Abbey itself and
Westminster Hall, just opposite to her, with its sloping roof, which
at the moment modern workmen, standing upon scaffolding, were busy
repairing.
She gave a long sigh. “Isn’t it _wonderful_ to think it has changed
like this,” she said. “Even the Abbey doesn’t look the same because
of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel at the back there and the towers in
front,—which weren’t built the last time we saw it.”
“I might go on telling you about that Abbey and its changes, all day,”
was Godmother’s answer. “There’s so much to learn about it that I only
propose to talk about a little bit at a time. We’ll just walk through
it now, and out into the cloisters.”
Betty followed her, looking up at the beautiful soaring arches as they
passed quickly across the Church and out at a little leather-covered
door into a wonderful colonnade, enclosing a square of emerald-green
grass.
“This is a very, very old part of the building,” said Godmother. “But
long before even this colonnade, or cloister as it is called, was
built, there was a church here. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a pretty
story about the first Abbey. Now,” she began, “you must think of the
swampy island you saw in Roman times, and remember that our feet are on
that very island now. Well, as you know, time passed, the Romans went,
and our ancestors, the first English people came. They were heathens,
worshipping wild gods like Thor and Woden, of whom you may have heard.
Then, after years had gone by, they were converted to Christianity by
Roman monks, and Sebert, one of their kings (who was really only what
we should call the chief of a warlike tribe), built a church on this
very spot, which though it had become by this time fairly dry, was so
covered with rough thickets that it was called the Isle of Thorns, or
Thorney Island. The church, which we must picture to ourselves as a
very simple building, was to be called _St. Peter’s_. At last it was
finished and ready to be consecrated, that is, dedicated to God, and
the Bishop Mellitus, who was the first Bishop of London, was coming to
perform the ceremony.
“Now the day before the consecration, was a Sunday, and in the twilight
that Sunday evening a certain fisherman called Edric, was busy with
his nets on the banks of this Isle of Thorns, when he saw near the
newly-built church of St. Peter a mysterious light. Presently he saw
approaching, a venerable-looking man who asked to be rowed across a
stream which lay between the shores of the island and the church. Edric
consented, and on reaching the opposite bank, followed the stranger
towards the church. On the way the old man struck the ground twice
with his staff, and to the fisherman’s amazement, each time, a spring
of water gushed forth from the earth. But his wonder was increased
when he saw the new building a blaze of light, and on entering, found
it radiant with angels, each of whom held a candle. Then in the midst
of the heavenly light the old man went through all the ceremonies of
consecrating the church, while above its roof in a shining stream,
Edric saw angels ascending and descending.
“When this lovely vision had disappeared, Edric rowed the old man back
over the stream, and was bidden to tell the bishop next day that the
church was already consecrated by no less a person than St. Peter
himself! He was also to tell the bishop that the church must be called
the Abbey of Westminster.
“The old man, who was no other than St. Peter, also said that Edric
might always be sure of catching many fish, on two conditions. First
that he should never again work on a Sunday, and secondly, that he
never forgot to take a certain quantity of the fish to the monks of the
Abbey.
“So next day, when Bishop Mellitus came to perform the ceremony of
consecration, Edric told him all that had happened, and showed him the
crosses on the doors, and the wax spilt on the floor from the candles
the angels had held, and the springs of water (which, as wells, remain
to this day). The bishop was convinced of the truth of the fisherman’s
story, and changed the name of the island from Thorney, to Westminster.
So in remembrance of this appearance of St. Peter to Edric, the
Thames fishermen for nearly four hundred years from that time, always
brought a tithe of their fish to the Collegiate Church of St. Peter in
Westminster, for that is the full and proper name of Westminster Abbey.”
“It’s a nice story,” said Betty. “The fisherman in it reminds me of the
time when we came to this place in Roman days in a fisherman’s boat.
But that was long before it was called Thorney Island, of course.”
“Well,” continued Godmother, “part of what I’ve just told you is only a
legend. Now we come to real history. That first church built by Sebert,
stood here for about four hundred years. Then Edward the Confessor came
to the throne. He, as his name tells you, was a very pious king, and he
had made a vow to God to build a great church. So he pulled down the
one already standing on Thorney Island (as it was still called by the
people) and on its foundations built another huge one—quite as large
as this present Abbey. It was finished just before he died, and the
very next year, in 1066, William the Conqueror took possession not only
of the palace in which Edward the Confessor and the kings before him,
had lived (that old palace we have so lately seen, you know)—but of
the great new church belonging to it.
“It stood as Edward the Confessor left it, for two hundred years. Then
King Henry the Third pulled nearly all of it down, so that very little
is left of the first ancient building now. The Chapel of the Pyx, which
we will see one day, is, however, a part of Edward the Confessor’s
Abbey, and so are some of the walls of this very cloister we are in.
“Edward the First, Henry’s son, went on with the re-building, and while
Chaucer was alive, a great deal was added to it. The famous Jerusalem
Chamber, for instance, was only just finished when you saw the Abbey
by magic this morning, and so was the greater part of this cloister in
which we are sitting.”
“No wonder the Abbey looked all bright and new,” said Betty. “What is
the _Jerusalem_ Chamber?”
“We’ll go and see it, and I’ll tell you about it when we’re there.”
They went through a little ancient court into a beautiful old room with
a stained-glass window at one end.
“Chaucer may have seen that glass,” said Godmother, “for it was painted
long before he was born. This room was built during his lifetime, for
the use of the Abbot’s guests when they came to stay with him. It was
probably called the Jerusalem Chamber because there used to be tapestry
on its walls showing the history of Jerusalem. And about that there is
a curious story.”
“Do tell me!” Betty urged.
“I will, when we go home. Or rather, I’ll let Shakespeare tell you,
because he has used the story in one of his plays.
“Many things have happened in this Jerusalem Chamber from the days when
Chaucer saw it, up to our own time. Not so very long ago, for instance,
when the Bible was revised—(that is, translated again, and much of
the wording altered) the learned men who worked at it sat here.... Now
we’ve seen as much of the Abbey as was in existence when Richard the
Second was king. But of course an enormous amount of its history comes
after his time.”
“Does the story of the Jerusalem Chamber come after?” Betty asked.
“Yes, but so soon afterwards that we’ll read it in the play of _Henry
the Fourth_.”
“He was the very next king after Richard, wasn’t he? Oh yes, of
course. He was the man who usurped the throne, and had poor Richard
murdered.”
Directly they reached the parlour at home, Betty ran to the bookcase
for a “Shakespeare,” and Godmother turned to the play.
“I must tell you what had happened before the few last words which are
all I’m going to read!” she said. “King Henry the Fourth was setting
out on a journey to the Holy Land, and just before he started, he went
to pray in the Abbey. But there, before the altar, he was suddenly
taken ill, and became unconscious. They carried him into the Abbot’s
guest-chamber—the Jerusalem Room which you’ve just seen, but later
moved him to another apartment. There when he was dying, remembering
the place to which he had first been carried from the Abbey, he said:
‘Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?’
and Earl Warwick answered:
‘’Tis called _Jerusalem_, my noble lord.’
“Then the king, remembering a prophecy about the place of his death,
replied:
‘Laud be to Heaven!—even there my life must end.
It hath been prophesied to me many years,
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:—
But bear me to that chamber; there I’ll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.’”
“And that’s true? He really _did_ die there?” asked Betty.
“Yes. So in a way the old prophecy, you see, was fulfilled, for he
died in a room _called_ ‘Jerusalem.’ There too, according to the old
story which Shakespeare also tells in the same play, Prince Henry,
when he was watching by his father’s bedside, put on the crown he was
afterwards to wear as Henry the Fifth. But we’re getting too far away
from the days of Richard the Second, and as we’re going back to them as
soon as we’ve had tea, I mustn’t confuse you.”
Later on in the afternoon, when the magic rite of book and chain had
been duly performed, to her great delight Betty found herself again
standing at the gate leading on to London Bridge. After a short
interval of modern days, she was delighted to be once more back in the
Middle Ages.
“You remember _Thames_ Street?” said Godmother,—“the street so crowded
this morning with motor lorries that we had to turn out of it? Well,
here it is!”
She pointed to the entrance of a lane open on one side to the clear
sparkling river, and on the other lined with the quaintest of what
Betty called “fairy-book” houses. They were built of wood, with timber
beams across the front, each story projecting farther than the one
below it, so that the topmost windows hung far out above the street
below. Boards painted with various signs, such as fiery dragons, golden
fish, and green bushes, swung over the dark little shops on the ground
floor. The street upon which they opened, was muddy and unpaved, but
it was filled with a bustling crowd of gaily-dressed people. Recalling
the Thames Street of this morning’s visit, the river hidden by enormous
warehouses, motor vehicles blocking the roadway, Betty could scarcely
believe this to be the same spot.
“I want you to look at that house,” said Godmother, pointing to one
of the gabled dwellings that had a wine shop below it. “Because
there, Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, was born and lived for some years.
His father, as you may guess, by the sign over the door, was a wine
merchant—or _vintner_ as he would say.”
“Doesn’t Chaucer live there still?”
“No, he’s an old man now, and he’s living in that little walled town of
Westminster, close to the Abbey. The year we’re in—1388—is the last
year of his life, and he has still to write his most famous poem.”
“That’s the ‘Canterbury Tales,’ I know!”
Just at the moment, and before Godmother could answer, there was a stir
and commotion in Thames Street. Children began to run, shouting to one
another, “The Pilgrims!” “The Pilgrims come!” and there was a general
rush in one direction.
Betty and her godmother followed the crowd. “Let us stand here in the
middle of the bridge, outside the Chapel of St. Thomas,” suggested
Godmother. “Then we shall see them come in at the north gate and go out
at the one at the other end of the bridge, into Southwark.”
They had just taken their places, when an elderly quiet-looking man
dressed in a long brown garment, with a hood whose long peak hung to
his shoulder, came up, stepping softly, and stood beside them.
[Illustration]
“Do you know who this is?” Godmother asked. “No other than Geoffrey
Chaucer, the great poet!”
Betty was torn between her desire to look at him, and her excitement
at the approach of a train of people on horseback, who now came
clattering through the gateway on to the bridge.
“This is a company of pilgrims just setting out on their journey to
Canterbury to visit the tomb of St. Thomas à Becket,” Godmother told
her. “Do you notice how intently the poet is watching them?”
Betty glanced at him, and saw him smiling quietly as the procession
passed by.
“He will go home presently and perhaps begin to write the ‘Canterbury
Tales’ this very day, making an Introduction or _Prologue_ to it which
will describe all those people on horseback just as you see them.”
“Do look at that pretty nun. How she’s laughing!” exclaimed Betty. “Oh!
what a lovely coat!” she cried again, as a handsome young man rode by,
gaily and beautifully dressed. “And look at the fat woman with the
scarlet stockings, and the enormous hat.... But what a lot of monks and
nuns there are, aren’t there?”
“Yes,” agreed Godmother, “London is full of them. Everywhere there are
great rich monasteries, and some of the monks and nuns are becoming
very lazy and neglecting their duties. You may read in the Introduction
to the ‘Canterbury Tales’ how Chaucer makes fun of them. Though he
doesn’t forget to do honour to those of them who are good,” she added.
“Look at that kind-faced priest with the shabby robe. No doubt Chaucer
is at this moment planning how he will describe that very man as the
good priest, who practises what he preaches.”
Betty glanced at the poet again, and wondered what he was thinking.
“Let us follow the pilgrims a little way,” Godmother suggested. “Before
they actually leave London they are sure to go into some inn to have a
meal or to drink wine, and you would perhaps be interested to see what
fourteenth-century inns were like?”
Betty was more than willing, and glancing back she saw that the
quiet-looking, brown-clad poet was following them.
“Now we are in Southwark,” Godmother said as they went off the bridge
through the gateway under the tower. “Think of Southwark as you saw it
this morning! _There_,” she pointed to a meadow golden with buttercups,
“ran the railway bridge over which trains were thundering, and where as
far as you can see now, there are hedges and woods, if we had walked
this morning we should have gone through miles of streets in Bermondsey
and Newington.”
“Oh! And look at the church!” exclaimed Betty. “It’s the St. Saviour’s
we saw this morning, isn’t it? But that beautiful great building near
it is a monastery, I suppose?”
She remembered the narrow strip of churchyard she had seen a short time
previously, and gazed with astonishment at the gardens and broad green
lands that now surrounded the church.
“Oh, how different. _What_ a pity!” she sighed. “I wish we didn’t live
at the time we do, don’t you, Godmother?”
“Our times have _some_ advantages,” said Godmother. “We’ll count up our
blessings some day. But I agree that we haven’t improved Southwark,”
she went on, smiling. “A few houses, but only a few, as you see, are
standing on this side of the river in the fourteenth century, and most
of these, as you may notice, are inns.”
The train of pilgrims was entering the courtyard of one of them at the
moment, and soon Betty and Godmother stood in the archway looking round
at the quaint old place.
“This inn is called the _Tabard_,” Godmother told her. “It is the very
one that Chaucer, now, as you observe, talking to the fat landlord, is
going to describe as the meeting-place of his pilgrims.”
“What does the Tabard mean?” Betty asked, looking at the sign-board over
the main door. “There’s something painted on that sign, but I don’t
know what it is.”