SOME VERY OLD STORIES

The first story of London should tell who built it, and when, and why. But London is old, very old; it began before its builders had even thought of making books, and so its earliest history is written in the ground on which it stands, in its hills and valleys, its rivers and river-beds; and this is a kind of history which, if only we know how to read it, always tells the truth. Perhaps you are saying to yourself, “There is only one river in London, and that is the Thames; and there are no hills, London is flat; and as for the ground, who has seen the real ground on which London stands? Is it not all built over, or paved with wood or stones or cement? How, then, can we learn anything from it?” Sometimes old worn-out buildings have to be pulled down to their very foundations so that new houses may be put in their places, or a tube-railway or a tunnel has to be made, or gas-pipes or electric wires have to be laid under the roads; have you not seen navvies digging deep into the earth to do all these things? Then the secret things hidden in the ground are brought to light, and they teach us something of the very old history of the land.

Perhaps you know that the Hampstead and Highgate Hills lie four or five miles north of the Thames; and at about the same distance south of it are other hills, on one of which the Crystal Palace stands. Though we call the land between these hills the Thames Valley, it is not flat; and long ago, before London was built in it, it was much more uneven than it is now; for the more level roads are the easier it is for heavy carriages and carts to be pulled along them, so hollows have been filled up and hillocks cut down to make the ground as flat as possible. Even now, as you ride on the top of an omnibus through the long straight road called Oxford Street, if you watch carefully you may notice the rise and fall of the land, a little hill, then a little valley, and so on. Once through each of these valleys a stream ran down to the Thames. Where are they now? Some of them are underground arched over, built over, buried in the dark, out of sight. Look at the map on ; there you will find one of these rivers, which ran from the Highgate Woods southward to the Thames. It was called the Fleet, and has given its name to Fleet Street.

There were also some low hills quite close to the north bank of the river. Let us fancy that we have gone back through the ages, many hundreds of years before ever the Romans came to this country, and that we are standing you and I facing the river on one of those hills, that on which St. Paul’s now stands. What do we see? To our right, under its steep clay bank, so high it is almost a cliff, the Fleet runs on its way to the Thames; to our left is the hill; behind us, all the way up to the hills of Hampstead, are tangled forests, and in the low ground are wide marshes; and in front is the river. It is low-water; on either side of the stream are great stretches of mud and sand, wet marshy places, such as you may have seen at some place by the sea where the shore is very flat and the tide goes out very far. Beyond the marsh, on the southern shore, I think there is a wide shallow lake, for to this day some of the land there is below the level of the river at high-water. As we watch, look! a little rippling wave runs over the flats between the sand-banks; the tide has turned, how fast it rises, how far it spreads! Before long the wide waste before us is covered with grey waters; it has become a great lake or sea. Nowadays embankments, such as you see in picture 1, keep the river in its place; but in the long-ago times of which we are thinking every high tide must have spread far and wide over what is now dry land.

Could any people have wished to live in such a watery place? Yes, indeed they did; and under the bed of the Fleet River, near its mouth, traces have been found of their homes. That ancient people must have had many enemies, other men who fought them, fierce wild animals, wolves and other creatures which have not lived in England for hundreds and hundreds of years; and to defend themselves that people had such poor weapons, perhaps made only of bronze; so they sought for a very safe dwelling-place. Down into the muddy bed of the river they drove great wooden posts, such posts as men drive down now into river or sea when they are building a pier. The worn tops of those old timbers have been found showing up through the soil where once the Fleet ran; and on them once rested a platform of wood on which houses were built. Is not this a piece of history written in the soil? The first men who tried to read it understood more easily the meaning of those worn old posts because to this day the brown people, who live in one of the great islands to the south-east of Asia, build their houses on just such platforms out over the water.

How long did the men of that far-off time live in these strange river-dwellings? That we do not know; it may have been for very many years. At last (so some learned men believe) they built for themselves a fort or stronghold on the high land near-by, perhaps where St. Paul’s now stands, but more likely lower down the river, on the next hill; this stronghold may have been the beginning of London. If, as some people think, London means “The Fort of the Waters,” or “The Lake Fort,” was it not well named?

Up the river to this fort ships may sometimes have come, bringing merchants to buy pearls and skins of wild animals and slaves; and to pay for them with such things as the fierce Londoners of those days would like a sharp axe or a gay necklace.

The written history of London does not begin until the Romans had conquered and were ruling the land, more than a hundred years after their great general, Julius Cæsar, had first come here. They found London only a little group of huts, very likely made of wickerwork plastered over with mud, and surrounded by a poor wall and ditch. How much they did for it! They built round it the great walls which you see marked in our little map; so strong were they that parts of their foundations and of the walls themselves have been found even of late years. And many other traces of the Romans have been found in London coins, and weapons, and carvings. Near the Strand is a bath which once, perhaps, belonged to some Roman gentleman’s fine house. There were many such houses in and about London; and many a time the beautiful pavements of these houses, and even the pavements of the old Roman streets, have been found in the City down below the present streets and houses. The Romans made great roads which stretched out north, south, east, and west, from London; and they built a bridge over the Thames. In those days the people across the English Channel, the Gauls and Italians, were far wiser than the wild people of Britain; and roads and bridges made it possible for their trade, skill and wisdom to come to the people of London. A flourishing city it became under the Roman rule.

The years passed on and evil days befell the Roman Empire; the wild fierce northern races attacked it, and the Roman soldiers had to leave Britain and go back to defend Italy. Then there came to this country also sad days of war and trouble, for the English came over the North Sea, fought and conquered the Britons, and at last settled here. Then came the Danes, and there was more war, more fighting. During these dreadful times we hear little of London.

At last Alfred became King. Do you remember how many good things he did for England? One of the best of them was that in the year 886, as the ancient Chronicle or history of our country tells us, he built London Town, that is, he built again her walls and towers, and made her once more a strong city. Thus, with Alfred as her founder and protector, her later history begins. Year by year she grew greater and more important, until she became the greatest of all English cities and the capital of the land.

There is another and a very different story of Old London, and this is how it begins: “Brute, about the yeare of the world 2855 and 1108 before the nativitie of Christ” (that is, before Christ was born,) “builded this city neare unto the riuer (river) now called Thames, and named it Troynouant” that is, ‘New Troy.’ Now, this Brute belonged to the very same family as Romulus who built Rome; and he and his followers came across the sea to this island, in which then only a few giants were living, and he conquered them and took the land, and named it Britain after his own name, and his companions he called Britons.

There were more giants in Cornwall than in any other part of the land. One of them was called Goemagot; he was so strong that he could pull up an oak-tree as if it were only a hazel-wand. Now there was a great fight between the Britons and the Cornish giants, and all the giants were killed but Goemagot. Then he and a famous Briton fought together, and all men stood by to watch. At first it seemed that the giant would win for he wounded the Briton sorely; but, wounded as he was, the Briton heaved Goemagot up on his shoulders, ran with him to the shore, and flung him headlong into the sea; and (so says the story) the rock from which he fell is called “The Giant’s Leap” unto this day. All this happened near the place where Plymouth now stands. What has it to do with London? In the Guildhall, which is the Council Hall of London, are many statues of great and famous men, and here are also two great wooden giants called Gog and Magog; they are the City’s giants. Once they used to be carried in the Lord Mayor’s Show and in processions to make the people wonder. The older giant is said to be Goemagot; the other, the Briton who hurled him headlong into the sea.

Long after Brute died, Belinus became King. Of all his wonderful history I can tell you only this, he placed a great building in Trinovantum (that is, London,) upon the banks of the Thames, and the citizens called it, after his name, Billingsgate. Over it he built a huge tower, and under it a fair haven or quay for ships. “At last, when he had finished his days, his body was burned, and the ashes put up in a golden urn, which they placed with wonderful art on the top of the tower” which he himself had built. Have you ever heard of Billingsgate? It is the chief fish-market of London, and its wharf is the oldest on the Thames, so old that no one knows when fish were first landed and sold there.

Many years after Belinus built his great tower, Lud became King. He “not only repaired this Cittie” (that is, Trinovantum,) “but also increased the same with faire buildings, Towers and walles; and after his own name called it Caire Lud, as Lud’s towne.” And about sixty-six years before Christ was born he built a strong gate in the west part of the city, and he named it, in his own honour, Ludgate; and when he died his body was buried by this gate. Turn back to the little map of London on ; there you will find Ludgate marked. St. Paul’s Cathedral stands just to the east of it, on Ludgate Hill.

These stories were first written down by a Welsh priest called Geoffrey of Monmouth, who lived in the days of King Stephen; and long ago everyone believed they were true. Then came a time when people said what, perhaps, you are thinking, “These stories are only fairy-tales. Who made them up?” Well, Geoffrey of Monmouth said, in his book written nearly 800 years ago, that he had read them in a still older book which came out of Brittany. Who else had read this old book? No one, so Geoffrey said; so people left off believing them; they were put aside and forgotten. Now wise men think that they are really the old stories of our nation which have been passed down from father to son, and that perhaps the heroes of which they tell are the gods the people once worshipped, that Lud was a God of the Waters. If so, was it not very natural that he was worshipped in Old London on the shores of the Thames and the Fleet Rivers?

There is another hero, Bran the Blessed, of whom I must tell you. He too was King of the Isle of the Mighty, as Britain was called. He was so big no ship could contain him for he was like a mountain, and his eyes were like two lakes. In the end of his days he fought with the Irish in their own land until only he and seven of his followers were left alive, and he was wounded unto death. And he said to his followers, “Very soon I shall die; then cut off my head, and take it with you to London, and there bury it in the White Mountain looking towards France, and no foreigners shall invade the land while it is there.” Much more he told them of the manner of their coming to London, and all that he said came true, so that many years passed away before in the White Mount, where the Tower now stands, they buried the head. There it lay until Arthur dug it up, for he said, “The strong arm should defend the land.” He meant that the men of a nation should be its defence.

Arthur himself was proclaimed King in London. Perhaps you remember the old story of the child who was brought up so secretly that, when the King, his father, died, no one knew who was now the rightful King or, indeed, if there was one. Then, as Merlin the Magician had advised, the Archbishop of Canterbury called on all the great lords of the kingdom to come together in London; and there, one day, outside the greatest church in the City (was it St. Paul’s, I wonder?) they saw a great stone with a sword sticking in it; and round about the stone, written in letters of gold, were these words: “Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is right wise born King of England.” The great lords tried to pull it out, and not one of them could do so; but young Arthur, who had come to town with his foster-father and foster-brother, pulled it out easily, not because he wanted to show that he was the King, he does not seem to have known about this, but because his foster-brother had sent him to fetch a sword and he could get no other. Thus, all men knew that he was “right wise born King of England.”