Chapter IV: , VII (159)

"It is certain that, either under Constantine [the emperor]
himself, or under one of his immediate successors, the outer
wall was built. Though the building of the Roman wall, which
still in a sense defines the city boundaries, is an event in
the history of London not second in importance even to its
foundation, since it made a mere village and fort with a 'tête
du pont' into a great city and the capital of provincial
Britain, yet we have no records by which an exact date can be
assigned to it. All we know is that in 350 London had no wall:
and in 369 the wall existed. The new wall must have taken in
an immense tract of what was until then open country,
especially along the Watling Street, towards Cheap and
Newgate. It transformed London into Augusta; and though the
new name hardly appears on the page of history, and never
without a reference to the older one, its existence proves the
increase in estimation which was then accorded to the place.
The object of this extensive circumvallation is not very
clear. The population to be protected might very well have
been crowded into a much smaller space. … The wall enclosed
a space of 380 acres, being 5,485 yards in length, or 3 miles
and 205 yards. The portion along the river extended from
Blackfriars to the Tower."

_W. J. Loftie,
History of London,
chapter 2 (volume 1)._

"The historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote about A. D.
380, in the reign of Gratian, states that Londinium (he calls
it Lundinium) was in his days called Augusta. From him we
learn that Lupicinus, who was sent by Julian to repress the
inroads of the Scots and Picts, made Londinium his head
quarters, and there concerted the plan of the campaign. In the
reign of Valentinian Britain was again disturbed, not only by
the northern barbarians, but also by the Franks and Saxons.
Theodosius, who was appointed commander of the legions and
cohorts selected for this service, came from Boulogne, by way
of Rutupiæ, to Londinium, the same route taken a few years
previously by Lupicinus, and there he also matured his plan
for the restoration of the tranquillity of the province. It is
on this occasion that Marcellinus speaks twice of Londinium as
an ancient town, then called Augusta. By the anonymous
chorographer of Ravenna it is called Londinium Augusta; and it
is in this sense, a cognomen or distinguishing appellation, as
applied to a pre-eminent town or capital, that we must
probably understand the term as used by Marcellinus in
relation to Londinium. … The extent of Londinium, from
Ludgate on the west to the Tower on the east, was about a
mile, and about half a mile from the wall on the north (London
Wall) to the Thames, giving dimensions far greater than those
of any other Roman town in Britain. These were the limits of
the city when the Romans relinquished the dominion of the
island."

_Charles Roach Smith,
Illustrations of Roman London,
pages 11-12._

LONDON: 4th Century.
The growth of the Roman city.

"That London gradually increased in importance beyond the
dignity of a commercial city is plain, from the mention of it
in the Itinera, which show the number of marching roads
beginning and terminating there. … London then [in the times
of Julian and Theodosius] bore the name of 'Augusta,' or
'Londinium Augusta,' and this title is only applied to cities
of pre-eminent importance. The area of Roman London was
considerable, and, from discoveries made at different times,
appears to have extended with the growth of Roman power. The
walls when the Romans left Britain reached from Ludgate, on
the west, to the Tower on the east, about one mile in length,
and from London Wall to the Thames. … It also extended
across the river on the Kentish side."

_H. M. Scarth,
Roman Britain,
chapter 15._

"Roman Loudon was built on the elevated ground on both sides
of a stream, known in after time by the name of Wallbrook,
which ran into the Thames not far from Southwark Bridge. …
Its walls were identical with those which enclosed the
mediæval city of London. … The northern and north-eastern
parts of the town were occupied with extensive and—to judge
by the remains which have been brought to light—magnificent
mansions. … At the period to which our last chapter had
brought us [A. D. 353], the city had extended to the other
side of the Thames, and the borough of Southwark stands upon
ground which covers the floors of Roman houses and the pavings
of Roman streets."

_T. Wright,
Celt, Roman and Saxon,
chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_C. Roach Smith,
Antiquities of Roman London._

{2036}

LONDON: 6th-9th Centuries.
During the Saxon conquest and settlement.

For nearly half a century after its conquest by the
East-Saxons (which took place probably about the middle of the
6th century) London "wholly disappears from our view." "We
know nothing of the circumstances of its conquest, of the fate
of its citizens, or of the settlement of the conquerors within
its walls. That some such settlement had taken place, at least
as early as the close of the seventh century, is plain from
the story of Mellitus, when placed as bishop within its walls
[see ENGLAND: A. D. 597-685]; but it is equally plain that the
settlement was an English one, that the provincials had here
as elsewhere disappeared, and that the ruin of the city had
been complete. Had London merely surrendered to the
East-Saxons and retained its older population and municipal
life, it is hard to imagine how, within less than half a
century, its burghers could have so wholly lost all trace of
Christianity that not even a ruined church, as at Canterbury,
remained for the use of the Christian bishop, and that the
first care of Mellitus was to set up a mission church in the
midst of a heathen population. It is even harder to imagine
how all trace of the municipal institutions to which the Roman
towns clung so obstinately should have so utterly disappeared.
But more direct proofs of the wreck of the town meet us in the
stray glimpses which we are able to get of its earlier
topographical history. The story of early London is not that
of a settled community slowly putting off the forms of Roman
for those of English life, but of a number of little groups
scattered here and there over the area within the walls, each
growing up with its own life and institutions, gilds, sokes,
religious houses, and the like, and only slowly drawing
together into a municipal union which remained weak and
imperfect even at the Norman Conquest. … Its position indeed
was such that traffic could not fail to recreate the town; for
whether a bridge or a ferry existed at this time, it was here
that the traveller from Kent or Gaul would still cross the
Thames, and it was from London that the roads still diverged
which, silent and desolate as they had become, furnished the
means of communication to any part of Britain."

_J. R. Green,
The Conquest of England,
pages 149 and 452-459._

"London may be said after this time [early in the 9th century]
to be no longer the capital of one Saxon kingdom, but to be
the special property of whichever king of whichever kingdom
was then paramount in all England. When the supremacy of
Mercia declined, and that of Wessex arose, London went to the
conqueror. In 823, Egbert receives the submission of Essex,
and in 827 he is in London, and in 833 a Witan is held there,
at which he presides. Such are the scanty notes from which the
history of London during the so-called Heptarchy must be
compiled. … London had to bear the brunt of the attack [of
the Danes] at first. Her walls wholly failed to protect her.
Time after time the freebooters broke in. If the Saxons had
spared anything of Roman London, it must have disappeared now.
Massacre, slavery, and fire became familiar in her streets. At
last the Danes seemed to have looked on her as their
headquarters, and when, in 872, Alfred was forced to make
truce with them, they actually retired to London as to their
own city, to recruit. To Alfred, with his military experience
and political sagacity, the possession of London was a
necessity; but he had to wait long before he obtained it. His
preparations were complete in 884. The story of the conflict
is the story of his life. His first great success was the
capture of London after a short siege: to hold it was the task
of all his later years."

_W. J. Loftie,
History of London,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._

See, also,
ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.

LONDON: A. D. 1013-1016.
Resistance to the Danes.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 979-1016.

LONDON: 12th Century.
Magnitude and importance of the city.

"We find them [the Londoners] active in the civil war of
Stephen and Matilda. The famous bishop of Winchester tells the
Londoners that they are almost accounted as noblemen on
account of the greatness of their city; into the community of
which it appears that some barons had been received. Indeed,
the citizens, themselves, or at least the principal of them,
were called barons. It was certainly by far the greatest city
in England. There have been different estimates of its
population, some of which are extravagant; but I think it
could hardly have contained less than 30,000 or 40,000 souls
within its walls; and the suburbs were very populous."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 8, part 3 (volume 3)._

LONDON: 14th Century.
Guilds.
Livery Companies.

See GUILDS.

LONDON: A. D. 1381.
In the hands of the followers of Wat Tyler and John Ball.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1381.

LONDON: 16th Century.
In Shakespeare's time.

"The London of those days did not present the gigantic
uniformity of the modern metropolis, and had not as yet become
wholly absorbed in the whirl of business life. It was not as
yet a whole province covered with houses, but a city of
moderate size, surveyable from end to end, with walls and
gates, beyond which lay pleasant suburbs. … Compared with
the London of today, it possessed colour and the stamp of
originality; for, as in the southern climes, business and
domestic operations were carried on in the streets—and then
the red houses with their woodwork, high gables, oriel windows
and terraces, and the inhabitants in picturesque and gay
attire. The upper circles of society did not, as yet, live
apart in other districts; the nobility still had their
mansions among the burgher class and the working people. Queen
Elizabeth might be seen driving in an unwieldy gilt coach to
some solemn service in St. Paul's Cathedral, or riding through
the city to the Tower, to her hunting grounds, to a review of
her troops, or might be seen starting for Richmond or
Greenwich, accompanied by a brilliant retinue, on one of her
magnificent barges that were kept in readiness close to where
the theatres stood. Such a scene, with but little stretch of
the imagination, might have led Shakespeare to think of the
brilliant picture of Cleopatra on the Cydnus. The Thames was
crossed by one bridge only, and was still pure and clear as
crystal; swans swam about on it, and gardens and meadows lined
its banks where we now have dusty wharfs and warehouses.
Hundreds of boats would be skimming up and down the stream,
and incessant would be the calls between the boatmen of
'Westward ho!' or 'Eastward ho!' And yet the loungers in the
Temple Gardens and at Queenhithe could amuse themselves by
catching salmon.
{2037}
In the streets crowds would be passing to and fro; above all,
the well-known and dreaded apprentices, whose business it was
to attract customers by calling out in front of the shops:
'What d'ye lack, gentles? what d'ye lack? My ware is best!
Here shall you have your choice!' &c. Foreigners, too, of
every nationality, resident in London, would be met with. Amid
all this life every now and again would be seen the
perambulation of one or other of the guilds, wedding
processions, groups of country folk, gay companies of
train-bands and archers. … The city was rich in springs and
gardens, and the inhabitants still had leisure to enjoy their
existence; time had not yet come to be synonymous with money,
and men enjoyed their gossip at the barbers' and tobacconists'
shops; at the latter, instruction was even given in the art of
smoking, and in 1614 it is said that there were no less than
7,000 such shops in London. St. Paul's was a rendezvous for
promenaders and idle folk; and on certain days, Smithfield and
its Fair would be the centre of attraction; also Bartholomew
Fair, with its puppet-shows and exhibitions of curiosities,
where Bankes and his dancing-horse Morocco created a great
sensation for a long time; Southwark, too, with its Paris
Garden, attracted visitors to see the bear-baiting; it was
here that the famous bear Sackerson put the women in a
pleasant state of flutter; Master Slender had seen the bear
loose twenty times, and taken it by the chain. No less
attractive were the bowling-alleys, the fights at the Cock-pit
and the tent-pegging in the tiltyard; and yet all these
amusements were even surpassed by the newly-risen star of the
theatre. … The population of London during the reign of the
Bloody Mary is estimated by the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni
Micheli, at 150,000, or, according to other MS. reports of
his, at 180,000 souls. The population must have increased at
an almost inconceivable rate, if we are to trust the reports
of a second Venetian ambassador, Marc Antonio Correr, who, in
1610, reckoned the number of inhabitants at 300,000 souls;
however, according to Raumer, another Venetian, Molino,
estimated the population at 300,000 in 1607. The number of
foreigners in London was extremely large, and in 1621 the
colony of foreigners of all nations found settled there
amounted to no less than 10,000 persons. Commerce, trade, and
the industries were in a very flourishing state. The Thames
alone, according to John Norden in his MS. description of
Essex (1594), gave occupation to 40,000 men as boatmen,
sailors, fishermen, and others. Great political and historical
events had put new life into the English nation, and given it
an important impetus, which manifested itself in London more
especially, and exercised a stimulating influence upon
literature and poetry. Indeed, it may be said that Shakespeare
had the good fortune of having his life cast in one of the
greatest historical periods, the gravitating point of which
lay principally in London."

_K. Elze,
William Shakespeare,
chapter 3._

LONDON: A. D. 1647.
Outbreak against the Independents and the Army.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST).

LONDON: A. D. 1665
The Great Plague.

"The water supply, it is now generally acknowledged, is the
first cause of epidemic disease. In London, at the beginning
of the reign of James I., it was threefold. Some water came to
public conduits, like those in Cheap, by underground pipes
from Tyburn. Some was drawn by water-wheels and other similar
means from the Thames, polluted as it was, at London Bridge. A
third source of supply was still more dangerous: in all the
suburbs, and probably also in most houses in the city itself,
people depended on wells. What wells among habitations, and
especially filthy habitations, become, we know now, but in the
17th century, and much later, the idea of their danger had not
been started. Such being the conditions of existence in
London; the plague now and then smouldering for a year or two,
now and then breaking out as in 1603, 1625, and 1636, a long
drouth, which means resort to half dry and stagnant
reservoirs, was sufficient to call it forth in all its
strength. The heat of the summer weather in 1665 was such that
the very birds of the air were imagined to languish in their
flight. The 7th of June, said Pepys, was the hottest day that
ever he felt in his life. The deaths from the plague, which
had begun at the end of the previous year, in the suburb of
St. Giles' in the Fields, at a house in Long Acre, where two
Frenchmen had died of it, rose during June from 112 to 268.
The entries in the diary are for four months almost continuous
as to the progress of the plague. Although it was calculated
that not less than 200,000 people had followed the example of
the king and court, and fled from the doomed city, yet the
deaths increased daily. The lord mayor, Lawrence, held his
ground, as did the brave earl of Craven and General Monk, now
became duke of Albemarle. Craven provided a burial-ground, the
Pest Field, with a kind of cottage-hospital in Soho; but the
only remedy that could be devised by the united wisdom of the
corporation, fortified by the presence of the duke and the
earl, was to order fires in all the streets, as if the weather
was not already hot enough. Medical art seems to have utterly
broken down. Those of the sick who were treated by a
physician, only died a more painful death by cupping,
scarifying and blistering. The city rectors, too, who had come
back with the king, fled from the danger, as might be expected
from their antecedents, and the nonconformist lecturers who
remained had overwhelming congregations wherever they preached
repentence to the terror-stricken people. … The symptoms
were very distressing. Fever and vomiting were among the
first, and every little ailment was thought premonitory, so
that it was said at the time that as many died of fright as of
the disease itself. … The fatal signs were glandular
swellings which ran their course in a few hours, the plague
spots turning to gangrene almost as soon as they appeared. The
patients frequently expired the same day that they were
seized. … The most terrible stories of premature burial were
circulated. All business was suspended. Grass grew in the
streets. No one went about. The rumbling wheels of the cart,
and the cry, 'Bring out your dead!' alone broke the stillness
of the night. … In the first weeks of September the number
of fatal cases rose to 1,500 a day, the bills of mortality
recording 24,000 deaths between the 1st and 21st of that
month. Then at last it began to decline, but rose again at the
beginning of October.
{2038}
A change of weather at length occurred, and the average
declined so rapidly that, by the beginning of November, the
number of deaths was reduced to 1,200, and before Christmas
came it had fallen to the usual number of former years. In
all, the official statements enumerated 97,306 deaths during
the year, and, if we add those unrecorded, a very moderate
estimate of the whole mortality would place it at the
appalling figure of 100,000 at least."

_W. J. Loftie,
History of London,
chapter 11 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN;
_S. Pepys,
Diary, 1665._

LONDON: A. D. 1666.
The Great Fire.

"While the war [with the Dutch] continued without any decisive
success on either side, a calamity happened in London which
threw the people into great consternation. Fire, breaking out
[September 2, 1666] in a baker's house near the bridge, spread
itself on all sides with such rapidity that no efforts could
extinguish it, till it laid in ashes a considerable part of
the city. The inhabitants, without being able to provide
effectually for their relief, were reduced to be spectators of
their own ruin; and were pursued from street to street by the
flames which unexpectedly gathered round them. Three days and
nights did the fire advance; and it was only by the blowing up
of houses that it was at last extinguished. … About 400
streets and 13,000 houses were reduced to ashes. The causes of
the calamity were evident. The narrow streets of London, the
houses built entirely of wood, the dry season, and a violent
east wind which blew; these were so many concurring
circumstances which rendered it easy to assign the reason of
the destruction that ensued. But the people were not satisfied
with this obvious account. Prompted by blind rage, some
ascribed the guilt to the republicans, others to the
Catholics. … The fire of London, though at that time a great
calamity, has proved in the issue beneficial both to the city
and the kingdom. The city was rebuilt in a very little time,
and care was taken to make the streets wider and more regular
than before. … London became much more healthy after the
fire."

_D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 64._

"I went this morning [September 7] on foot from Whitehall as
far as London Bridge, thro' the late Fleete-street, Ludgate
hill, by St. Paules, Cheapeside, Exchange, Bishopsgate,
Aldersgate, and out to Moorefields, thence through Cornehill,
&c., with extraordinary difficulty, clambering over heaps of
yet smoking rubbish, and frequently mistaking where I was. The
ground under my feete so hot, that it even burnt the soles of
my shoes. … At my returne I was infinitely concerned to find
that goodly Church St. Paules now a sad ruine. … Thus lay in
ashes that most venerable church, one of the most ancient
pieces of early piety in ye Christian world, besides neere 100
more. … In five or six miles traversing about I did not see
one loade of timber unconsum'd, nor many stones but what were
calcin'd white as snow. … I then went towards Islington and
Highgate, where one might have seen 200,000 people of all
ranks and degrees dispers'd and lying along by their heaps of
what they could save from the fire, deploring their losse, and
tho' ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not
asking one penny for reliefe, which to me appear'd a stranger
sight than any I had yet beheld."

_J. Evelyn,
Diary,
September 7, 1666 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_S. Pepys,
Diary, September 2-15, 1666
(volume 4)._

_L. Phillimore,
Sir Christopher Wren,
chapters 6-7._

LONDON: A. D. 1685.
The most populous capital in Europe.
The first lighting of the streets.

"There is reason to believe that, in 1685, London had been,
during about half a century, the most populous capital in
Europe. The inhabitants, who are now [1848] at least
1,900,000, were then probably little more than half a million.
London had in the world only one commercial rival, now long
ago outstripped, the mighty and opulent Amsterdam. … There
is, indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis then
bore a far greater proportion than at present to the whole
trade of the country; yet to our generation the honest
vaunting of our ancestors must appear almost ludicrous. The
shipping which they thought incredibly great appears not to
have exceeded 70,000 tons. This was, indeed, then more than a
third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom. … It ought to be
noticed that, in the last year of the reign of Charles II.
[1685], began a great change in the police of London, a change
which has perhaps added as much to the happiness of the body
of the people as revolutions of much greater fame. An
ingenious projector, named Edward Heming, obtained letters
patent conveying to him, for a term of years, the exclusive
right of lighting up London. He undertook, for a moderate
consideration, to place a light before every tenth door, on
moonless nights, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to
twelve of the clock."

_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._

LONDON: A. D. 1688.
The Irish Night.

The ignominious flight of James II. from his capital, on the
morning of December 11, 1688, was followed by a wild outbreak
of riot in London, which no effective authority existed to
promptly repress. To the cry of "No Popery," Roman Catholic
chapels and the residences of ambassadors of Roman Catholic
States, were sacked and burned. "The morning of the 12th of
December rose on a ghastly sight. The capital in many places
presented the aspect of a city taken by storm. The Lords met
at Whitehall, and exerted themselves to restore tranquillity.
… In spite, however, of the well-meant efforts of the
provisional government, the agitation grew hourly more
formidable. … Another day of agitation and terror closed,
and was followed by a night the strangest and most terrible
that England had ever seen." Just before his flight, King
James had sent an order for the disbanding of Ins army, which
had been composed for the most part of troops brought over
from Ireland. A terrifying rumor that this disbanded Irish
soldiery was marching on London, and massacring men, women and
children on the road, now spread through the city. "At one in
the morning the drums of the militia beat to arms. Everywhere
terrified women were weeping and wringing their hands, while
their fathers and husbands were equipping themselves for
fight. Before two the capital wore a face of stern
preparedness which might well have daunted a real enemy, if
such an enemy had been approaching. Candles were blazing at
all the windows. The public places were as bright as at
noonday. All the great avenues were barricaded. More than
20,000 pikes and muskets lined the streets. The late daybreak
of the winter solstice found the whole City still in arms.
During many years the Londoners retained a vivid recollection
of what they called the Irish Night. … The panic had not
been confined to London. The cry that disbanded Irish soldiers
were coming to murder the Protestants had, with malignant
ingenuity, been raised at once in many places widely distant
from each other."

_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 10._

{2039}

LONDON: A. D. 1780.
The Gordon No-Popery Riots.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1778-1780.

LONDON: A. D. 1848.
The last Chartist demonstration.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1848.

LONDON: A. D. 1851.
The great Exhibition.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1851.

----------LONDON: End----------

LONDON COMPANY FOR VIRGINIA, A. D. 1606-1625.
Charter and undertakings in Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607, and after.

LONDON COMPANY FOR VIRGINIA. D. 1619.
The unused patent granted to the Pilgrims at Leyden.

See INDEPENDENTS OR SEPARATISTS: A. D. 1617-1620;
and, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620, and 1621.

----------LONDONDERRY: Start--------

LONDONDERRY:
Origin and Name.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611.

LONDONDERRY: A. D. 1688.
The shutting of the gates by the Prentice Boys.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.

LONDONDERRY: A. D. 1689.
The Siege.

James II. fled in December, 1688, to France, from the
Revolution in England which gave his throne to his daughter
Mary, and her husband, William of Orange. He received aid from
the French king and was landed in Ireland the following March,
to attempt the maintenance of his sovereignty in that kingdom,
if no more. Almost immediately upon his arrival he led his
forces against Londonderry, where a great part of the
Protestants of Ulster had taken refuge, and William and Mary
had been proclaimed. "The city in 1689 was contained within
the walls; and it rose by a gentle ascent from the base to the
summit of a hill. The whole city was thus exposed to the fire
of an enemy. There was no moat nor counterscarp. A ferry
crossed the river Foyle from the east gate, and the north gate
opened upon a quay. At the entrance of the Foyle was the
strong fort of Culmore, with a smaller fort on the opposite
bank. About two miles below the city were two forts—Charles
Fort and Grange Fort. The trumpeter sent by the king with a
summons to the obstinate city found the inhabitants 'in very
great disorder, having turned out their governor Lundy, upon
suspicion.' The cause of this unexpected reception was the
presence of 'one Walker, a minister.' He was opposed to Lundy,
who thought the place untenable, and counselled the townsmen
to make conditions; 'but the fierce minister of the Gospel,
being of the true Cromwellian or Cameronian stamp, inspired
them with bolder resolutions.' The reverend George Walker and
Major Baker were appointed governors during the siege. They
mustered 7,020 soldiers, dividing them into regiments under
eight colonels. In the town there were about 30,000 souls; but
they were reduced to a less burdensome number, by 10,000
accepting an offer of the besieging commander to restore them
to their dwellings. There were, according to Lundy's
estimation, only provisions for ten days. The number of cannon
possessed by the besieged was only twenty. On the 20th of
April the city was invested, and the bombardment was begun.
… No impression was made during nine days upon the
determination to hold out; and on the 29th King James retraced
his steps to Dublin, in considerable ill humour. The siege
went on for six weeks with little change. Hamilton was now the
commander of James's forces. The garrison of Londonderry and
the inhabitants were gradually perishing from fatigue and
insufficient food. But they bravely repelled an assault, in
which 400 of the assailants fell. … Across the narrow part
of the river, from Charles Fort to Grange Fort, the enemy
stretched a great boom of fir-timber, joined by iron chains,
and fastened on either shore by cables of a foot thick. On the
15th of June an English fleet of thirty sail was descried in
the Lough. Signals were given and answered; but the ships lay
at anchor for weeks. At the end of June, Baker, one of the
heroic governors, died. Hamilton had been superseded in his
command by Rosen, who issued a savage proclamation, declaring
that unless the place were surrendered by the 1st of July, he
would collect all the Protestants from the neighbouring
districts, and drive them under the walls of the city to
starve with those within the walls. A famished troop came thus
beneath the walls of Londonderry, where they lay starving for
three days. The besieged immediately threatened to hang all
the prisoners within the city. This threat had its effect, and
the famished crowd wended back their way to their solitary
villages. It is but justice to James to say that he expressed
his displeasure at this proceeding."

_C. Knight,
Crown History of England,
chapter 34._

"The state of the city was, hour by hour, becoming more
frightful. The number of the inhabitants had been thinned more
by famine and disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet that
fire was sharper and more constant than ever. … Every attack
was still repelled. But the fighting men of the garrison were
so much exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs.
Several of them, in the act of striking at the enemy, fell
down from mere weakness. A very small quantity of grain
remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted
hides was considerable, and by gnawing them the garrison
appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of
the slain who lay unburied round the town, were luxuries which
few could afford to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was
five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were still alive, and
but barely alive. They were so lean that little meat was
likely to be found upon them. It was, however, determined to
slaughter them for food. … The whole city was poisoned by
the stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half
dead. … It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of
the garrison that all this time the English ships were seen
far off in Lough Foyle." At length, positive orders from
England compelled Kirke, the commander of the relieving
expedition "to make an attempt which, as far as appears, he
might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of
success, six weeks earlier." Two merchant ships, the Mountjoy
and the Phœnix, loaded with provisions, and the Dartmouth, a
frigate of thirty-six guns, made a bold dash up the river,
broke the great boom, ran the gauntlet of forts and batteries,
and reached the city at ten o'clock in the evening of the 28th
of July.
{2040}
The captain of the Mountjoy was killed in the heroic
undertaking, but Londonderry, his native town, was saved. The
enemy continued their bombardment for three days more. "But,
on the third night, flames were seen arising from the camp;
and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins
marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers.
… So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the
annals of the British isles. It had lasted 105 days. The
garrison had been reduced from about 7,000 effective men to
about 3,000. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely
ascertained. Walker estimated it at 8,000 men."

_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 12._

ALSO in:
_W. H. Torriano,
William the Third,
chapter 21._

See, also, IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

----------LONDONDERRY: End--------

LONE JACK, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

LONE STAR, Order of the.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

LONE STAR FLAG. LONE STAR STATE.

On assuming independence, in 1836, the republic of Texas
adopted a flag bearing a single star, which was known as 'the
flag of the lone Star.' With reference to this emblem, Texas
is often called the Lone Star State.

----------LONG ISLAND: Start--------

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1614.
Explored by the Dutch.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1624.
Settlement of Brooklyn.

See BROOKLYN.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1634.
Embraced in the Palatine grant of New Albion.

See NEW ALBION.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1650.
Division between the Dutch of New Netherland and the English
of Connecticut.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1650.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1664.
Title acquired for the Duke of York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1673.
The Dutch reconquest.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1674.
Annexed to New York.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1674-1675.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1776.
The defeat of the American army by Lord Howe.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (AUGUST).

----------LONG ISLAND: End--------

LONG KNIVES, The.

See YANKEE.

LONG PARLIAMENT.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1641.

LONG WALLS OF ATHENS.

The walls which the Athenians built, B. C. 457, one, four
miles long, to the harbor of Phalerum, and others, four and
one half miles long, to the Piræus, to protect the
communication of their city with its port, were called the
Long Walls. The same name had been previously given to the
walls built by the Athenians to protect the communication of
Megara, then their ally, with its port of Nisæa; and Corinth
had, also, its Long Walls, uniting it with the port Lechæum.
The Long Walls of Athens were destroyed on the surrender of
the city, at the termination of the Peloponnesian War, B. C.
404, and rebuilt, B. C. 393, by Conon, with Persian help.

See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.

LONGJUMEAU, Peace of (1568).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

LONGSTREET, General James.
Siege of Knoxville.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: TENNESSEE).

LONGUEVILLE,
The Duchess de, and the Fronde.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1649, to 1651-1653.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, its position, and the battle on it.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE);
and (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

LOOM, Cartwright's invention of the power.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

LOPEZ, The Tyranny of.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

LOPEZ FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITION (1851).

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

LORD.

"Every Teutonic King or other leader was surrounded by a band
of chosen warriors, personally attached to him of their own
free choice [see COMITATUS]. … The followers served their
chief in peace and in war; they fought for him to the death,
and rescued or avenged his life with their own. In return,
they shared whatever gifts or honours the chief could
distribute among them; and in our tongue at least it was his
character of dispenser of gifts which gave the chief his
official title. He was the 'Hlaford,' the 'Loaf-giver,' a name
which, through a series of softenings and contractions, and
with a complete forgetfulness of its primitive meaning, has
settled down into the modern form of Lord."

_E. A. Freeman,
History Norman Conquests,
chapter 3, section 2 (volume 1)._

On the Latin equivalent, 'Dominus,'

See IMPERATOR: FINAL SIGNIFICATION.

LORD CHANCELLOR, The.

See CHANCELLOR.

LORD DUNMORE'S WAR.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

LORDS, British House of.

"The ancient National Assembly [of England] gradually ceased
to be anything more than an assembly of the 'greater barons,'
and ultimately developed into a hereditary House of Lords, the
Upper House of the National Parliament. The hereditary
character of the House of Lords—now long regarded as fixed
and fundamental—accrued slowly and undesignedly, as a
consequence of the hereditary descent of the baronial fiefs,
practically inalienable, in right of which summonses to the
national council were issued."

_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
chapter 7._

"The English aristocracy is a typical example of the way in
which a close corporation dies out. Its members are almost
always wealthy in the first instance, and their estates have
been constantly added to by favour from the Crown, by
something like the monopoly of the best Government
appointments, and by marriages with wealthy heiresses. They
are able to command the field sports and open-air life that
conduce to health, and the medical advice that combats
disease. Nevertheless, they die out so rapidly that only five
families out of nearly six hundred go back without a break,
and in the male line, to the fifteenth century. … 155 peers
were summoned to the first Parliament of James II. In 1825,
only 140 years later, only forty-eight of these nobles were
represented by lineal descendants in the male line. The family
has in several instances been continued by collaterals begging
the peerage, which they could not have claimed at law, and in
this way the change may seem less than it has really been; but
the broad result appears to be that left to itself from 1688,
with new creations absolutely forbidden, the House of Lords
would by this time have been practically extinguished.
{2041}
Of Charles II. 's six bastards, who were made dukes, only
three have perpetuated the race. Three peerages have been lost
to the Howard family, three to the Greys, two to the
Mordaunts, two to the Hydes, two to the Gerards, and two to
the Lucases. … It is in the lower strata of society that we
have to seck for the springs of national life."

_C. H. Pearson,
National Life and Character,
pages 70-73._

"The British peerage is something unique in the world. In
England there is, strictly speaking, no nobility. This saying
may indeed sound like a paradox. The English nobility, the
British aristocracy, are phrases which are in everybody's
mouth. Yet, in strictness, there is no such thing as an
aristocracy or a nobility in England. There is undoubtedly an
aristocratic element in the English constitution; the House of
Lords is that aristocratic element. And there have been times
in English history when there has been a strong tendency to
aristocracy, when the lords have been stronger than either the
king or the people. … But a real aristocracy, like that of
Venice, an aristocracy not only stronger than either king or
people, but which had driven out both king and people, an
aristocracy from whose ranks no man can come down and into
whose ranks no man can rise save by the act of the privileged
body itself,—such an aristocracy as this England has never
seen. Nor has England ever seen a nobility in the true sense,
the sense which the word bears in every continental land, a
body into which men may be raised by the king, but from which
no man may come down, a body which hands on to all its
members, to the latest generations, some kind of privilege or
distinction, whether its privileges consist in substantial
political power, or in bare titles and precedence. In England
there is no nobility. The so-called noble family is not noble
in the continental sense; privilege does not go on from
generation to generation; titles and precedence are lost in
the second or third generation; substantial privilege exists
in only one member of the family at a time. The powers and
privileges of the peer himself are many; but they belong to
himself only; his children are legally commoners; his
grandchildren are in most cases undistinguishable from other
commoners. … A certain great position in the state is
hereditary; but nobility in the strict sense there is none.
The actual holder of the peerage has, as it were, drawn to his
own person the whole nobility of the family."

_E. A. Freeman,
Practical Bearings of European History
(Lectures to American Audiences),
pages 305-307._

"At the end of 1892 there were 545 members of the House of
Lords, made up thus:
Peers, 469;
Lords of Appeal and Ex-Lords of Appeal, 5;
Representative Peers of Scotland, 16;
Representative Peers of Ireland, 28;
Lords Spiritual, 27.

The Lords of Appeal are lawyers of great distinction who are
appointed by the Queen and hold office during good behavior.
Their number is always about the same. Their work is mainly
judicial; but these Law Lords, as they are called, also speak
and vote in the deliberative and legislative proceedings of
the Upper House. The position of a Lord of Appeal differs from
that of an ordinary peer in that his office is not hereditary.
As regards the representative peers, those from Ireland, who
number 28, are elected for life; those from Scotland, who
number 16, are elected at a meeting of Scotch peers, held in
Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, after each General Election, and
hold office during the lifetime of a Parliament. The Lords
Spiritual include (1) the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Durham, and
Winchester; and (2) twenty-two out of the other twenty-nine
bishops of the Church of England. The prelates whose titles
have been given take their seats in the House immediately on
appointment; the other bishops take their seats by order of
seniority of consecration. The prelates who are without seats
in the House of Lords are known as junior bishops. The Bishop
of Sodor and Man has a seat in the House of Lords, but no
vote."

_E. Porritt,
The Englishman at Home,
chapter 6._

For an account of the transient abolition of the House of
Lords in 1649,

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).

See, also, PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH;
and ESTATES, THE THREE.

LORDS OF ARTICLES.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1326-1603; and 1688-1690.

LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1557; and 1558-1560.

LORDS OF THE ISLES.

See HEBRIDES: A. D. 1346-1504;
and HARLAW, BATTLE OF.

LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL, The.

See ESTATES, THE THREE.

LORENZO DE' MEDICI (called The Magnificent),
The rule of.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492.

----------LORRAINE: Start--------

LORRAINE: A. D. 843-870.
Formation and dissolution of the kingdom.

In the division of the empire of Charlemagne among his three
grandsons, made by the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, the elder,
Lothaire, bearing the title of Emperor, received the kingdom
of Italy, and, with it, another kingdom, named, after himself,
Lotharingia—afterwards called Lorraine. This latter was so
formed as to be an extension northwestwardly of his Italian
kingdom, and to stretch in a long belt between the Germanic
dominion of his brother Ludwig and the Francia Nova, or
France, of his brother Charles. It extended "from the mouth of
the Rhine to Provence, bounded by that river on one frontier,
by France on the other."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 1, part 1, note._

"Between these two states [of the Eastern and Western, or
Germanic and Gallic Franks] the policy of the ninth century
instinctively put a barrier, The Emperor Lothar, besides
Italy, kept a long narrow strip of territory between the
dominions of his Eastern and Western brothers. … This land,
having … been the dominion of two Lothars, took the name of
Lotharingia, Lothringen, or Lorraine, a name which part of it
has kept to this day. This land, sometimes attached to the
Eastern kingdom, sometimes to the Western, sometimes divided
between the two, sometimes separated from both, always kept
its character of a border-land. … Lotharingia took in the
two duchies of the Ripuarian Lotharingia and Lotharingia on
the Mosel. The former contains a large part of the modern
Belgium and the neighboring lands on the Rhine, including the
royal city of Aachen. Lotharingia on the Mosel answers roughly
to the later duchy of that name, though its extent to the East
is considerably larger."

_E. A. Freeman,
Historical Geography of Europe,
chapter 6, section 1._

{2042}

"Upon the death of the Emperor Lothair [A. D. 855] his share
of the Carlovingian inheritance, the Kingdom acquired by
disobedience, violence, deceit and fraud, sustained further
partitions: Lothair's piece of the rent garment was clutched
and tattered again and again by his nearest of kin, his three
sons, and their two uncles, and the sons and the sons' sons of
his sons and uncles, till the lineage ended. … The Emperor
Lothair had directed and confirmed the partition of his third
of the Carlovingian Empire, appointed to him by the treaty of
Verdun." His namesake, his second son, Lothair II., received
the kingdom called "Lotharingia, Lothierregne, or Lorraine,"
and which is defined in the terms of modern geography as
follows: "The thirteen Cantons of Switzerland with their
allies and tributaries, East or Free Friesland, Oldenburgh,
the whole of the United Netherlands, all other territories
included in the Archbishopric of Utrecht, the Trois Evéchés,
Metz, Toul and Verdun, the electorates of Trèves and of
Cologne, the Palatine Bishopric of Liège, Alsace and
Franche-Comté, Hainault and the Cambresis, Brabant (known in
intermediate stages as Basse-Lorraine, or the Duchy of
Lohier), Namur, Juliers and Cleves, Luxemburgh and Limburg,
the Duchy of Bar and the Duchy which retained the name of
Lorraine, the only memorial of the antient and dissolved
kingdom. … After King Lothair's death [A. D. 869] nine
family competitors successively came into the field for that
much-coveted Lotharingia." Charles the Bald, one of the uncles
of the deceased king,—he who held the Neustrian or French
dominion,—took possession and got himself crowned king of
Lotharingia. But the rival uncle, Louis the German, soon
forced him (A. D. 870) to a division of the spoils. "The lot
of Charles consisted of Burgundy and Provence, and most of
those Lotharingian dominions where the French or Walloon
tongue was and yet is spoken; … he also took some purely
Belgic territories, especially that very important district
successively known as Basse-Lorraine, the Duchy of Lohier, and
Brabant. Modern history is dawning fast upon us.
Louis-le-Germanique received Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Treves,
Utrecht, Strasburgh, Metz,—indeed nearly all the territories
of the Belgic and German tongues."

_Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
volume 1, pages 361-370._

See, also, VERDUN, TREATY OF.

LORRAINE: A. D. 911-980.
The dukedom established.

The definite separation of the East Franks, who ultimately
constituted the Germany of modern history, from the West or
Neustrian Franks, out of whose political organization sprang
the kingdom of France, took place in 911, when the Franconian
duke Conrad was elected king by the Germanic nations, and the
rule of the Carolingian princes was ended for them. In this
proceeding Lotharingia, or Lorraine, refused to concur.
"Nobles and people held to the old imperial dynasty. …
Opinions, customs, traditions, still rendered the
Lotharingians mainly members of Romanized Gaul. They severed
themselves from the Germans beyond the Rhine, separated by
influences more powerful than the stream." The Lotharingians,
accordingly, repudiated the sovereignty of Conrad and placed
themselves under the rule of Charles the Simple, the
Carolingian king then struggling to maintain his slender
throne at Laon. "Twice did King Conrad attempt to win
Lotharingia and reunite the Rhine-kingdom to the German realm:
he succeeded in obtaining Alsace, but the remainder was
resolutely retained by Charles." In 916 this remainder was
constituted a duchy, by Charles, and conferred upon Gilbert,
son of Rainier, Count of Hainault, who had been the leader of
the movement against Conrad and the Germanic nations. A little
later, when the Carolingian dynasty was near its end, Henry
the Fowler and his son Otho, the great German king who revived
the empire, recovered the suzerainty of Lorraine, and Otho
gave it to his brother Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne. Under
Bruno it was divided into two parts, Upper and Lower Lorraine.
Lower Lorraine was subsequently conferred by Otho II. upon his
cousin Charles, brother to Lothaire, the last of the French
Carolingian kings. "The nature and extent of this same grant
has been the subject of elaborate critical enquiry; but, for
our purposes, it is sufficient to know, that Charles is
accepted by all the historical disputants as first amongst the
hereditary Dukes of the 'Basse-Lorraine'; and, having received
investiture, he became a vassal of the Emperor." In 980, this
disposition of Lower Lorraine was ratified by Lothaire, the
French king, who, "abandoning all his rights and pretensions
over Lorraine, openly and solemnly renounced the dominions,
and granted the same to be held without let or interference
from the French, and be subjected for ever to the German
Empire."

_Sir F. Palgrave,
History of Normandy and England,
book 1, part 2, chapter 1
and chapter 4, part 2._

"Lotharingia retained its Carolingian princes, but it retained
them only by definitively becoming a fief of the Teutonic
Kingdom. Charles died in prison, but his children continued to
reign in Lotharingia as vassals of the Empire. Lotharingia was
thus wholly lost to France; that portion of it which was
retained by the descendants of Charles in the female line
still preserves its freedom as part of the independent Kingdom
of Belgium."

_E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 4, section 4 (volume 1)._

LORRAINE: A. D. 1430.
Acquisition of the duchy by René, Duke of Anjou
and Count of Provence, afterwards King of Naples.
Union with Bar.

See ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1476.
Short-lived conquest by Charles the Bold.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1476-1477.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1505-1559.
Rise of the Guises, a branch of the ducal house.
Cession to France of Les Trois Evéchés.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.
Quarrels and war of Duke Charles IV. with Richelieu and France.
Ruin and depopulation of the duchy.
Its possession by the French.