Chapter IV: Part 4

In a moment Betty found herself in a round wooden place, part of which was open to the sky, though the stage facing her, was protected by an overhanging thatched roof. Three galleries, one above the other, ran round the theatre, and these were thronged with people. On the stage, which jutted out into the open-air part of the building, another smaller stage was set with a gallery above it, filled with musicians in funny tall hats trimmed with ribbons. Some young men were sitting actually on the stage itself, while the poorer people stood in the open space in front of it, with nothing but the sky above their heads. There was a perfect babel of noise, for hawkers were moving about calling nuts and ale and apples to sell, the young gallants on the stage were playing at dice and quarrelling, and the whole place seemed in confusion. Then there was a flourish of trumpets from the musicians’ gallery and suddenly everything was quiet.

“There have been two trumpet sounds before we came in,” Godmother explained. “This third one means that the play is going to begin.”

“I know what it is,” whispered Betty. “I saw some funny little play-bills on the door outside. It’s _Richard the Second_—and that’s all about the very reign we were in when we came to old London last time!”

Her eyes were now fixed on the stage, which was hung round with curtains, and strewn with green rushes. There was no scenery except one roughly-painted canvas stretched across the back of the smaller stage, above which, on a board, was written _King Richard’s Palace_.

“That was _Westminster_, wasn’t it?” whispered Betty, just as King Richard himself, John of Gaunt and a train of nobles walked on to the stage, and the King began his first speech.

“_Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured, Lancaster_——”

“But they’re none of them dressed a bit like the people they’re meant to be,” she objected. “They’re wearing the same sort of clothes as the people in the audience have on!”

“Yes, the Elizabethans don’t trouble about that,” Godmother replied, “and neither right costume nor proper scenery makes good acting, you know. If we had time to stay and listen, we should hear this play very well acted. Do you notice how breathlessly quiet the audience is?”

Betty followed her guide reluctantly out of this strange theatre, looking back at the curtain-hung stage, with the young men in their short velvet cloaks, seated on stools close to the players, at the crowd standing in the open space under the blue sky, and at the circular galleries thronged with people.

“So that’s how the theatres we go to now, began, I suppose?” she asked.

“Not quite. Even that rough, simple sort of building we’ve just left is an advance upon what the grandfathers of these people saw in the way of stage performances. Till the Globe, and one or two other theatres (which I’ll show you in a minute) were built, a few years ago, the plays were acted in the courtyards of inns. Let us come into the yard of this one, and I’ll explain.”

They went under an archway, and found themselves outside the Falcon Inn.

“There,” said Godmother, pointing to the wooden galleries into which the rooms of the tavern opened. “Inns like this one, were the first theatres. The stage was a number of boards laid upon trestles, and placed at the end of the courtyard. The poorer people stood here where we are standing, in the middle of the yard, and from the galleries, the richer people looked on. You see how the same sort of arrangement goes on in the new Globe theatre, only it is built in a _circle_, instead of in a square, and the stage at least, is protected from the weather by a roof. If you think of any theatre in our own day, you will see that there’s more than a memory in it, of these inns, and that rough building from which we’ve just come. The _pit_ is the yard, or open space. The Dress Circle and ‘Gallery’ correspond to the galleries round the inn, or round a building like the _Globe_. So the most modern up-to-date play-house in _our_ century is really only the great-great-grandchild of the play-house in Elizabeth’s day!”

“And even before _her_ time there were the miracle plays, where at least there was a stage and actors,” said Betty. “Do they still act miracle plays, now, in this sixteenth century?”

Godmother shook her head. “Not often. The people, you see, are better educated now, and have grown out of them—especially as they have splendid stirring plays written by great men who are alive amongst them, like Shakespeare and Marlowe and Ben Jonson. We may have learnt how to make fine scenery and luxurious theatres in our day, but we can’t write plays like William Shakespeare’s. By the way,” she added, “he lives over here in Southwark, not far from the great church of St. Saviour’s. He hasn’t yet left London to go back to his old home in Stratford-on-Avon.”

“I do hope we shall see him!” Betty exclaimed.... “What are these other buildings along the river, Godmother?”

“Some of them are theatres, more or less like the Globe, with pretty names such as the _Rose_ and the _Swan_. That place some way farther up, where you see a crowd of people and a few roofs, is the famous Paris-Gardens, where poor wretched bears are kept, and baited for the people’s amusement. A horrible so-called sport! But the rich young noblemen enjoy the sight quite as much as the roughs do, and Paris-Gardens is a very fashionable place of amusement.”

“But they have to come over the river to it every time,” Betty observed. “I wonder why all the theatres and amusements were put here, and not close to where the rich people live?”

“There’s a reason for that. In London there’s a very strong party, growing every year stronger, called the Puritan party. These men hate the theatre, and think all amusement ‘godless,’ and as many of them are men who manage city affairs, they won’t allow theatres in London itself. But here in Southwark, they have no power, so that’s why the theatres are over on this south side of the river, where the Puritans can’t prevent them from being built.”

“Queen Elizabeth isn’t like that, though, is she? Like the Puritans, I mean?”

“Not a bit,” laughed Godmother. “She loves every kind of amusement, acting and dancing especially. She dances herself, though she’s getting quite old. You remind me that now we’ve seen something of the life of the people in their business and pleasure, we must also take a glimpse of the Court and of the men and women surrounding the Queen. Not that she shuts herself away from her subjects. Far from it. Never was there a queen so popular as ‘Good Queen Bess!’ Every time she moves from one place to another there is a triumphal procession. To-day, for instance, she is coming back from her palace at Greenwich, which is down the river there, and she will ride in state through the Chepe.”

“Oh! can’t we see her?” Betty implored.

“Certainly we will.”

They hastened over the bridge, and much more quickly than they could have made the journey in what Betty called _un_-magic time, found themselves somehow or other seated at a window overlooking the Chepe. The market-place below was gaily decorated and crowded by eager people. Soon cheers announced that the Queen was in sight, and in a moment or two she passed the window from which they were leaning, riding on a white horse covered with splendid trappings. A very handsome young man dressed in white and silver, with a blue velvet cloak flung back from his shoulder, led the horse by the bridle.

“That’s the Earl of Essex,” Godmother said. “The Queen’s present favourite.”

Betty glanced at him admiringly, and then at the Queen, who was gorgeous in velvet and jewels, her long cloak falling in heavy folds about her. She wore a red frizzled wig, and her face was lined and old. Evidently the people loved her, for they cheered themselves hoarse, and as she passed, fell on their knees in the road. Every now and then, in answer to their shouts of welcome, she bowed and exclaimed in a clear voice, “Thank ye, my good people!” Following her came a crowd of pretty ladies, some in litters, others on horseback, and all beautifully dressed in white.

“Those are the Maids of Honour,” Godmother explained, “and these”—as a train of gallant noblemen rode by—“are the courtiers who always travel about with the Queen.”

“She’s going to the palace of Westminster, I suppose?” Betty inquired.

“No. Don’t you remember I told you that the kings and queens of England no longer live there? Since we last saw London, a great new palace has risen—the Palace of Whitehall.”

“We drove down Whitehall this morning!”

“We did. And if you remember, I told you to imagine all the houses on the left of it swept away so that the river could be seen. Well, the Whitehall Palace in which Queen Elizabeth lives part of the year, covers all the ground between St. James’s Park and the Thames, as you will see in a moment. The Queen will ride down to the river now, and finish the journey by water, so let us follow her.”

The procession was out of sight by this time, but when Betty reached the river, she saw the Queen just stepping into a huge painted and gilded boat, drawn up against one of the landing stages.

“That’s the royal barge,” Godmother told her. “It’s been waiting there for her. We’ll get into this little boat and follow it up to Whitehall. Little does our waterman know that he will have two invisible passengers to row!”

Betty laughed as she sprang into the boat. It was the first time to-day that she had been on the river, and she could scarcely contain her delight at the beauty of the scene. On the surface of the clear sparkling water, floated numberless barges following the splendid one in which the Queen, her Maids of Honour, and several courtiers were seated. The barges were painted with bright colours and had gilded prows, and brilliant canopies of silk were stretched above them. Swans with snowy wings circled round the barges, from many of which came the sound of music and singing.

Looking back, she saw London Bridge with its quaint houses clinging to it like limpets, and the throngs of people leaning from the windows watching the crowded procession of boats moving towards Whitehall.

“Oh, Godmother, if only the river looked like this _now_—in our time, I mean! All bright and clear, with no smoke about, and with all these beautiful barges on it!”

“Yes, as you see, in Queen Elizabeth’s day people use the river as the means of getting from one part of London to another. It is the great water road of the city, and in this age, one takes a boat, or enters a barge—instead of a taxi or an omnibus.”

“There are ever so many more great houses on the banks than there were in Richard the Second’s time,” Betty exclaimed, looking at the splendid mansions, each one standing in its own garden, stretching in a line along the Strand. The Strand, however, she noticed was still more or less of a country road, with fields and orchards at the back of it.

“The Savoy Palace still stands, you see,” Godmother said, “though it has been rebuilt. That great pile not far from it with the round towers, is Durham House, where Lady Jane Grey was born. Elizabeth has lately given it to Sir Walter Raleigh, the famous sailor and writer. He has a little study up in that turret.”

“He’s one of Elizabeth’s favourites, isn’t he? Oh yes, it was Walter Raleigh who once put down his cloak for the Queen to walk on. What a lovely view over the river he must have from his study.”

“That’s York House,” Godmother went on, pointing to the next mansion, “and there lives another famous man of Elizabeth’s day, Sir Francis Bacon. Later on, in the next reign, it will be the home of the great Duke of Buckingham, and there’s still a tiny bit left of it in our own day, which you can see when you turn down out of the Strand to go to Charing Cross Underground Station.”

“I know! A big stone gate?”

Godmother nodded. “Which of course at that time stood at the edge of the water. It was the Water Gate to the Duke of Buckingham’s palace. But to-day of course we shall not see it, for it isn’t yet built. We’ve passed Somerset House, but——”

“Somerset House?” interrupted Betty. “_That’s_ still standing anyway! The front of it is in the Strand, and the back looks over the river, doesn’t it? Why, King’s College is part of Somerset House, and people I know, go there for examinations!”

“Yes. Somerset House still stands, and is a fine place, but it has all been rebuilt in quite a different style from the house we’ve just passed.” There was a moment’s silence before Godmother said: “Here is the royal landing-place for Whitehall! The Queen and her train of attendants have gone up the steps into the palace, which, by the way, you mustn’t think of as one big house, but rather as a number of separate buildings, scattered over the ground where now stand all the big Government offices like the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Colonial Office, where, in our day, the business of governing our country is done. Elizabeth’s father, Henry the Eighth, has not long ago added to, and rebuilt much of the palace which he took from his famous minister, Cardinal Wolsey. Whitehall belonged to Wolsey before he fell into disgrace, and King Henry was only too glad to get such a splendid palace. You can see from here, the line of a great hall he added to it. It’s there that some of the masques of which his daughter Elizabeth is so fond, are often acted.”

“Masques? What are they?” Betty inquired. “Aren’t we going to see the palace?” she went on in the same breath.

“I think we’ll leave the palace till the next of our magic visits to London, when we shall see it at the height of its glory. We can land here though, and sit in this part of the royal garden while I tell you something about the Court Masques.”

Betty followed her godmother up some steps from the landing-stage, and sat down beside her on a marble bench behind which ran a yew hedge, shutting off the view of the palace beyond.

“Let me see if I can guess where we are now, if we were back in our own time, I mean,” she began. “I suppose this shady walk would be the part of the Victoria Embankment near Westminster Bridge?”

“That’s about right,” agreed Godmother approvingly. “Right and left of us we should see bridges crossing the river where now we see none at all. For London Bridge is out of sight, and that’s the only one that yet exists.

“But now let me tell you a little about the Court Masques.... You saw how very roughly and simply the splendid plays of Shakespeare and the other play-writers, are performed in the newly-built theatres on Bankside? Well, there’s nothing rough or simple about the performances called _masques_ which take place sometimes in the palace yonder, sometimes in one or other of the beautiful halls of the great houses scattered about the city. These masques are not true plays. They are generally little scenes written for special occasions—the Queen’s birthday perhaps, or the anniversary of the day she came to the throne, for instance. They are usually written in the form of an allegory, in which such figures as Justice, Mercy, or Love appear. But they are presented with the utmost magnificence in the way of dresses and scenery, and beautiful surroundings, and it has become the fashion for the great noblemen as well as the Queen to keep companies of well-trained actors ready to perform whenever a masque or a play is to be given at Court. The Queen has groups of children trained to act in these masques, some of which are written by true poets, like Ben Jonson, and the scenery and costumes are designed by true artists. Inigo Jones is one of them. But the best of the masques written by Ben Jonson and ‘produced,’ as we say, in our century, by Inigo Jones, will be given in a few years’ time, when James the First is king. I want you to remember, however, that the sixteenth century is the great time for plays of all sorts. We saw how the theatres on Bankside were crowded. Everywhere, not only in the theatres, but in private houses, and public halls, acting is going on, and plays are being written to meet the taste for it. This is the great age of the drama and London is full of geniuses who are play-writers and poets.”

“Oh! I think it’s even more interesting than the last time we saw it—in the Middle Ages,” Betty declared, as they stepped again into the boat whose waterman seemed to have been waiting for them. “I should love to stay in Queen Elizabeth’s London for weeks.”

“We’ve only had a glimpse of it,” said Godmother, “but even this glimpse is enough, I hope, to show you that London is full of life and energy in the sixteenth century. Full of great men who love and are proud of England, and have already made her a famous country. If we had stayed longer just now at the Globe theatre where _King Richard the Second_ was being played, we should have heard what Shakespeare wrote this very year about England. He put his own thoughts about our country into the mouth of the dying John of Gaunt, who calls England ‘this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea,’ and, later in his speech,

‘This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world ...
... England bound in by the triumphant sea.’

It is good to think that Shakespeare is living in London now, and has been for many years a Londoner.”

“I do wish we could see him!” sighed Betty.

It was growing dusk. Lights were already twinkling from the windows of the great houses on the Strand, but the last glow of sunset lingered on the river, where the swans floated between the stately barges that passed to and fro.

“‘_Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song_,’” quoted Godmother, after a long silence.

“What is that?” Betty asked.

“It’s the line with which each verse of a beautiful poem ends. It was written not long ago by Edmund Spenser, who is one of the great poets of this marvellous time, and he composed it in honour of the marriage of two girls, the ladies Elizabeth and Katherine Somerset. We are passing their home,” replied Godmother, pointing to Somerset House.

“The Thames _is_ running softly,” said Betty, as they drew near to a landing-stage on the Southwark side of London Bridge. “Isn’t it all quiet?”

And indeed there was a strange hush everywhere. Even the boatman’s oars made no sound as he drew them out of the water, and when they landed and walked up a lane with a row of gabled houses on one side of it, the people they passed, flitted by like ghosts.

It was nearly dark now, and only one dim lantern slung on a rope across the lane showed the way. Every now and then, however, a man or boy passed, carrying a lighted torch which flung a ruddy glare across the road.

“We are passing St. Saviour’s Church,” said Betty, looking up at its tower dark against the stars.

Just as she spoke, a man wrapped in a cloak hurried by, making no sound, and entered a house opposite the church. The light from a torch fell for a moment upon him, giving Betty a glimpse of him before he closed the door.

“That’s William Shakespeare,” whispered Godmother.

* * * * *

Betty rubbed her eyes.

“Oh! I’m so sorry to come back!” she exclaimed, glancing round the parlour.

“To come _forward_, you mean,” Godmother corrected her, smiling. “We’ve leapt more than three hundred years onwards since a second ago.”

“Can’t we go at once to Southwark while it’s all fresh in my mind?” urged Betty. “I should like to see how that part of London where we’ve just seen Shakespeare, looks now.”

“Very well. We can’t have the car out again, but we’ll go on the top of an omnibus that runs over London Bridge, and you shall see all that remains to be seen, of the Southwark Shakespeare knew when he lived there.”

Rather more than half an hour later as they approached the south end of the bridge, Godmother pointed to the right. “That’s where you saw the Globe and the Rose theatres, and farther down the river, you remember we saw in the distance Paris-Gardens.”

“Oh, how different it is now!” Betty said, looking at the crowded warehouses and dingy houses along the waterside. “There’s nothing of it left.”

“Nothing but the names of streets. Come down this one, now called Park Street. Look. That turning is Rose Alley.”

“Then here was the Rose Theatre?” Betty exclaimed, glancing up the dingy, grimy little road.

“Now look at the tablet on this brewery which tells us that here stood the Globe Theatre. It may have done; though some people think it is not the exact site.”

They walked farther along by the river’s edge, towards the next bridge, till Betty saw painted up at the entrance to another dingy street, _Bear Gardens_.

“From that name you know that you are on the spot where some of the poor bears were baited,” said Godmother, “and having so recently seen Southwark as it _was_, you can in imagination sweep away all these dreary streets and see the green fields and gardens round each of the separate buildings. Now we’ll go back to London Bridge, and walk straight on from it up what is now called the Borough High Street in Southwark.

“This,” she explained when they reached the crowded thoroughfare, “as you remember, was the country road along which, in the fourteenth century, the pilgrims passed on their way to Canterbury. Look on the left of the street for names of turnings which will bring the line of inns back to your memory. Here,”—she stopped at a turning called Talbot Yard—“was the _Tabard_ you visited in Chaucer’s day, and as it was standing when Shakespeare lived here, he too must often have visited it.”

“But why isn’t it called _Tabard_ Yard?”

“It was burnt down about seventy years after Shakespeare’s day, and rebuilt and re-christened, but this is the actual place on which the old Tabard stood. Let us cross the road. Do you see that Court nearly opposite?”

“_St. Margaret’s Court_,” Betty read as they turned into a dingy-looking place with rather old but very poverty-stricken houses on either side. “Why, this must be where St. Margaret’s Church stood, and where we saw the Miracle play in the Middle Ages!”

“It is. The church was still there when Shakespeare lived, though I doubt whether he saw a Miracle play acted. They had gone out of fashion in his day.”

“Well, I’m glad that at least the _names_ of the old places are kept,” sighed Betty, “for there’s nothing else, is there? It’s all ugly and dirty and _modern_ now. How I wish even one bit of an old inn was left!”

“Well, you have your wish,” said Godmother. “There _is_ one tiny bit of an inn left standing. Come in here.”

They recrossed the road, and at No. 77 in the High Street entered a yard, the end of which was occupied by the carts and other belongings of a railway. But on the right, with its two rows of wooden galleries still there, stretched one wall of an ancient tavern.

“This is the George Inn, and, so far as I know, the only old one left in Southwark,” Godmother said. “Having seen the Tabard Inn as it looked in the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, you can sweep away in thought, all the railway part of the yard, and see it as it used to be. But I agree with you that except for its memories, Southwark is dreary enough, though even now at the back of this High Street where in ancient times so many processions have passed in and out of London, there are old houses still standing.”

They took an omnibus again at the beginning of London Bridge, and looking back towards St. Saviour’s Church, she added, “There’s the only building which Shakespeare would recognize to-day, and even _that_ is much altered since he lived near it three hundred years ago or more.”

“You said you’d take me to see the Charterhouse. Can’t we go now?” urged Betty, almost before they were off the bridge.

Godmother laughed. “Haven’t you had enough sight-seeing yet? Well, as what we’ve just been looking at isn’t _beautiful_, however interesting it may be, we’ll end our excursion at Charterhouse. You shall see there, not only a really lovely place, but the only one of the great London schools which in our day looks more or less as it did in the sixteenth century. This same omnibus will take us near it, so on the way I’ll tell you a little of its history.”

“You said it was a monastery before it was a school, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it was a monastery when your friend Richard the Second was reigning, and remained a monastery till the time of Henry the Eighth, when the monks were turned out. In Elizabeth’s reign, the place was sold to the Duke of Norfolk, who altered it to make it suitable for a private house. A little later—and here the school part comes in—the Duke of Norfolk sold it again to a rich man called Thomas Sutton, who turned it into a home of rest for old gentlemen and a school for boys. The school, as you know, has in our day moved into the country, but as a home for poor gentlemen who are still called ‘the Brethren,’ Charterhouse goes on to this day.

“We must get down here, at the Church of St. Sepulchre’s in Holborn, and walk through Smithfield,” she broke off to say, as the omnibus at the moment, stopped.

“Smithfield? Is this where the martyrs were burnt?” asked Betty while they crossed a wide space in front of the modern market.

“Yes. It’s full of memories, and all round about it there are wonderful buildings that we shall have no time to see to-day. Here we are at the entrance gate of the Charterhouse.”

They passed into a courtyard so quiet and old-world that for the moment Betty forgot that “the magic” was not working now, and thought herself once more back again in the sixteenth century. Indeed but for the modern clothes of the porter who showed them the place, she _was_ as completely there, as she had been a few hours previously.

As they presently went up a splendid carved oak staircase, Godmother said, “You see here a beautiful private house and the remains of a monastery and of a great school, all in one, and that’s what makes Charterhouse specially interesting.”

A little while later Betty cried out in delight when they entered the dining-hall where once upon a time Queen Elizabeth was entertained by the Duke of Norfolk in the sixteenth century, and where that very evening of the _twentieth_ century the poor gentlemen, “the Brethren” as they are still called, would dine as usual.

“What a beautiful room!” she exclaimed, looking at its arched roof and panelled walls.

“It’s a very fine example of a sixteenth-century hall,” Godmother agreed. “There’s the minstrels’ gallery opposite us, you see, where no doubt the musicians played their best when Queen Elizabeth was here to listen to them.”

“I don’t know which I like best, the Chapel we’ve just seen, or this Hall, or the Library, or the pretty Gardens where ‘the Brethren’ are walking or sitting,” Betty declared. “What a lovely place for them to have. I’m so glad Sir Thomas Sutton left it to be a home always for poor gentlemen. But what a pity that the boys have all gone!”

“Yes, it’s sad, but even the present Charterhouse boys, who have, of course, never lived in this old place at all (because it’s fifty years since the school was moved to Godalming), are very proud of this ancient dwelling which they feel still belongs to them. Did you notice that new marble tablet in the stone passage or _cloister_, as it is called, leading to the Chapel? On it are written the names of Charterhouse boys who fell a year or two ago in the Great War and are commemorated in the old school-house. Many famous men have been educated here, of whom you’ll learn something when you know more about the literature and history of our country. But there’s one of whom you may have heard. He was a boy here and afterwards wrote a celebrated novel in which Charterhouse plays a part.”

“Thackeray wrote about it in _The Newcomes_, I know! and I’ve just read it!” Betty exclaimed. “In the book, Colonel Newcome comes here and is one of the poor brothers. Thackeray was alive not so very long ago, wasn’t he?”

“It seems to me a very little while ago,” Godmother answered, “but it’s considerably over fifty years since he died, as I discovered just now by looking at the tablet to his memory in the Chapel Cloister.”

“Oh! I’m so glad I’ve seen this place,” Betty said as they were leaving, and she turned at the gate to look back at a sunny courtyard with a glimpse of green lawn beyond. “I shall read _The Newcomes_ again now, and imagine old Colonel Newcome walking just here. I had no idea there were such beautiful places in London, Godmother—even without the magic, I mean,” she added.

“Thousands of people live in this wonderful city of ours and _never_ find them—never even take any trouble to know of their existence,” was Godmother’s reply. “And that seems strange to me, and also a great pity. They lose much pleasure.”

* * * * *

Betty would gladly have lingered in Smithfield, and was full of questions about various buildings which attracted her attention, but Godmother hurried her away even from the great beautiful church of St. Bartholomew near the Charterhouse.

“We must visit that another time,” she declared. “We’ve done enough for the present. But before next Saturday,” she added, “go to the London Museum. You will find all sorts of things in it to interest you if you keep in mind what we’ve seen to-day. Go to the gallery in the basement and look at the model of London in the sixteenth century. You will see the bridge with the quaint houses clinging to it, and recognize some of the buildings we saw on our magic visit. Then look at the big model of the Tower in another room. Because it was more or less like that model in Elizabeth’s day, and indeed except for the water in the moat, it has nearly the same appearance now.

“Don’t forget also to look for the life-size figure of Queen Elizabeth on horseback and one of the courtiers leading her horse. That also is in the basement of the Museum, and will remind you of how you saw her riding through the Chepe. There are, in fact, dozens of things in the Museum belonging to London of the sixteenth century that ought to be full of meaning to you now.”

“And Shakespeare’s plays will be more interesting too, and Edmund Spenser’s poetry, and all about Raleigh, and Drake,” exclaimed Betty rather incoherently. “Oh, the magic makes all the difference, Godmother!”

IV

The Restoration

THE LONDON OF CHARLES II AND OF MR. SAMUEL PEPYS

“We can’t go for a drive to-day before the ‘magic’ begins,” said Betty ruefully on the following Saturday,—a day of pouring rain.

“No. But how lucky that the rain won’t interfere with our visit to the London of Charles the Second,” Godmother returned.

“Is that what we’re going to see to-day? Oh, do let’s go at once, Godmother,” was Betty’s eager reply.

“Wait a little. I’m going to give you a short history examination first, to make sure that you will understand what we see, when we _do_ see it. Elizabeth was reigning when we last went to old London. Who was the next king?”

“Her cousin James the First, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots,” returned Betty promptly. “We’ve just had it in the History class,” she added, to explain her readiness.

“And then?”

“_His_ son, Charles the First. And he was beheaded, and then Cromwell ruled and was called the Protector, and when he died, the people wanted a king again, so they sent for Charles the First’s son from abroad, and he was crowned, and that was called the Restoration,” said Betty very fluently.

Godmother nodded. “The Restoration of course meaning the restoring of kings to the English throne. Now Elizabeth died in the year 1603, and Charles the Second was crowned in 1660, so as the London we shall see will only be about sixty years older than it was in the time of Elizabeth, you wouldn’t expect to find it much altered, would you?”

“No. Except that I suppose it will be a little bigger?”

“Yet during the reign of Charles the Second, London was almost _completely_ changed for a reason you will understand presently,” Godmother returned. “Now before we go back to Restoration days, I want to tell you something about a man who lived in London in the time of Charles the Second. His name was Samuel Pepys. He was educated at that St. Paul’s School we talked about when we looked at some of the great schools that had just begun to flourish in the reign of Elizabeth. Afterwards he went to Cambridge, and then for some years he held posts in the Admiralty,—that is the great office in which the affairs of the Navy are managed. We have passed the street he lived in, many times on our journeys to London Bridge. It is called Seething Lane, and is close to the bridge, and not far from the Monument.”

“I remember seeing it,” Betty answered.

“Well, he was not a great man, though he was industrious and did his work well. He was vain and stingy, and had a great many petty faults, though on the whole he was lovable and kind-hearted. But we can never think of the days of Charles the Second without thinking of Samuel Pepys, and I’ll tell you why. He had the habit of keeping a diary, and that diary, now printed, is one of the most interesting and amusing books you can imagine. It is also very valuable, because as Pepys was a great gossip, and described everything he did, and everything he saw, and every place he went to, very fully, we seem to know the life of London in his day almost as though we had lived it ourselves.”

“Shall we see him?” asked Betty with interest.

“We are sure to. He went a great deal to the Palace of Whitehall, so perhaps we shall meet him there. Anyhow I can’t imagine going to London any time between 1660 and 1670 without seeing Samuel Pepys. I think it is he who must take us back to Restoration London.”

Godmother went to the Cabinet where the magic talismans were kept, and took out a book. “Here is his ‘Diary,’ Shut your eyes, and I’ll read you what he wrote in it one May, two hundred and sixty years ago. He is recording in his ‘Diary’ how he spent that day, now so far in the past.

“‘_To Westminster. In the way meeting many milkmaids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodging door.... She seemed a mighty pretty creature._’”

“Who was ‘pretty Nelly’?” asked Betty, holding the book which Godmother put in her hand in the special “magic” way.

“You will see her if you look now.”

Betty’s eyes flew open upon a charming scene.

In place of the ordinary-looking street of Drury Lane, leading at one end into the Strand, she saw a road lined with gabled dwellings, rather like the old houses still left over Staple Inn in Holborn. The houses were not very close together, and slips of garden with trees in them, gave the “lane” a countrified look. A group of girls wearing muslin caps, short skirts and frilled aprons, and carrying milk-pails slung from their shoulders, came dancing down the road to the music played on a fiddle by a man who walked in front of them. From the milk-pails hung garlands of bluebells and cowslips, and some of the girls carried on their heads instead of pails, little pyramids of silver plates adorned with ribbons and flowers.

Opposite to where Betty and her godmother found themselves standing, leaning in the door of one of the gabled houses, was a pretty, merry-looking little creature, who had evidently only just got up, for she wore a flowered bed-jacket over her short skirt, and a night-cap trimmed with pink ribbons.

“That’s ‘pretty witty Nelly,’” said Godmother. “Nell Gwynne, the famous actress. She often plays at Drury Lane Theatre, lower down the road, and the King greatly admires her.”

“Why, there was a play acted in London not very long ago called _Sweet Nell of Old Drury_, wasn’t there?” Betty exclaimed. “Mother was talking about it the other day.”

“Yes, a modern play with ‘sweet Nell’ as heroine. Well, there she is. And this is ‘Old Drury’ where she lives.”

Just at the moment, the milkmaids and the fiddler stopped before Nell Gwynne’s house, and began to sing.

“London, to thee I do present
The merry month of May”—

Betty heard these words, but the rest of the song was drowned by the loud music of the fiddle, and the laughter of the girls, in which the charming little actress joined as they came crowding round her to take the coins she distributed right and left.

“If you look round,” said Godmother, “you will see Samuel Pepys, who is a great admirer of pretty Nelly, watching this little scene.”

Betty turned her head, and saw a fat-faced, good-natured, rather conceited-looking man grandly dressed in a black satin coat with silver buttons, huge sleeves made of fine white lawn, a lace cravat, and a wig with long curls. A sword in a scabbard hung at his side, and he carried a tall gold-mounted cane.

“He is very gorgeous because he is going on to Court—to the Palace of Whitehall,” said Godmother. “But _we_ will follow the milkmaids to the Maypole.”

“The Maypole? How lovely!” Betty exclaimed. “Where is it?”

“Quite close. In the Strand. You know the church called St. Mary-le-Strand? It is the first of the two churches that stand in the middle of the road as you go up the Strand from Charing Cross. Well, just in front of that church, we shall find the Maypole. You can hear the shouts of the people now.”

In a minute or two they were in the Strand, and there, in the middle of the road, with long coloured streamers hanging from its summit, stood an enormously tall pole wreathed with flowers, round which with laughter and shouting, men and girls were dancing. Some of the boys had garters with bells round their knee-breeches, and nearly all of them were waving handkerchiefs. The whole street was crowded with noisy, merry-making people, and one boy in particular, standing on a high wooden stool close to the Maypole, seemed to be directing the dance.

“He is the May-Lord, and he arranges the fun,” Godmother said. “Listen to what he is reciting.”

“Up then, I say, both young and old,
Both man and maid a-Maying,
With drums and guns that bounce along
And merry tabor playing!
Which to prolong. God save our King,
And send his country peace,
And root out treason from the land!
And so, my friends, I cease.”

“London is very gay,” Betty remarked as they walked down the Strand towards Whitehall, passing groups of merry-makers on the way. “But it looks just the same as it did in Elizabeth’s day,” she added, glancing from the line of stately mansions on the left, with wide stretches of the river visible between them, to the fields and gardens on the right of the Strand. “The people wear different sort of clothes now, but the town hasn’t altered much, has it?”

“No. We are in the early years of Charles the Second’s reign as yet, and London is as full of gaiety as a few years ago it was dull and gloomy, when the Puritan party was powerful, Cromwell ruled, and all amusements were forbidden. Now the theatres have been reopened, and all the old sports and pastimes of the people have been revived.”

“Then there will be acting going on again in those funny theatres we saw in Southwark?”

“Yes, but these are already falling out of fashion, and will disappear, because finer play-houses are being built on this side of the river. Drury Lane Theatre is one of them.”

“I went there to a pantomime last Christmas,” Betty remarked. “But of course it’s quite a different building now, in _our_ time, isn’t it?”

“There have been _three_ Drury Lane theatres since the one in which Nell Gwynne plays now. You went to the fourth building on the same spot.... Now we’re at the end of the Strand and I’m just going to let you have a glimpse of Whitehall Palace which last time we saw only from the water. Look at that beautiful monument in the middle of the road, just where in our time, stands the statue of Charles the First on horseback. That’s the last of the thirteen crosses put up by Edward the First to mark the place where his wife’s body rested when it was brought from Nottinghamshire to be buried in Westminster Abbey.”

“It’s in Charing Cross Station yard now, isn’t it?” Betty asked.

“Not that one. The monument outside the station in _our_ day, is only a copy of the cross you are looking at. I needn’t tell you that when it was first set up, long, long ago in Edward the First’s time, this place was all country with a tiny hamlet called _Cherringe_ surrounded by fields and woods, where we are standing....

“Now look down the road, remembering that if we were in our own day we should have our backs to Trafalgar Square and our faces towards Westminster. On our left we should see, first shops and houses, and then big buildings all the way down to the Houses of Parliament. On our right, there would be the Horse Guards and a line of Government Offices with St. James’s Park behind them.”

But on what a different scene Betty looked! The whole of the space stretching between the river (which she could see gleaming on her left) and St. James’s Park in full view on her right, was covered with houses, separated from one another by gardens and lawns, but all belonging to, and part of, the Palace of Whitehall. Right through the midst of this great plot of buildings, ran a public road, over-arched by two fine gateways at some long distance apart.

“You remember I told you that Henry the Eighth was the first king to live in this palace?” said Godmother. “He moved here, you remember, from the old Palace of Westminster when Cardinal Wolsey, to whom it originally belonged, fell into disgrace, and had to give it up to him. Henry invited the German painter Holbein, to live at Whitehall, and began a famous collection of pictures here. It was Henry the Eighth also who built many of the houses you see now. They are all part of the Palace. You know that this was one of Queen Elizabeth’s many homes, because you saw her land from the river over there on the left. Now look in the opposite direction. Do you see that great open space on the right? It is called the Tilt Yard, and you have walked through it many times—as it is now in our own day, I mean.”

“Have I? What is it now?” Betty asked.

She was puzzled, for the whole place looked so different from the Whitehall she knew.

“The Horse Guards Parade. The great open space at the end of St. James’s Park, you know. It was there that Queen Elizabeth with her Maids of Honour sat to watch one of the masques she liked so much. It was a sort of masque and tournament combined. The gallery in which she was seated, was called _The Fortresse of Perfect Beauty_, and a company of splendidly-dressed knights stormed it by shooting sweetly-scented powder and perfumes at it. Then another company of knights calling themselves ‘The Defenders of Beauty’ met the enemy in a mock fight, and defeated them.”

“That was when she was young and beautiful, I suppose?” Betty said. “She was quite old when we saw her.”

“Yes. She was young at the time of that particular masque, but she kept her love for acting and for dancing almost to the day of her death.”

“Did she die here?”

“She died at her palace at Richmond, but her body was borne on a funeral barge down the river there, and here in Whitehall it lay in state till she was buried in the Abbey yonder. Then came James the First, and not content with this great palace, he planned to build a new one! Do you remember I told you of an artist called Inigo Jones who designed beautiful scenery for the masques in this reign? Well, he was also an architect, and he made a plan for a wonderful new palace, and actually began to build it. There is the little bit he finished.” Godmother pointed to a stately house on the left.

“Why, I remember that! It’s in Whitehall now. Opposite the Horse Guards.”

“It is, and it’s all that’s left of Whitehall Palace in our own day. The dream of a new palace remained a dream, for that’s all of it that was ever built, and was only a tiny part of what Inigo Jones meant to do. But it remains to our day, and I never pass it without thinking of the tragedy that happened there.”

“What tragedy?”

“Don’t you remember that it was there on a scaffold put up outside that second window at this end, that James’s son, Charles the First, was executed?”

“I’d forgotten,” Betty said, looking with interest at the window Godmother pointed out. “James little thought he was having the very place built where his poor son was to die, did he?” she added after a moment. “Then did Oliver Cromwell come to live at Whitehall?” she asked presently.

“Yes, and he took all the royal apartments for himself and lived in state with the poet Milton as his secretary. Here he died, only two or three years ago, and now the Palace is filled to overflowing with the great Court of the present King. Let us walk across to the river front.”

They passed through many gardens and courts surrounded by houses built in the Elizabethan fashion, with gabled roofs, and timbered fronts, till they came to a long stone building facing the river, but divided from it by a pretty garden.

“This is called the _Stone Gallery_,” said Godmother, “and here two of the beauties of the Court have their apartments. One is Lady Castlemaine, and the other the Duchess of Portsmouth.”

“What a lovely place to live in!” Betty exclaimed. “Overlooking this garden and the beautiful river.”

“It has its disadvantages,” Godmother remarked drily. “Sometimes the river floods the lower rooms at high tide. Only yesterday, for instance, when Lady Castlemaine had invited the King to dine with her, the cook came to tell her that the water had put the fire out in the kitchen.”

Betty laughed. “What _did_ she do?”

“Pepys wrote it all down in his diary this morning, so we know. He tells us that Lady Castlemaine exclaimed, ‘_Zounds!_’ (a favourite word in these Restoration days), ‘_you may burn the palace, down but the beef must be roasted!_’ ‘_So_,’ the ‘Diary’ goes on, ‘_it was carried to Mrs. Sarah’s husband, and there roasted_,’ ‘Mrs. Sarah’ being the housekeeper to one of Mr. Pepys’s friends.

“Those are the Queen’s rooms,” Godmother went on, pointing to a row of windows some distance from the Stone Gallery, but like it, facing the river. “Poor Catherine! she is very much neglected, and these Court ladies’ apartments are much grander and better furnished than hers.”

“Queen Catherine?” echoed Betty.

“Catherine of Braganza. She is a Portuguese lady whom King Charles has lately married.”

“Shall we see the King?” Betty asked.

“We may have a glimpse of him in a moment. He is far from being a good king, you know, though he is good-natured and witty, and easy to get on with. He hates to be troubled with business, and doesn’t care about the honour or welfare of his country so long as he has plenty of money, and can spend his time in amusement. He lives here in the greatest luxury, surrounded by frivolous courtiers. One of them wrote some amusing lines about him the other day which he had the audacity to fasten up on the door of the King’s bedroom:

‘Here lies our sovereign lord, the King
Whose word no man relies on.
He never said a foolish thing
And never did a wise one.’

And that very well describes Charles the Second. Now pay great attention to the Banqueting Hall, not long ago built by Inigo Jones, because it’s the only bit of all this scene that you will be able to look at when we are in our own day once more. There, wonderful banquets are held on a magnificent scale, when the King entertains ambassadors from foreign courts. And now let us stroll into St. James’s Park. The King has recently laid it out as part of the grounds of his palace, though the public is allowed to enter it.”

“It’s quite different now,” said Betty, gazing at a long straight canal which instead of the well-known winding lake, ran from end to end of the Park. “Look at those stiff avenues of trees on each side of the water! It isn’t a bit like an English park.”

“No. That’s because while he was in exile, Charles lived in Holland, and became very fond of the Dutch style of formal gardening, which he has copied here. But I’ll show you something that will be familiar to you. Do you see that little island with the ducks and wild-fowl swimming near it. The water birds that live in St. James’s Park now, and had such a beautiful home before the Park was made ugly with sheds during the war, are the descendants of those very birds belonging to Charles the Second. He often comes here quite unattended to feed them.”

“Godmother, I do believe he’s there now!” Betty exclaimed, pointing to a dark, heavy-faced man with a long curling wig, throwing bread to the ducks, as with loud quacks they came swimming towards him. “He’s dressed like the pictures I’ve seen of Charles the Second anyhow.”

“Yes, that’s the King. And the man beside him, with the splendid satin coat and the wide hat with the curling red feather, is the Duke of Rochester, one of his favourites. See how they’re laughing together!”

One moment Betty saw them thus. Then, the whole scene vanished, and instead of standing in the sunlight in the Park under the trees, she found herself in a gorgeous ball-room, lighted by hundreds of wax candles in sconces against the gilded walls. It was filled with men and women beautifully dressed in the costume of Stuart days, which Betty recognized from portraits she had seen of people belonging to Restoration times. The men carried in their hands big felt hats with sweeping feathers, and they all wore wigs with long curls to the shoulders, while the ladies were gay in rich brocades, and sparkled with jewels. A buzz of talk and laughter almost drowned the music played in a gallery above.

“They are waiting for the King and Queen to come in and open the ball,” Godmother said. “Do you see Mr. Pepys in that corner under the musicians’ gallery? He is talking to his friend Mr. Povey, a member of Parliament, who has brought him here to-night to see this particular ball.”

Presently the doors at one end of the room were flung open and the King, leading the Queen by the hand, entered, followed by his brother, the Duke of York, who led the Duchess.