laces and
houses nearly all of which were destroyed by the Great Fire. You have
seen how the City was covered with magnificent buildings of monasteries
and churches. Do not believe that the nobles and rich merchants who
endowed and built these places would be content to live in hovels.

[Illustration: DURHAM, SALISBURY, AND WORCESTER HOUSES.]

The nobles indeed wanted barracks. A great Lord never moved anywhere
without his following. The Earl of Warwick, called the King Maker, when
he rode into London was followed by five hundred men, wearing his
colours: all of these had to find accommodation in his town house. This
was always built in the form of a court or quadrangle. The modern
Somerset House, which is built on the foundations of the old house,
shows us what a great man's house was like: and the College of Heralds
in Queen Victoria Street, is another illustration, for this was Lord
Derby's town house. Hampton Court and St. James's, are illustrations of
a great house with more than one court. Any one who knows the colleges
of Oxford and Cambridge will understand the arrangement of the great
noble's town house in the reign of Richard II. On one side was the hall
in which the banquets took place and all affairs of importance were
discussed. The kitchen, butteries and cellars stood opposite the doors
of the hall; at the back of the hall with a private entrance were the
rooms of the owner and his family: the rest of the rooms on the
quadrangle were given up to the use of his followers.

Baynard's Castle--the name yet survives--stood on the river bank not far
from Blackfriars. It was a huge house with towers and turrets and a
water gate with stairs. It contained two courts. It was at last, after
standing for six hundred years, destroyed in the Great Fire, and was one
of the most lamentable of the losses caused by that disaster. The house
had been twice before burned down, and that which finally perished was
built in 1428. Here Edward IV. assumed the Crown: here he placed his
wife and children for safety before going forth to the Battle of Barnet.
Here Buckingham offered the Crown to Richard. Here Henry VIII. lived.
Here Charles II. was entertained.

Eastward, also on the river bank and near the old Swan Stairs, stood
another great house called Cold Harbour. It belonged to Holland, Dukes
of Exeter, to Richard III. and to Margaret, Countess of Richmond.

North of Thames Street near College Hill was the Erber, another gr