them with escutcheons hung in front, the richly
blazoned arms brightening the narrow way." But it was also dirty: "The
roadway was rough and full of holes; a filthy stream ran down the
middle, all kinds of refuse were lying about." But what mattered that?
No one went on foot who could possibly go by boat, and there lay the
great highway of the river close at hand. We have said processions went
down this street; among them we may number all the coronation
processions up to the time when Parliament Street was cut through
numerous small courts and by-streets in the reign of George II. Lord
Howard of Effingham set out from King Street to fight the Spanish
Armada. Charles I. came this way from Whitehall Palace to his trial at
Westminster; he went back by the same route condemned to death; and
later Cromwell's funeral procession followed the same route. Cromwell
himself narrowly escaped assassination in this very street, where he had
a house north of Boar's Head Yard. The story is told that he was in his
state carriage, but owing to the crowd and narrow street he was
separated from his guard. Suddenly Lord Broghill, who was with him, saw
the door of a cobbler's stall open and shut, while something glittered
behind it. He therefore got out of the carriage and hammered at the door
with his scabbard, when a tall man, armed with a sword, rushed out and
made his escape.

Anne Oldfield was apprenticed to a seamstress in King Street. Sir Henry
Wootton also lived here; and Ben Jonson says that Spenser died here for
"lack of bread," and that the Earl of Essex sent him "20 pieces" on
hearing of his poverty, but the poet refused them, saying they came too
late. Fletcher wrote of him: "Poorly, poor man, he lived; poorly, poor
man, he died." But it seems hardly credible he was so badly off as to be
destitute, for he was at the time a pensioner of the Crown. Thomas Carew
the poet lived in King Street. Most of the taverns in Westminster seem
to have clustered about this street; we have the names of the Bell, the
Boar's Head, and the Rhenish Wine House still handed down as places of
importance. There were innumerable courts and alleys opening out of King
Street. On the west, south of Downing Street, were Axe Yard, Sea Alley,
Bell Yard, Antelope Alley. Gardener's Lane ran parallel with Charles
Street; here Hollar the engraver died in extreme poverty in 1677.

At the north end of King Street stood a second gate, called the King's
Gate, and s