ay's pathetic lines, "when the chapel
bell began to toll, he lifted up his head a little, and said 'Adsum!' It
was the word we used at school when names were called."

This famous relic of old London, which fortunately escaped the great fire
in 1666, was formerly an old monastery which Henry VIII. dissolved in
1537, and the house was given some few years later to Sir Edward,
afterwards Lord North, from whom the Duke of Norfolk purchased it in 1565,
and the handsome staircase, carved with terminal figures and Renaissance
ornament, was probably built either by Lord North or his successor. The
woodwork of the Great Hall, where the pensioners still dine every day, is
very rich, the fluted columns with Corinthian capitals, the interlaced
strap work, and other details of carved oak, are characteristic of the
best sixteenth century woodwork in England; the shield bears the date of
1571. This was the year when the Duke of Norfolk, who was afterwards
beheaded, was released from the Tower on a kind of furlough, and probably
amused himself with the enrichment of his mansion, then called Howard
House. In the old Governors' room, formerly the drawing room of the
Howards, there is a specimen of the large wooden chimney piece of the end
of the sixteenth century, painted instead of carved. After the Duke of
Norfolk's death, the house was granted by the Crown to his son, the Earl
of Suffolk, who sold it in 1611 to the founder of the present hospital,
Sir Thomas Sutton, a citizen who was reputed to be one of the wealthiest
of his time, and some of the furniture given by him will be found noticed
in the chapter on the Jacobean period.

[Illustration: Dining Hall in the Charterhouse. Shewing Oak Screen and
front of Minstrels' Gallery, dated 1571. Period: Elizabethan.]

[Illustration: Screen in the Hall of Gray's Inn. With Table and Desks
referred to.]

There are in London other excellent examples of Elizabethan oak carving.
Amongst those easily accessible and valuable for reference are the Hall of
Gray's Inn, built in 1560, the second year of the Queen's reign, and
Middle Temple Hall, built in 1570-2. An illustration of the carved screen
supporting the Minstrels' Gallery in the older Hall is given by permission
of Mr. William R. Douthwaite, librarian of the "Inn," for whose work,
"Gray's Inn, its History and Associations," it was specially prepared. The
interlaced strap work generally found in Elizabethan carving, encircles
the shafts