history. Not only
are all our Kings crowned there but many of them lie buried there too;
so also do some of the best and wisest men who have served our country,
some of our bravest sailors, and of our greatest poets. Thus it comes
about that the history of the Abbey is as long as the history of our
country--indeed, it _is_ the history of our country.

{23}

III.

THE STORY OF THE CHARTER HOUSE

In 1347 Edward III. was besieging Calais; he was at war with France,
and but the year before had won the great victory of Crecy. The siege
lasted a whole year, and then at last the men of Calais could hold out
no longer, for the French King could not help them and they had no food
left. When King Edward heard this he sent to them one of his knights,
Sir Walter Manny, with this message, "Give yourselves up to me that I
may do with you what I will." This was a hard thing to ask, so hard
that Edward's lords pleaded with him to show mercy; and the King gave
way and said he would be content if six citizens came to him, barefoot,
in their shirts, with ropes about their necks, and bearing the city's
keys. "On them," he said, "I will do my will." So the Captain of
Calais gave up six of the citizens to Sir Walter Manny, and he brought
them to the King and begged him to spare their lives--begged, but
begged in vain. Then Queen Philippa, Edward's wife, weeping bitterly,
fell on her knees, and prayed the King for love of our Lord to have
mercy; and the King's heart was moved to pity, and he answered her,
"Though I do it against my will--take them! I give them to you." Can
you not fancy how well she treated them, and how happy she was when she
sent them home to Calais?

In those days, outside the walls of London towards {24} the north-west
was a pleasant land of fields and trees, of streams and clear sweet
springs, a lonely land with few houses except three great monasteries.
Here Sir Walter Manny and the Bishop of London of that time founded
another monastery for twenty-four monks and a Prior or chief monk. It
was called the London Charter House, for it was one of several Charter
Houses which all belonged to the same kind of monks, who all obeyed the
same rules and wore the same dress, and so they are said to belong to
the same Order. This new Charter House stood on land which had been
given (some by Sir Walter Manny, some by a former Bishop of London,) to
be used as a burial-ground for people who had died in the grea