platform at the cathedral door that Roger Bolingbroke, the
spurious necromancer who was supposed to have aided the ambitious
designs of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, was exhibited. The
Duchess's penance for the same offence, according to Milman's opinion,
commenced or closed near the cathedral, in that shameful journey when
she was led through the streets wrapped in a sheet, and carrying a
lighted taper in her hand. The duke, her husband, was eventually buried
at St. Paul's, where his tomb became the haunt of needy men about town,
whence the well-known proverb of "dining with Duke Humphrey."

Henry VI.'s first peaceful visit to St. Paul's is quaintly sketched by
that dull old poet, Lydgate, who describes "the bishops _in
pontificalibus_, the Dean of Paules and canons, every one who conveyed
the king"

"Up into the church, with full devout singing;
And when he had made his offering,
The mayor, the citizens, bowed and left him."

While all the dark troubles still were pending, we find the Duke of York
taking a solemn oath on the host of fealty to King Henry. Six years
later, after the battle of St. Albans, the Yorkists and Lancastrians met
again at the altar of St. Paul's in feigned unity. The poor weak monarch
was crowned, and had sceptre in hand, and his proud brilliant queen
followed him in smiling converse with the Duke of York. Again the city
poet broke into rejoicing at the final peace:--

"At Paul's in London, with great renown,
On Lady Day in Lent, this peace was wrought;
The King, the Queen, with lords many an one,
To worship the Virgin as they ought,
Went in procession, and spared right nought
In sight of all the commonalty;
In token this love was in heart and thought,
Rejoice England in concord and unity."

[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF ST. FAITH, THE CRYPT OF OLD ST. PAUL'S,
FROM A VIEW BY HOLLAR.]

Alas for such reconciliations! Four years later more blood had been
shed, more battle-fields strewn with dead. The king was a captive, had
disinherited his own son, and granted the succession to the Duke of
York, whose right a Parliament had acknowledged. His proud queen was in
the North rallying the scattered Lancastrians. York and Warwick, Henry's
deadly enemies, knelt before the primate, and swore allegiance to the
king; and the duke's two sons, March and Rutland, took the same oath.

Within a few months Wakefield was fought; Richard was slain,