--The Crypt--Gog and Magog--Shopkeepers in Guildhall--The
Cenotaphs in Guildhall--The Court of Aldermen--The City Courts--The
Chamberlain's Office--Pictures in the Guildhall--Sir Robert
Porter--The Common Council Room--Pictures and Statues--Guildhall
Chapel--The New Library and Museum--Some Rare Books--Historical
Events in Guildhall--Chaucer in Trouble--Buckingham at
Guildhall--Anne Askew's Trial and
Death--Surrey--Throckmorton--Garnet--A Grand Banquet.

The Guildhall--the mean-looking Hotel de Ville of London--was originally
(says Stow) situated more to the east side of Aldermanbury, to which it
gave name. Richard de Reynere, a sheriff in the reign of Richard I.
(1189), gave to the church of St. Mary, at Osney, near Oxford, certain
ground rents in Aldermanbury, as appears by an entry in the Register of
the Court of Hustings of the Guildhall. In Stow's time the Aldermanbury
hall had been turned into a carpenter's yard.

The present Guildhall (which the meanest Flemish city would despise) was
"builded new," whatever that might imply, according to our venerable
guide, in 1411 (12th of Henry IV.), by Thomas Knoles, the mayor, and his
brethren the aldermen, and "from a little cottage it grew into a great
house." The expenses were defrayed by benevolences from the City
Companies, and ten years' fees, fines, and amercements. Henry V. granted
the City free passages for four boats and four carts, to bring lime,
ragstone, and freestone for the works. In the first year of Henry VI.,
when the citizens were every day growing richer and more powerful, the
illustrious Whittington's executors gave L35 to pave the Great Hall with
Purbeck stone. They also blazoned some of the windows of the hall, and
the Mayor's Court, with Whittington's escutcheons.

A few years afterwards one of the porches, the Mayor's Chamber, and the
Council Chamber were built. In 1501 (Henry VII.), Sir John Shaw, mayor,
knighted on Bosworth Field, built the kitchens, since which time the
City feasts, before that held at Merchant Taylors' and Grocers' Hall,
were annually held here. In 1505, Sir Nicholas Alwin, mayor in 1499,
left L73 6s. 8d. to purchase tapestry for "gaudy" days at the Guildhall.
In 1614 a new Council Chamber, with a second room over it, was erected,
at an outlay of L1,740.

In the Great Fire, when all the roofs and outbuildings were destroyed,
an eye-witness describes Guildhall itself still standing firm, probably