record, and therein we get a stormy
picture of the Thames in the Saxon epoch.

It is supposed that the Saxon kings dwelt in a palace on the site of the
Baynard's Castle of the Middle Ages, which stood at the river-side just
west of St. Paul's, although there is little proof of the fact. But we
get on the sure ground of truth when we find Edward the Confessor, one
of the most powerful of the Saxon kings, dwelling in saintly splendour
at Westminster, beside the abbey dedicated by his predecessors to St.
Peter. The combination of the palace and the monastery was suitable to
such a friend of the monks, and to one who saw strange visions, and
claimed to be the favoured of Heaven. But beyond and on all sides of the
Saxon palace everywhere would be fields--St. James's Park (fields), Hyde
Park (fields), Regent's Park (fields), and long woods stretching
northward from the present St. John's Wood to the uplands of Epping.

As to the City residences of the Saxon kings, we have little on record;
but there is indeed a tradition that in Wood Street, Cheapside, King
Athelstane once resided; and that one of the doors of his house opened
into Addle Street, Aldermanbury (_addle_, from the German word _edel_,
noble). But Stow does not mention the tradition, which rests, we fear,
on slender evidence.

Whether the Bread Street, Milk Street, and Cornhill markets date from
the Saxon times is uncertain. It is not unlikely that they do, yet the
earliest mention of them in London chronicles is found several centuries
later.

We must be therefore content to search for allusions to London's growth
and wealth in Saxon history, and there the allusions are frequent,
clear, and interesting.

In the earlier time London fluctuated, according to one of the best
authorities on Saxon history, between an independent mercantile
commonwealth and a dependency of the Mercian kings. The Norsemen
occasionally plundered and held it as a _point d'appui_ for their pirate
galleys. Its real epoch of greatness, however ancient its advantage as a
port, commences with its re-conquest by Alfred the Great in 886.
Henceforward, says that most reliable writer on this period, Mr.
Freeman, we find it one of the firmest strongholds of English freedom,
and one of the most efficient bulwarks of the realm. There the English
character developed the highest civilisation of the country, and there
the rich and independent citizens laid the foundations of future
liberty.

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