ontinued, I have not read,
more than that in the reign of Edward I. it was the tenement of Simon
Beaumes." In the reign of Edward III. it was called "the Royal, in the
parish of St. Michael Paternoster;" and in the 43rd year of his reign he
gave the inn, in value L20 a year, to the college of St. Stephen, at
Westminster.

In the Wat Tyler rebellion, Richard II.'s mother and her ladies took
refuge there, when the rebels had broken into the Tower and terrified
the royal lady by piercing her bed with their swords.

"King Richard," says Stow, "having in Smithfield overcome and dispersed
the rebels, he, his lords, and all his company entered the City of
London with great joy, and went to the lady princess his mother, who was
then lodged in the Tower Royal, called the Queen's Wardrobe, where she
had remained three days and two nights, right sore abashed. But when she
saw the king her son she was greatly rejoiced, and said, 'Ah! son, what
great sorrow have I suffered for you this day!' The king answered and
said, 'Certainly, madam, I know it well; but now rejoyce, and thank God,
for I have this day recovered mine heritage, and the realm of England,
which I had near-hand lost.'"

Richard II. was lodging at the Tower Royal at a later date, when the
"King of Armony," as Stow quaintly calls the King of Armenia, had been
driven out of his dominions by the "Tartarians;" and the lavish young
king bestowed on him L1,000 a year, in pity for a banished monarch,
little thinking how soon he, discrowned and dethroned, would be vainly
looking round the prison walls for one look of sympathy.

This "great house," belonging anciently to the kings of England, was
afterwards inhabited by the first Duke of Norfolk, to whom it had been
granted by Richard III., the master he served at Bosworth. Strype finds
an entry of the gift in an old ledger-book of King Richard's, wherein
the Tower Royal is described as "Le Tower," in the parish of St. Thomas
Apostle, not of St. Michael, as Stow has it. The house afterwards sank
into poverty, became a stable for "all the king's horses," and in
Stow's time was divided into poor tenements. _Sic transit gloria mundi._

[Illustration: ST. ANTHOLIN'S CHURCH, WATLING STREET.]

The church of St. Antholin, in Watling Street, is the only old church in
London dedicated to that monkish saint. The date of its foundation is
unknown, but it must be of great antiquity, as it is mentioned by Ralph
de Diceto, Dean of St.