ustly ranged themselves on the side of
Simon de Montfort, who stood up for their liberties, the great bell of
St. Paul's was the tocsin that summoned the burghers to arms, especially
on that memorable occasion when Queen Eleanor tried to escape by water
from the Tower to Windsor, where her husband was, and the people who
detested her tried to sink her barge as it passed London Bridge.

In the equally troublous reign of Edward II. St. Paul's was again
splashed with blood. The citizens, detesting the king's foreign
favourites, rose against the Bishop of Exeter, Edward's regent in
London. A letter from the queen, appealing to them, was affixed to the
cross in Cheapside. The bishop demanded the City keys of the Lord Mayor,
and the people sprang to arms, with cries of "Death to the queen's
enemies!" They cut off the head of a servant of the De Spensers, burst
open the gates of the Bishop of Exeter's palace (Essex Street, Strand),
and plundered, sacked, and destroyed everything. The bishop, at the time
riding in the Islington fields, hearing the danger, dashed home, and
made straight for sanctuary in St. Paul's. At the north door, however,
the mob thickening, tore him from his horse, and, hurrying him into
Cheapside, proclaimed him a traitor, and beheaded him there, with two of
his servants. They then dragged his body back to his palace, and flung
the corpse into the river.

In the inglorious close of the glorious reign of Edward III., Courtenay,
Bishop of London, an inflexible prelate, did his best to induce some of
the London rabble to plunder the Florentines, at that time the great
bankers and money-lenders of the metropolis, by reading at Paul's Cross
the interdict Gregory XI. had launched against them; but on this
occasion the Lord Mayor, leading the principal Florentine merchants into
the presence of the aged king, obtained the royal protection for them.

Wycliffe and his adherents (amongst whom figured John of Gaunt--"old
John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster"--Chaucer's patron) soon brewed
more trouble in St. Paul's for the proud bishop. The great reformer
being summoned to an ecclesiastical council at St. Paul's, was
accompanied by his friends, John of Gaunt and the Earl Marshal, Lord
Percy. When in the lady chapel Percy demanded a soft seat for Wycliffe.
The bishop said it was law and reason that a cited man should stand
before the ordinary. Angry words ensued, and the Duke of Lancaster
taunted Courtenay with his