rand in London reminds us of the time when
there was no embankment, but the houses were right on the edge of the
water. Great palaces most of them were, where all the haughty nobles
with their following of squires lived. They have all gone now, these
great palaces, but one gate remains, a very handsome stone gate with
steps, and this was the gate of a great palace belonging to the Duke of
Buckingham, and here boats could come up so that the Duke could step
into one from his stairs at the water gate; but when the embankment was
made the river was hemmed in, and could not come so far up, and now the
gate stands back a long way from the river in the middle of a green
garden. The people used the river a great deal then, going by water as
we go by land, and the water was covered with gaily-coloured barges and
boats.

After being a squire, the next thing was to be a knight. It was not
every man who could be a knight. A man must have done some brave deed,
or shown himself very faithful, or be the son of a powerful noble, or
something of that kind; but when it was decided that a young man might
be made a knight, he had to watch his armour alone all night in a
church, and pray to be made worthy, and then in the morning he vowed
always to help the weak and avenge them, and never to draw back or be
afraid, and never to use his sword except for the right. Then the King
received him, and he knelt down, and the King gave him a light blow on
the shoulder with the flat side of the sword, and this made him a knight
and gave him the right to use the title 'Sir' before his name.

The knights used to have games that you and I would think were more like
real fighting than play. They put on armour and mounted their horses,
and then met to try to knock one another off. These fights were called
tournaments, and all the ladies came to watch them as nowadays they go
to watch men play at polo or cricket. The chief place in London for
tournaments was a place we have been to already, called Smithfield. That
is where the meat market is now, and it is still a wide, open square. A
great many things happened at Smithfield, and we shall hear of it again
before this book is finished.

On the day of a grand tournament everything was made ready very early.
There were high wooden seats arranged all round, covered with scarlet or
purple cloth, and there were special seats like thrones for the King and
Queen; and people came flocking up as if to a fair, dre