The History of London

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Walter Besant. The History of London

1. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON

2. THE FOUNDATION OF LONDON

3. ROMAN LONDON

4. ROMAN LONDON

5. AFTER THE ROMANS

6. AFTER THE ROMANS

7. AFTER THE ROMANS

8. THE FIRST SAXON SETTLEMENT

9. THE SECOND SAXON SETTLEMENT

10. THE ANGLO-SAXON CITIZEN

11. THE WALL OF LONDON

12. NORMAN LONDON

13. FITZSTEPHEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CITY

14. FITZSTEPHEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE CITY

15. LONDON BRIDGE

16. LONDON BRIDGE

17. THE TOWER OF LONDON

18. THE TOWER OF LONDON

19. THE PILGRIMS

20. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL

21. THE TERROR OF LEPROSY

22. THE TERROR OF FAMINE

23. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

24. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

25. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD

26. THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES

27. MONKS, FRIARS, AND NUNS

28. THE LONDON CHURCHES

29. THE STREETS

30 WHITTINGTON

31. WHITTINGTON

32. WHITTINGTON

33. GIFTS AND BEQUESTS

34. THE PALACES AND GREAT HOUSES

35. AMUSEMENTS

36. WESTMINSTER ABBEY

37. THE COURT AT WESTMINSTER

38. JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENTS

39. THE POLITICAL POWER OF LONDON

40. ELIZABETHAN LONDON

41. ELIZABETHAN LONDON

42. ELIZABETHAN LONDON

43. TRADE

44. TRADE

45. TRADE

46. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS

47. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS

48. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS

49. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS

50. THE TERROR OF THE PLAGUE

51. THE TERROR OF THE PLAGUE

52. THE TERROR OF FIRE

53. THE TERROR OF FIRE

54. ROGUES AND VAGABONDS

55. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND

56. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND

57. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND

58. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND

59. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND

60. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY

61. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY

62. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CITY

63. LONDON

Отрывок из книги

On these low hillocks marked on the map London was first founded. The site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it overlooked the river, which here was at its narrowest, it was protected by two other streams and by the steepness of the cliff, and it was over the little port formed by the fall of one stream into the river. Here, on the western hill, the Britons formed their first settlement; there were as yet no ships on the silent river where they fished; there was no ferry, no bridge, no communication with the outer world; the woods provided the first Londoners with game and skins; the river gave them fish; they lived in round huts formed of clay and branches with thatched roofs. If you desire to understand how the Britons fortified themselves, you may see an excellent example not very far from London. It is the place called St. George's Hill, near Weybridge. They wanted a hill – the steeper the side the better: they made it steeper by entrenching it; they sometimes surrounded it with a high earthwork and sometimes with a stockade: the great thing being to put the assailing force under the disadvantage of having to climb. The three river sides of the London fort presented a perpendicular cliff surmounted by a stockade, the other side, on which lay the forest, probably had an earthwork also surmounted by a stockade. There were no buildings and there was no trade; the people belonged to a tribe and had to go out and fight when war was carried on with another tribe.

The fort was called Llyn-din – the Lake Fort. When the Romans came they could not pronounce the word Llyn – Thlin in the British way – and called it Lon – hence their word Londinium. Presently adventurous merchants from Gaul pushed across to Dover, and sailed along the coast of Kent past Sandwich and through the open channel which then separated the island of Thanet from the main land, into the broad Thames, and, sailing up with the tide, dropped anchor off the fishing villages which lay along the river and began to trade. What did they offer? What Captain Cook offered the Polynesians: weapons, clothes, adornments. What did they take away? Skins and slaves at first; skins and slaves, and tin and iron, after the country became better known and its resources were understood. The taste for trading once acquired rapidly grows; it is a delightful thing to exchange what you do not want for what you do want, and it is so very easy to extend one's wants. So that when the Romans first saw London it was already a flourishing town with a great concourse of merchants.

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It was a small fortress defended on three sides by earthworks, by stockades, by a cliff or steeply sloping bank, and by streams; on the fourth side by an earthwork, stockade, and trench. The ground was slightly irregular, rising from 30 to 60 feet. An open moor full of quagmires and ponds also protected it on the north. On the east on the other side of the stream rose another low hill. The extent of this British fort of Llyn-din may be easily estimated. The distance from Walbrook to the Fleet is very nearly 900 yards; supposing the fort was 500 yards in depth from south to north we have an area of 450,000 square yards, i.e. about 100 acres was occupied by the first London, the Fortress on the Lake. What this town was like in its later days when the Romans found it; what buildings stood upon it; how the people lived, we know very little indeed. They went out to fight, we know so much; and if you visit Hampstead Heath you may look at a barrow on the top of a hill which probably contains the bones of those citizens of London who fell in the victory which they achieved over the citizens of Verulam when they fought it out in the valley below that hill.

One more point may be made out from history. Since London was a town which then, as now, lived entirely by its trade and was the centre of the export and import trade of the whole country, the merchants, as we have seen, must have suffered most severely long before the Romans went away. We are, therefore, in the year 410, facing a situation full of menace. The Picts and Scots are overrunning the whole of the north, the Saxons are harrying the east and the south-east, trade is dying, there is little demand for imports, there are few exports, it is useless for ships to wait cargoes which never arrive, it is useless for ships to bring cargoes for which there is no demand.

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