A Knight belonging to the Court: one of the
Knights of King Richard the Second. Who march with the bear and ragged
staff upon their arms? They are the Livery of the Earl of Warwick. The
clash and gleam of arms and armour everywhere: colour on the men as well
as the women: colour on the trappings of the horses: colour on the
hanging arras of the wall: colour on the cloth of scarlet which they
hang out of the windows when the royal pageant rides along.

Close to the Palace, the Abbey. That too belongs to the time. Within the
Abbey precincts the people are almost as crowded as in the Palace. But
it is a different crowd. There is not so much colour: no arms or armour:
an orderly crowd: there are the Benedictine monks themselves, with their
crowd of servants, cooks, and refectory men: brewers: bakers: clothiers:
architects, builders and masons: scribes and lawyers: foresters and
farmers from the estates: stewards: cellarers: singing boys:
organists--for the Abbey Church of St. Peter is as great and as rich and
maintains as large an army of servants as the Cathedral Church of St.
Paul.

38. JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENTS.

In the time of the Plantagenets the punishments inflicted on wrongdoers
were much more lenient than those which followed in later years. There
is none of that brutal flogging which grew up in the last century, the
worst time in the whole history of the country, for the people. This
flogging not only in the army and navy but also for such offences as
vagrancy, lasted even into the present century. In the year 1804 six
women were publicly flogged at Gloucester for this offence. Under
Whittington this barbarous cruelty would not have been done. There were,
it is true, certain punishments which seem excessively cruel. If a man
struck a sheriff or an alderman he was sentenced to have his right hand
chopped off. That is, indeed, worse than hanging. But, consider, the
whole strength of London lay in its power to act and its resolution
always to act, as one man. This could only be effected by habitual
obedience to law and the most profound respect to the executive
officers. Therefore the worst penalty possible--that which deprived a
man of his power to work and his power to fight--which reduced him to
ruin--which made his innocent children beggars--which branded him till
death as a malefactor of the most dangerous kind--was inflicted for such
an offence. Here, again, mercy stepped in; for, when the criminal was