of these
was restricted to 420. When you think of London streets at this time
remember that in most of them, in all except the busy streets and the
chief thoroughfares, there was hardly ever any noise of rumbling wheels.
The packhorses followed each other in long procession, laden with
everything; there were doubtless wheelbarrows and hand carts; but the
rumbling of the wheels was not yet a part of the daily noise.

The Lord Mayor was directed by Elizabeth always to keep a certain number
of the citizens drilled and instructed in the use of arms. When the
Spanish invasion was threatened, the Queen ordered a body of troops to
be raised instantly. In a single day 1,000 men, fully equipped, were
marched off to camp. Afterwards 10,000 men were sent off, and
thirty-eight ships were supplied. Both men and sailors were raised by
impressment. A constant danger to the peace of the City was the
turbulence of the prentices, these lads were always ready to rush into
the streets, shouting, ready to attack or destroy whatever was unpopular
at the moment. Thus, early in the reign of Henry VIII., at a time when
there was great animosity against foreign merchants, of whom there were
a great many beside the Hanse merchants of the Steelyard, there was a
riot in which a great many houses of foreigners were destroyed, many
persons were killed, Newgate was assailed and taken, eleven rioters
hanged and 400 more taken before the King with halters round their necks
to receive his pardon. This was called 'Evil May Day.' The disorderly
conduct of the prentices continued during Elizabeth's reign, she ordered
the Provost-Marshal in order to put an end to this trouble, to hang all
disorderly persons so convicted by any Justice of the Peace.

There was much complaint of extravagance in dress: rules were passed by
the Common Council on the subject. Prentices especially were forbidden
to dress in any but the warmest and plainest materials. The dress of the
Blue Coat boy is exactly the dress of the prentice of the period,
including the flat cap which the modern wearer of the dress carries in
his pocket.

[Illustration: SOUTH-EAST PART OF LONDON IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY,
SHOWING THE TOWER AND WALL.]

The punishments of this time are much more severe than had been found
necessary in the Plantagenet period. They not only carried criminals in
shameful procession through the City, but they flogged girls for
idleness, apprentices for immorality, and rogue