uld formally promise him that goodly heritage of
England. But the King made no rejoinder, and they now neared the end of
the bridge.

"What old ruin looms yonder?" [37] asked William, hiding his
disappointment at Edward's silence; "it seemeth the remains of some
stately keape, which, by its fashion, I should pronounce Roman."

"Ay!" said Edward, "and it is said to have been built by the Romans; and
one of the old Lombard freemasons employed on my new palace of
Westminster, giveth that, and some others in my domain, the name of the
Juillet Tower."

"Those Romans were our masters in all things gallant and wise," said
William; "and I predict that, some day or other, on that site, a King of
England will re-erect palace and tower. And yon castle towards the
west?"

"Is the Tower Palatine, where our predecessors have lodged, and ourself
sometimes; but the sweet loneliness of Thorney Isle pleaseth me more
now."

Thus talking, they entered London, a rude, dark city, built mainly of
timbered houses; streets narrow and winding; windows rarely glazed, but
protected chiefly by linen blinds; vistas opening, however, at times into
broad spaces, round the various convents, where green trees grew up
behind low palisades. Tall roods, and holy images, to which we owe the
names of existing thoroughfares (Rood-lane and Lady-lane [38]), where the
ways crossed, attracted the curious and detained the pious. Spires there
were not then, but blunt, cone-headed turrets, pyramidal, denoting the
Houses of God, rose often from the low, thatched, and reeded roofs. But
every now and then, a scholar's, if not an ordinary, eye could behold the
relics of Roman splendour, traces of that elder city which now lies
buried under our thoroughfares, and of which, year by year, are dug up
the stately skeletons.

Along the Thames still rose, though much mutilated, the wall of
Constantine [39]. Round the humble and barbarous Church of St. Paul's
(wherein lay the dust of Sebba, that king of the East Saxons who quitted
his throne for the sake of Christ, and of Edward's feeble and luckless
father, Ethelred) might be seen, still gigantic in decay, the ruins of
the vast temple of Diana [40]. Many a church, and many a convent,
pierced their mingled brick and timber work with Roman capital and shaft.
Still by the tower, to which was afterwards given the Saracen name of
Barbican, were the wrecks of the Roman station, where cohorts watched
night and day, in