that you never
fish again on Sundays; secondly, that you pay a tithe of them to the
Abbey of Westminster." And as long as it was possible the monastery kept
its grasp on the Thames fisheries. In 1282, the abbot, in defence of his
claim, defeated the Rector of Rotherhithe in the law courts, and the
original grant by St. Peter was put forward as authority for the rights
of the convent in the matter. Almost to the end of the fourteenth
century it was the custom for a fisherman once a year to take his place
beside the prior, bringing a salmon for St. Peter. The fish was carried
in state through the refectory, the prior and all the brethren rising as
it passed.

The Abbey and its precincts for a long period comprised a vast group of
buildings, quite cut off by pleasant meadows and gardens from the
neighbouring city. From King Street the approach was under two grand
arches and past the Clock Tower, where once hung and swung Great Tom of
Westminster, now in St. Paul's Cathedral. The entrance to Tothill Street
marks the site of the gatehouse or prison of the monastery, in which
many illustrious prisoners were confined before its demolition, in 1777.
Amongst them may be named Sir Walter Raleigh, John Hampden, and Lilly
the astrologer.

There is so much that is interesting connected with the sanctuary, the
cloisters, and the chapter-house, that I shall devote my next talk
specially to those buildings. The abbot's house, now the deanery, saw
many notable scenes in the Middle Ages. Especially was it so with the
Jerusalem Chamber, of which the low rough wall runs off from the south
side of the western portal of the Abbey. There is an entrance to it from
the nave. It was in this chamber that Henry IV. died. He was purposing a
journey to the Holy Land, when, in 1412, fearfully afflicted with
leprosy, he came up to London for his last Parliament. Soon after
Christmas, he was praying at St. Edward's Shrine, when he was taken so
ill that his death before the shrine seemed probable. He was, however,
carried to the Jerusalem Chamber, and on learning its name, praised God
that the prophecy that he should die in Jerusalem would be fulfilled.
His son, the gay and dissolute Prince Harry, attended his father in his
last moments, and then retired to an oratory, and spent a long day on
his knees. Henceforth the latter was a changed character, and every one
was astonished at the way in which he shook off the past, and devoted
himself to his new