We have mentioned Alfred’s wall. His outline, we may be sure, was speedily filled up. St. Paul’s Church rose among the wooden and brick houses. Civic institutions began to show themselves where there was security; and Alfred’s brother-in-law, Burgred, the last King of Mercia, had a house in Coleman Street, and gave the cabbage garden to the Bishop of Worcester. Alfred’s daughter, Æthelflæd, married Æthelred, Burgred’s successor, who was called the Alderman of the Mercians. To him, and after his death to his widow, the king committed the charge and governance of the city, and Æthelbert became the first alderman of London. The importance of the place is apparent. It was the easternmost bulwark of Alfred’s kingdom against the settled Danes of East Anglia, as well as against the fresh incursions of pirates and filibusters from over the sea. Alfred’s prescience is proved by one single fact. From that day to this London has never been taken by force of arms. The Danes from the North Sea never got past the Tower—the Danes from the Danelaw never broke through the wall. With regard to ecclesiastical architecture in Alfred’s time we know very little; with regard to civil architecture scarcely anything. The church of St. Lawrence, Bradford-on-Avon, is assigned by competent judges to as late a date as the ninth century; but Aldhelm, who was Bishop of Sherborn near the beginning of the seventh century, founded a nunnery at Bradford, which was afterwards connected with that of Shaftesbury, and the church is mentioned as early as the time of King Æthelred, just a hundred years after the death of Alfred. Building-stone of the best kind abounds in the neighbourhood, as well as in that of Deerhurst, near Tewkesbury. The stone masonry suggests that wooden buildings set the pattern in both places: while, from the ease with which St. Paul’s in London was burnt, both before and after the Norman Conquest, we may be sure it contained very little brickwork. Deerhurst was built in 1053, so we must not look to it as an example of the architecture of Alfred’s time. At Wing, near Aylesbury, the chancel is Saxon, and not unlike St. Lawrence’s chapel in its peculiar flat panelling. It is very lofty, but less narrow in proportion than Bradford, and has a series of very interesting vaulted crypts, in which we see a good many thin bricks of the kind usually ascribed to the Romans, fragments perhaps of a Roman fortress or a villa at that place. Several towers with early Saxon features remain, but many have lately been destroyed, as at St. Albans, Limpsfield, and other places. A few fragments of Beda’s time may possibly remain in the very ancient church of Jarrow. Saxon building with Roman bricks is to be seen at St. Martin’s, Canterbury, and at Dover, but both falsified by injudicious alterations. Where good building-stone comes to the surface, as in Northamptonshire, we find not far apart examples of churches and