But the most striking and remarkable memorial of the early power of the Danes and other Northmen in London is this—that the highest tribunal in the city has retained to our days its pure old northern name “Husting.” The word _Thing_, whereby, as is well known, both deliberative and judicial assemblies were designated in the north from the earliest times, does not seem to have been employed by the Anglo-Saxons in that signification, or at all events not before the Danish expeditions and Danish immigrations into England. The Anglo-Saxons used in that sense the term _gemót_, as in “Witena-gemót,” which was the name of their parliament. Husthings are also especially mentioned in the Sagas as having been held in the north, particularly by kings, jarls, and other powerful individuals. The Husthing in London was originally established in order to protect and guard the laws and liberties of the city and the customs of the courts of judicature; and the principal magistrates were judges. In the Latin of the middle ages it is said of a person who attended there—“Comparuit in Hustingo.” A similar Husting was also formerly found in the Isle of Sheppey, at the mouth of the Thames. London, beneath whose walls and gates the Danes have fought numerous battles with various success, contains within it memorials both of their greatest power and of the decay of their dominion. On the same side of the Thames as Sydvirke, or Southwark, but somewhat higher up, lies Lambeth (formerly Lambythe, Lambgathre), which is now a part of London, and the residence of the Primate of England, but which in olden times was a village outside the capital. At a country-house there a Danish jarl celebrated his marriage in the year 1042. King Hardicanute, with a number of his followers, was present at the banquet; but just as he was drinking to the bride, he suddenly fell to the ground, in a fit of apoplexy, and shortly afterwards breathed his last at the age of only twenty-six years. Hardicanute was the last Danish king in England. ---------- SECTION IV. Watlinga-Stræt.—South England.—Legends about the Danes.—The graves of Canute the Great and Hardicanute.