[Illustration: COVENTRY GATEWAY.] Coventry is a very ancient city. A convent was built here by Earl Leofric and his Countess Godiva, a few years before the Norman conquest, and in it they both were buried. To quote a summary of the [Illustration: COVENTRY, WARWICK.] city history from a careful writer: “Henry IV. held a parliament here called the unlearned, or Layman’s Parliament, from the forbidding in the writs of the return of lawyers, and from the stringent laws that were passed relative to the privileges of the Church. Henry V., when Prince of Wales, was committed to prison by the Mayor of Coventry for his disorderly conduct here on one occasion. Henry VI. and his Queen, Margaret, were great benefactors to the city; and its inhabitants remained faithful to the cause of Lancaster during the dreadful period of the Wars of the Roses.” Henry VII. also came to this city directly from Bosworth field, and Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned here. The spire of Coventry (St. Michael’s) is one of the most beautiful in England. The church is said by the historian of Coventry to be, next to Yarmouth, the largest in the kingdom; but if churches (not being cathedral) where parochial service is held are intended, neither one or the other is nearly the largest. The quaint irregular buildings in front form a beautiful composition with St. Michael’s spire; they are occupied as dwelling-houses. “The parish churches, ancient hospitals, monastic buildings, and old timber houses of Coventry, are still numerous, and exhibit in their varied features, historical relations, and distinctive characters, abundant matter for the study of the architect and antiquary,” so says Britton in his excellent work on the _Antiquities of English Cities_. St. Mary’s Hall is engraved in Britton’s work, and here it is just seen on the left hand; a beautiful gable projects before it. This hall was commenced in 1394, and finished in 1414, on the site of an old hall; the [Illustration: STREET IN COVENTRY.] buildings surround a courtyard, and are entered by an arched gateway from the street; and it is hardly possible in all the city architecture of England to find a more interesting and fine apartment than the great hall. It has been well described elsewhere. Bablake Hospital is another ancient corporation, and affords an admirable example of an old city building. It was founded in the latter part of Henry VII.’s reign by the Mayor of Coventry. In the distance is the tower of St. John’s Church. The whole groups very beautifully, and is in a good state of preservation. [Illustration: BABLAKE’S HOSPITAL, COVENTRY.] Of Ford’s Hospital, in the same city, John Carter, the painstaking archæologist, made the minutest drawings, and declared that such a splendid specimen of domestic architecture “ought to be kept in a case.” [Illustration: IRON GATE, DERBY.]