The locality immediately under notice was a road running from the Tower postern, outside the City wall and ditch, to Aldgate, along what is now called the Minories. Aldgate, or Ealdgate, so named from its antiquity, was the eastern outlet from the City, the great Essex road running eastward therefrom. Immediately within the gate stood the magnificent priory of the Holy Trinity, founded by Matilda, Queen of Henry I., and close by was the town house of the Barons Nevil, afterwards Earls of Westmoreland, who gave an abbess to the convent of St. Clare. Outside the gate there stretched an open expanse of country, with foliaged trees, meadows, and silver streamlets, where, on holidays, the young citizens gambolled, practised archery, and, in the more secluded parts, whispered in the ears of the young citizenesses "the old, old tale." Looking eastward, the low square-towered church of the village of Stebenhede (Stepney) by the riverside morasses might be seen; and nearer London, its chapel-of-ease, at the villa Beatæ Mariæ Matfelon, on the Essex road, whilst more to the north might be discerned the priory of St. Mary Spittal, founded a century previously. Here, outside the gate, in the year of grace 1293, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and Blanche, his countess, whilom Queen of Navarre, founded the convent of Minoresses of the order of St. Clare, dedicated to the "Blessed St. Mary," and amply endowed it with lands and messuages. St. Clare, Clara, Claire, or Chiara, as the name is rendered in different tongues, was born of a noble and wealthy family at Assisi, 1193, died 1253, and was canonized 1256. She was exceedingly beautiful, and had many offers of marriage, but when quite young, despite the opposition of her parents, resolved to dedicate herself to God. St. Francis had just then founded the Franciscan branch of the Mendicant Orders, and lived with ten "Frati Minores," in a hut on the Porziunculo, near Assisi, living austere lives, in absolute poverty, depending upon charity for their daily food, and maintaining strict silence, excepting when it was absolutely necessary to speak. To them Clare fled, and desired to be admitted as a nun of the order. She was followed by her kinsfolk, but clung with such tenacity to the altar, that they were compelled to leave her. She then founded the Order of Poor Clares, or Sisters Minoresses, with rules of the most rigid austerity, relating chiefly to abstinence, poverty, and silence. Their bed was the bare earth, they usually went barefooted, and were habited in grey robes, girdled with a knotted rope, and a white coif on the head. Within fifty years after her death, however, they were released from the vow of poverty, and the others were modified, from which time they accumulated property, built themselves comfortable houses, and indulged in social converse. The first convent was erected outside the walls of Assisi, but afterwards removed within, where a splendid church—the church of Santa Chiara