A short distance from the very heart of London, stands—for it has not yet been swept away by the builder’s hand—one of the finest remaining relics of the ancient city. It is a heavy fortified gate, built of large blocks of freestone, and flanked by bastions. It has a fine groined Norman arch; and though it is now old and decayed, it is still strong, and shows us what its strength and stability have been in days gone by. It was built by, and belonged to, at one time, that famous order of chivalry, ‘The Knights Hospitallers,’ or ‘Knights of St John of Jerusalem,’ the great rivals of the Templars, and who did such good service in the Holy Land in the time of the crusades; and when Palestine was hopelessly lost, kept up their incessant war against the Infidel in Rhodes, and when driven from that island by the Turks—in Malta. This order had at one time many religious houses scattered over Europe; and their London priory, that of St John of Clerkenwell, has quite a history of its own to tell. It was founded in the year 1100 by a devout baron named Jordan Briset, this being the time that the first crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, was going on. For a considerable time after this, we know little of the priory, save that the knights were growing in riches and arrogance, and thus were making themselves obnoxious to the people, although some of the old chroniclers tell us that ‘they tended the sick and the needy.’ In fact, they got to be so disliked by the common people, that in the riots which took place in the reign of Richard II.—in which Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball took so prominent a part, the last-named being a clergyman, who, in his harangues to the multitude, took for his text the rhyme, When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then a gentleman? and made the people think that all the property of the rich was really theirs—the rebels made the Priory of St John a special mark of their fury, and after destroying houses and much property belonging to the knights, they attacked the place itself and burnt it to the ground; and capturing the prior soon after, they executed him upon the spot. For many years after, the knights were engaged in building a new priory; but the work went slowly on, owing to the troubled state of the order at what was then their great stronghold, Rhodes, and the large numbers of men and sums of money required there to assist in keeping back the conquering Turks, who were fighting with great zeal under the victorious Sultan Solyman. Gradually, a fine church, whose bell is related to have had an exceedingly fine tone, was added to the priory; and soon after the church was finished, Thomas Dockwra, who was then prior, built the gate; this being in or about the year 1504, in the latter part of the reign of Henry VII., the first of the famous dynasty of Tudor sovereigns.