It would appear that, when Richard Coeur-de-Lion returned from the Third Crusade in 1194, he approached the city of London and entered it by the New Gate, on the west. Being much fatigued by his long journey, the weary monarch, on arriving at Snow Hill, outside the gate, stopped at an inn there and called loudly to a tapster for refreshment. He drank rather freely, "untille ye hedde of ye Kinge did swimme ryghte royallie." He then began laying about him right and left with a battle-axe, to the "astoundmente and dyscomfythure of ye courtierres." Upon which one of the Barons said, "I wish hys majestie hadde ye hedde of a Saracen before hym juste now, for I trowe he woulde play ye deuce wyth itte." Thereupon the King paid all the damage and gave permission that the inn should be called "Ye Saracen's Hedde." It is a pretty story, and, as we have suggested, may or may not be true; but it gives us a starting point in the history of the inn. How long before this incident the inn had existed and what its name was previously, we cannot say. Lydgate refers to the inn's name again in the following stanza of one of his poems: Richarde hys sonne next by successyon, Fyrst of that name--strong, hardy and abylle-- Was crowned Kinge, called Cuer de Lyon, With Sarasenys hedde served at hys tabyelle. The inn, by virtue of its situation, was in the centre of many an historic event enacted in the surrounding streets, and would naturally be the resort of those taking part in them. If records existed, many a thrilling tale could be gathered from their perusal; as it is, only meagre details can be furnished. In 1522, Charles V of Germany, when on his visit to London, stayed at the inn, and his retinue occupied three hundred beds, whilst stabling for forty horses was needed also; evidence that it was no mean hostelry, in spite of the fact that Stow's record of the inn's existence in his "Survey of London" is confined to the following sentence: "Hard by St. Sepulchre's Church is a fayre and large inn for the receipt of travellers, and hath to signe the 'Saracen's Head.'" A few years later (1617) we get another reference to the hostel, in Wm. Fennor's "The Comptor's Commonwealth," a book describing the troubles of an unfortunate debtor in the hands of serjeants and gaolers. Therein is an allusion to a serjeant "with a phisnomy much resembling the 'Saracen's Head,' without Newgate," alluding, of course, to the figurehead on the sign-board of the inn. [Illustration: THE SIGN OF THE SARACEN'S HEAD] It goes without saying that the famous Pepys knew the house, and we have the following entry in his diary as confirmation: "11 Nov. 1661. To the wardrobe with Mr. Townsend and Mr. Moore and then to the 'Saracen's Head' to a barrel of oysters." How Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen would have revelled in that occasion!