About nine miles north of Wakefield is the great commercial capital of Yorkshire and centre of the cloth-trade. Leeds, built in the valley of the river Aire. Twelve hundred years ago this region, embracing the valleys of the Aire and the Calder, was the independent kingdom of Loidis. It was soon overrun and conquered, however, by the Anglian hosts, and ultimately the conquerors built here the monastery that in Bede's time was presided over by the abbot Thrydwulf. This stood on the site of the present parish church, and in the eighth century it was called "the monastery at Leeta." It stood at the crossing of two important Roman roads in the midst of a forest. This was the beginning of the great city, for soon a hamlet gathered around the monastery, though long since the woods, and indeed all green things, were driven away from Leeds. The village was laid waste by William the Conqueror, and at the time of the Domesday Book it was one of one hundred and fifty manors held by Baron Ilbert de Lacy, whose possessions stretched halfway across Yorkshire. He built a castle at Leeds, which was afterwards a prison of Richard II., but has long since disappeared. In 1530, Leland described Leeds as "a pretty market-town, as large as Bradford, but not so quick as it." Charles I. incorporated it, and the cloth-market was then of some importance. In the Civil War it was taken by the Royalists, and afterwards retaken by Fairfax for the Parliament in a short, sharp struggle, in which a clergyman named Scholfield distinguished himself by his valor, and "by his triumphant psalm-singing" as work after work was captured from the enemy. Flemish workmen brought cloth-making into this part of Yorkshire as early as the reign of Edward III., and two centuries ago the cloth-makers prospered so much that they held a market twice a week at Leeds on a long, narrow bridge crossing the Aire. They laid their cloth on the battlements of the bridge and on benches below, and the country clothiers could buy for four cents from the innkeepers "a pot of ale, a noggin of porridge, and a trencher of boiled or roast beef." This substantial supply was known as the "brigg (bridge)-shot," and from the bridge ran the street known as the Briggate, which has since developed into one of the finest avenues of the city. [Illustration: ST JOHN'S CHURCH]