Where there is so much to speak about, one must exercise care in selection. I have endeavored to avoid as much as possible those points which have already been presented. For instance, the growth of the municipality, the rise of the Guilds and the Companies, the laws of London, the relations of the City to the Sovereign and the State--these things belong to the continuous historian, not to him who draws a picture of a given time. In the latter case it is the effect of law, not its growth, which is important. Thus I have spoken of the pilgrimizing in the time of Henry II.; of the Mysteries of that time; things that belonged to the daily life; rather than to matters of policy, the stubborn tenacity of the City, or the changes that were coming over the conditions of existence and of trade. Again, in Plantagenet London one might have dwelt at length upon the action taken by London in successive civil wars. That, again, belongs to the historian. I have contented myself with sketching the churches and the monasteries, the palaces and the men-at-arms, the merchants and the workmen. Again, in the time of George II., the increase of trade, which then advanced by leaps and bounds, the widening of the world to London enterprise, the part which London took in the conquest of India and the ejection of France from North America belong to history. For my own part I have preferred to show the position, the influence, and the work of the Church at a time generally believed to be the deadest period in the whole history of the Church of England. This done, I have gone on to illustrate the day-by-day life of the citizens, with the prices of things, the management, and the appearance of the City. One thing remains to be said. Mr. Loftie, in his _History of London_ (Stadford), first gave the world a reconstruction of the ground--the _terrain_--of London and its environs before ever a house was erected or an acre cleared. The first chapter of this book--that on Roman London and After--is chiefly due to a study of this map, and to realizing what that map means when applied to the scanty records of Augusta. This map enabled me to recover the years which followed the retreat of the Romans. I cannot allow this chapter to be called a Theory. It is, I venture to claim for it, nothing less than a Recovery. WALTER BESANT. UNITED UNIVERSITY CLUB: _May 2, 1892_. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. AFTER THE ROMANS 1 II. SAXON AND NORMAN 43 III. PLANTAGENET 105 IV. PLANTAGENET--_CONTINUED_ 155 V. PLANTAGENET--_CONTINUED_ 215 VI. TUDOR 263 VII. TUDOR--_CONTINUED_ 320