The Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem was situated at first outside Bishopsgate, close to St. Botolph's Church. This ancient Foundation, of which our Bethlehem Hospital is the grandchild, was endowed by one Simon Fitz Mary, Sheriff in the year 1247. It was designed for a convent, the monks being obliged to receive and entertain the Bishop of Bethlehem or his nuncio whenever either should be in London. It is said to have become a hospital within a few years of its foundation. In the year 1347 the brethren were all engaged in collecting alms. This was one of the lesser Houses, though it survived the rest and became the great and splendid Foundation which still exists. A little farther north, and on the opposite side of Bishopsgate Street, stood the great House of St. Mary Spital--_Domus Dei et Beatæ Virginis_--founded in the year 1197 by Walter Brune and Rosia his wife. It was originally a Priory of Canons Regular. At some time in its history, I know not when, it was converted into a hospital, like its neighbor of Bethlehem. It would be interesting to learn when this change became even possible. It must have been long after its foundation, when the old prayer-machine theory had lost something of its earliest authority, and, in the face of the mass of human suffering, men began to ask whether the machinery engaged in iterating litanies might not be made more useful in the alleviation of suffering. For whatever cause, the House of God and the Blessed Virgin became St. Mary Spital, and at the time of the Dissolution there were no fewer than one hundred and eighty beds in the House. Near St. Mary Spital was Holywell Nunnery. On the south side of Aldgate, outside the wall, stood the famous Abbey of St. Clare, called the Minories, founded by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, in the year 1293, for the reception of certain nuns brought over by his wife, Blanche, Queen of Navarre, who were professed to serve God, the Blessed Virgin, and St. Francis. There is a church, one of the meanest and smallest of all the London churches, standing in the ugliest and dreariest part of the City, called the Church of the Holy Trinity, Minories, which is often visited by Americans because the arms of Washington are to be seen here; and by antiquaries, because the head of the Duke of Suffolk, executed on Tower Hill, is preserved here. The north wall of this church is part of the wall of the Clare Sisters' Church, and is all that remains in that squalid place of the noble Foundation.