who, being now fully installed in their offices, were duly acknowledged by the fraternity. [Illustration: RICHARD II. DELIVERED BY BOLINGBROKE TO THE CITIZENS OF LONDON. _From a MS. of the Metrical History of Richard II. by François de Marque._ _British Museum, Harl. 1319._] We have been talking of Royal processions and their spectacular beauty. Our illumination gives us one scene of a tragic character. On the 1st of September, 1399, Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, conveyed Richard II. as a prisoner to London. He was taken to Westminster, and next day to the Tower. On the 30th, in Westminster Hall (which he had rebuilt), the unhappy King was declared deposed, amid uproarious shouts of joy, and Bolingbroke immediately rose and claimed the vacant throne. His claim was acknowledged, and the two Archbishops placed him in the royal seat. The French inscription tells how "the commons and the mob" of London led away their King to Westminster, while the Duke turned and entered by the "maistre porte" of London--"washing his hands of him," adds the old chronicler, "like Pilate." CHAPTER III. THE THAMES. _The "Silent Highway"--London Bridge--The Bridge Houses and their Signs--Waterworks--Ice Fairs--Swan-upping--Borough of Southwark--City Jurisdiction--Early Lords of Southwark--Winchester House--Our Lady Fair--Paris Garden Manor--Bull and Bear Baiting--Famous Inns--The Marshalsea and King's Bench Prisons--Tooley Street--Bridge House and the Bridge Masters--Sports on the Thames--Water Pageantry._ The facilities of transit afforded by the river highway led to the extension of the City towards the East, where the necessities of commerce converted its banks into a continuous succession of quays and wharves; whilst on the West the social life of the Court and City filled the entire frontage of the waterway between London and Westminster with the palaces of the great. Here, on "the Silent Highway," all classes met. Kings and queens in the royal pomp of their state-barges were rowed from the Tower to the Palace of Westminster; nobles passed East or West from their river mansions in their journeys to the City and the Court; the merchant brought his goods to Queenhithe and the wharves; fish and other provisions were landed at Billingsgate; watermen carried passengers to Greenwich, or up stream to Hampton Court; and the City apprentices practised water-quintain and other sports, in preparation for the grand Easter aquatic tournament described by the old chronicler of Henry the Second's time, FitzStephen.