His next impression was that of the City lying prostrate at the mercy of a large mob, unable to move or to help itself. He went into the City almost alone; he, by one single act of splendid courage, put an end to the insurrection. A City cowardly, therefore, and unable to act together. It was his City, moreover--the _Camera Regis_. Should not a prince do what he pleases with his own? When we read of his subsequent treatment of the City: how he believed its treasures to be inexhaustible; how he believed that it had no power to resist; how he made the way easy for his cousin to supplant him, let us bear in mind the lessons which the Londoners themselves provided for him in his youth. This King seizes on the imagination of all who think about him. His is one of the strangest of all the strange figures which crowd the National Portrait Gallery. Richly endowed with artistic instincts; a lover of music and all the fine arts; of singularly winning manners; the comeliest man in his whole kingdom; splendid in raiment, magnificent in his court, colossal in his personal pride, prodigal and extravagant beyond compare; the King whom those who knew him in his youth never ceased to love; for whose soul--not for the soul of Henry IV.--Whittington, for instance, left money for masses--this is a figure among our English kings which has no parallel. One more reminiscence of Kennington Palace. The last occasion on which Richard lodged there was when he brought home his little bride Isabel, the queen of eight years. They brought her from Dover, resting on the way at Canterbury and Rochester. At Blackheath they were met by the Mayor and Aldermen, attired with great magnificence of costume to do honour to the bride. After reverences due, they fell into their place and rode on with the procession. When they arrived at Newington, the King thanked the Mayor and permitted him to leave the procession and return home. He himself, with his company, rode by the cross-country lane from Newington to Kennington Palace. I observe that this proves the existence of a path or lane where is now Upper Kennington Lane. At this palace the little queen rested a night, and next day was carried in another procession to the Tower. The knights rode before, and the French ladies came after. It is pretty to read how Isabel, with her long fair hair falling over her shoulders, and her sweet childish face, sat up and smiled upon the people, playing and pretending to be queen, which she had been practising ever since her betrothal. Needless to say that all hearts were ravished. The good people of London were ever ready to welcome one princess after another, and to lose their hearts to them, whether it was Isabel of France, or Katharine her sister, or Anne Boleyn, or Queen Charlotte, or the fair Princess of Denmark. So great a press was there that many were actually squeezed to death on London Bridge, where the houses only left twelve feet in breadth. Isabel's