When you think of a great city of the thirteenth or fourteenth century you must remember two things. First, that the streets were mostly very narrow--if you walk down Thames Street and note the streets running north and south you will be able to understand how narrow the City streets were. Second, that the great houses of the nobles and the rich merchants stood in these narrow streets, shut in on all sides though they often contained spacious courts and gardens. No attempt was made to group the houses or to arrange them with any view to picturesque effect. It has been the fashion to speak of mediaeval London as if it were a city of hovels grouped together along dark and foul lanes. This was by no means the case. On the contrary, it was a city of splendid palaces and houses nearly all of which were destroyed by the Great Fire. You have seen how the City was covered with magnificent buildings of monasteries and churches. Do not believe that the nobles and rich merchants who endowed and built these places would be content to live in hovels. [Illustration: DURHAM, SALISBURY, AND WORCESTER HOUSES.] The nobles indeed wanted barracks. A great Lord never moved anywhere without his following. The Earl of Warwick, called the King Maker, when he rode into London was followed by five hundred men, wearing his colours: all of these had to find accommodation in his town house. This was always built in the form of a court or quadrangle. The modern Somerset House, which is built on the foundations of the old house, shows us what a great man's house was like: and the College of Heralds in Queen Victoria Street, is another illustration, for this was Lord Derby's town house. Hampton Court and St. James's, are illustrations of a great house with more than one court. Any one who knows the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge will understand the arrangement of the great noble's town house in the reign of Richard II. On one side was the hall in which the banquets took place and all affairs of importance were discussed. The kitchen, butteries and cellars stood opposite the doors of the hall; at the back of the hall with a private entrance were the rooms of the owner and his family: the rest of the rooms on the quadrangle were given up to the use of his followers. Baynard's Castle--the name yet survives--stood on the river bank not far from Blackfriars. It was a huge house with towers and turrets and a water gate with stairs. It contained two courts. It was at last, after standing for six hundred years, destroyed in the Great Fire, and was one of the most lamentable of the losses caused by that disaster. The house had been twice before burned down, and that which finally perished was built in 1428. Here Edward IV. assumed the Crown: here he placed his wife and children for safety before going forth to the Battle of Barnet. Here Buckingham offered the Crown to Richard. Here Henry VIII. lived. Here Charles II. was entertained.