It was also the position of the City as the centre of the country; not geographically, which would give Warwick that position, but from the construction of the roads and from its position on the Thames. But, to repeat, the use and wont of the City to act together by order of the Mayor, principally made it so great a power. Whatever troubles might arise, here was a solid body--'24,000 men at arms and 30,000 archers,' all acting on one side. The rest of the country was scattered, uncertain, inclined this way and that. The City, to use a modern phrase, 'voted solid.' There were no differences of opinion in the City. And that, even more than its wealth, made London a far more important factor, politically, than the barons with all their following. 40. ELIZABETHAN LONDON. PART I. A map of Elizabethan London, drawn by one Agas, which is almost a picture as well as a map, shows us very clearly the aspect of the City. Let us lay down the map before us. First of all, we observe the wall of the City; it is carefully drawn of uniform height, with battlements, and at regular intervals, bastions. Outside the wall there is the ditch, but it is now, as Stow describes it, laid out in gardens--cows are grazing in some parts of it--and there are mean houses built on the other side of it. There is a single street of houses with large gardens outside Aldgate, which is now Whitechapel. The north side of Houndsditch is already built. A street of houses runs north of Bishopsgate. No houses stand between this street and two or three streets outside Cripplegate. Moorfields are really fields. There are windmills, gardens with summer-houses, pasture-fields with cows, a large 'dogge house,' and fields where women appear to be laying out clothes to dry. Really, they are tenter fields, i.e. fields provided with 'tenters,' or pegs, by means of which cloth could be stretched. North of Moorfields is indicated rising ground with woods. There can be no doubt at all as to the course of the wall, which is here marked with the greatest clearness. On the east of the Tower there is already a crowded quarter in the Precinct of St. Katherine's: and a few buildings mark the former site of the great monastery of Eastminster. In the Minories a group of new houses marks the site of the nunnery which stood here. London Bridge is covered with houses: on Bank Side, Southwark, there are two round buildings, 'The Bearebayting' and 'The Bullebayting.' There is also, opposite to Blackfriars, Paris Garden, a very favourite place of resort for the citizens. But as yet there are no theatres. Along the river outside the walls we find, beyond Bridewell Palace, an open space where was formerly Whitefriars. Here presently grew up a curious colony called Alsatia, which claimed to retain the right of Sanctuary once belonging to the monastery. Arrests for debt could not be made within its limits. That is to say, it was so claimed by the residents, who resisted any