The Guildhall, already referred to, is a building of extremely ornate character, designed by Godwin, with a florid, many-niched and canopied front, furnished with statues of the chief makers of Northampton’s history, and with even the capitals of its columned vestibule carved after the mediæval manner with groups of tiny figures. But in 1864 architectural sculptors had but begun to recover the forgotten arts of the mediæval craftsman, and the execution of the designs is at once coarse and feeble. The interior, except the light and very fine, but barbarically coloured great hall, is of a truly Gothic gloom. We first find mention of “Hamtune,” as it was originally styled, in the Saxon Chronicle, when the Middle Angles occupied this district of the kingdom of Mercia. Then the Danes, who came first to ravage, settled in this part of the country, and the history of the town, which even then was a considerable place, for very many years remained one of fighting, and the victories of first one and then another. So often as it was burned, it was again rebuilt: no difficult matter then, when the houses were chiefly of timber. In 1065, the year before the coming of the Conqueror, it was again burnt, in the jealous struggles between the Saxon rulers; and there can be little doubt that, wearied of being ground to powder between the upper and the nether millstones of these ambitions, the people of Hampton were not altogether averse from being ruled by a stronger hand, in whose time a little peace might be assured. Certain it is that Northampton flourished under Norman rule, perhaps more than any other provincial town. The great castle then built has utterly disappeared, but other signs of great expansion remain, in the ancient Norman churches; and history tells us how favourite a place this was with the Norman and the Plantagenet sovereigns, who hunted in the vast surrounding forests, and held council in the great hall of the castle. The most famous of these councils was that of 1164, when Becket’s ultimate fate was foreshadowed. The fierce contest for the supremacy of the Church, or of its subordination to the State in the person of the monarch, had for some time past been in progress. A number of charges had been preferred against the Archbishop, and he was summoned to Northampton to meet them. He arrived and was refused the ceremonial kiss of peace by the King: his bishops renounced his authority, and when he marched to the hall of the castle, carrying his own archiepiscopal cross, the King and court withdrew, leaving him and a few faithful attendants alone. Dwell upon the scene for a moment, and picture the ominous and dramatic grandeur of it. Becket, already threatened with exile or death, fled to the coast and expatriated himself for six years; returning at last to his martyrdom at Canterbury. [Sidenote: _HISTORY_]