The Church, as already shown, was the earliest innkeeper in those days when travellers travailed in difficulties and dangers; and semi-religious bodies often acted the same hospitable part. The Knights Templars and the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem kept hostelries at various places, prominent among them the old house which is now the “Angel” at Grantham. The “Angel,” in common with other inns of the same name, derived its sign in the far-off thirteenth century from a religious picture-sign of the Annunciation, and we may readily see how, in the fading of the picture, the rest of the group gradually sank out of sight, leaving only that bright announcing messenger visible to passers-by. Undoubtedly the “Angel” at Islington obtained its name in this way: staggering though the thought may be to those who know that merely secular public-house, in that roaring vortex of London traffic. [Illustration: THE “GEORGE,” ST. ALBANS.] The attitude of greeting in the pose of the angelic figure led in course of time to such a sign being often called the “Salutation”: hence the various old inns of that name in different parts of the country were originally “Angels.” The “Angel” at Grantham is a quaint admixture of ancient and modern. It was a hostel, and bore this name even so early as the reign of King John, for beneath its roof that monarch held his Court in the February of 1213. We do not, however, find anything nowadays so ancient in the “Angel,” for every vestige of the building in which that shifty and evasive monarch lodged has disappeared. This is by no means to say that the “Angel” is of recent date. It belongs in part to the mid-fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--a more than respectable age. From the midst of the town of Grantham it looks out upon the Great North Road, and in truth, facing a highway of so great and varied historic doings, no building can have witnessed more in the way of varied processions. History, made visible, has passed by, in front of these windows, for at least five hundred years, beginning with the gorgeous cavalcades of kings and courts and armies going or coming on missions of peace or war to and from Scotland, and at last--what a contrast!--ending with the hotel omnibus to or from the railway-station, with the luggage of “commercials.” [Illustration: THE “ANGEL,” GRANTHAM.]