the crown of England in its fee, but the monopoly of its sea-borne commerce, and the monopoly of its great product, wool--for it was said in the 14th Century that England with its wool kept the whole world warm--and the stupendous efforts required to destroy it. Yet to destroy it, was again not all of Sir Thomas Gresham’s policy. He meant, while destroying it, to graft upon English commerce the business methods by which the Hanseatic League had achieved its pre-eminence. Amongst these methods, by the way, was insurance. We are to imagine, then, Sir Thomas Gresham conversing with his great guest upon these grave matters, and she in time turning to her companion upon her left. La Motte Fénélon was an old friend of hers, and it is clear that they did some pretty sparring over the vexed question whether she should or should not marry the Duc D’Anjou. It seems that Elizabeth was in great good humour that day. She had not visited the City for two years, and was received with so loving a welcome that probably nothing like to it was afterwards seen until the Jubilee processions of Queen Victoria. But “Gloriana” was not the woman to lose her head, and to hold out hopes that she would marry a foreign prince was one of her favourite tricks with foreign ambassadors. She told Monsieur La Motte Fénélon that she was well aware that the Duc D’Anjou had not the best of reputations, but that she would, if she married him, do her best to be a loving wife and the mother of a fine boy. She broke off to ask him how he thought she was looking--we may be very sure she did not put this question to the great Sir Thomas Gresham. La Motte Fénélon replied that she was divinely beautiful. He could really under the circumstances say no less. He does not go quite so far in his account of this dinner party to his own Government, but he admits that since she was rising forty, as the phrase goes, she was really surprising. We must take it that the dinner was a success, for it was nearly seven o’clock in the evening--a late hour for those days--when, accompanied by a great escort of torch bearers, she went on to the Exchange. The building was constructed almost entirely of foreign material. The alabaster came from the Low Countries; the stone from Flanders; even the little blocks of hone stones which still to-day pave the centre of the quadrangle came from Turkey. The Master who superintended the work was Flemish--one Henrik--and almost to a man the builders were from overseas. [Illustration: THE FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE.]