The common known as Blackheath, probably because of its sombre appearance, that adjoins the parish of Greenwich, is all that is left of a vast unenclosed tract of country, which between the time of St. Alphege and the early years of the nineteenth century often played an important part in the history of England. On it, in June 1381, Wat Tyler and his followers were encamped for some days, their numbers constantly increasing, before the march to London that was to end so disastrously. There Richard II. and his young {116} bride Isabel of France, Henry V. and his victorious troops fresh from Agincourt, and Henry VI. after his coronation at Paris, were at different times met by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, who had come from the city to welcome them. There, too, after the tragic death of their leader, the adherents of Jack Cade knelt, with halters round their necks, before Henry VI. to plead for pardon; and there, a few months later, the same monarch, with his army around him, awaited the coming of the Duke of York, whose claim to the throne was stronger than his own, resolved, in spite of all his promises to the contrary, to have him sent a prisoner to London. It was on Blackheath that the son of the Duke, Edward IV. halted, in 1471, to receive the congratulations of the citizens of London on his return from Paris after signing the famous treaty of peace with Louis of France, and there, twenty-six years afterwards, Henry VII. met and cut to pieces the rebels from Cornwall, who had marched to London under the joint leadership of Lord Audley and the sturdy blacksmith Michael Joseph, whose burial-place, a mound locally known as the Smith's Forge, from which Whitefield used to preach, is marked by a group of fir-trees. To Blackheath came, in 1519, the Papal legate Cardinal Campeggio, to take counsel with the Catholic Duke of Norfolk, and there in the same year the High Admiral of France, the chivalrous Bonivet, attended by many young French gallants in gorgeous array, was welcomed with great pomp by the Earl of Surrey, who held the same office {117} in England. During the reigns of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, Charles I., and Charles II., Blackheath was, as a matter of course, the scene of many a pageant besides the one already alluded to in connection with Greenwich, when the wooer of so many fair women went forth from his palace there to receive his bride, the unattractive Anne of Cleves. The last great historical gathering which took place on the Heath was that of May 29, 1660, when the army was drawn up on it to welcome back Charles II., an event graphically described by Macaulay, who remarks: 'In the midst of the general joy at the restoration, one spot [Blackheath] presented a dark and threatening aspect, for though the king smiled, bowed, and extended his hand graciously to the lips of the colonels and majors, all his courtesy was in vain. The countenances of the soldiers were sad and lowering, and had they given