Look at Old Palace Yard and New Palace Yard, with the dull old streets leading out of them, and then imagine Richard’s Palace, with its towers, its posterns, its great halls and painted chambers, its cloisters, its courts, and its galleries; "gabled houses with carved timber and plastered fronts, cloisters which glowed in the sunshine with their lace like tracery, with the gold and crimson of their painted roofs and walls; everywhere tourelles with rich carvings, windows of tracery most beautiful, archways, gates, battlements; chantry chapels, oratories, courts of justice, and interiors bright with splendid tapestry, the colours of which had not yet faded, with canopies of scarlet and gold, and the sunlight reflected from many a shining helm and breastplate, from many a jewelled hilt and golden scabbard." Would that the Great Fire which destroyed all this had left us one little glimpse of its old splendour. Inside the monastery, too, there was plenty of life of a different sort, though the monks were by no means cut off from the great world which lay at their door. For the Abbey of St. Peter was the richest of all the great houses, and was now at the height of its glory; and Litlington’s new buildings greatly added to its importance, as the Abbot freely entertained in his new palace the highest in the land. Yet a daily routine was carried out. Eight hours were given to sleep and eight were spent in church; the remainder were devoted to work—that is to say, some monks taught the young, others studied and transcribed, others had duties in the refectory and dormitory, and so on. Most of the monks had come here as young boys; many of them spent here fifty and sixty years of their lives, praying, working, teaching, learning. But I think sometimes the young men must have longed for some share in the life outside of which they heard the echoes daily, and saw all the outward splendours and delights. Certain it is that Abbot Litlington was something more than a monk. For when, during the reign of Richard, there was a great scare that the French were about to invade England, he, though at that time seventy, armed himself and set off with some of his monks to the coast to defend his country. And we find that "one of these monks, Brother John, supposing his courage equal to his stature, was a very proper person for a soldier, being one of the largest men in the kingdom. His armour, the invasion not taking place, was carried into London to be sold, being so big that no person could be found of a size that it would fit."