There was much discussion, “about it and about,” before Sir Thomas Sutton’s chosen trustees could carry out his wishes. James I., true son of his father Darnley, had to be placated by a _pourboire_ of £10,000, and even Bacon, jealous at not being among the trustees, tried to belittle the bequest and advise that the money should be used for his master’s benefit instead of for the poor. Sir Edward Coke, Lady Hatton’s husband, steered the hospital through the shoals that surrounded its launching and the more dangerous peril of the king’s genial idea that the Charterhouse revenues might fitly be used to pay for his army. The Charterhouse was founded, and for three hundred years the school has produced great Englishmen and the hospital harboured men who have found that in the evening of a working life the stars do not always appear. Among the Charterhouse scholars have been the bearers of great names such as Lovelace and Crashaw, Addison and Steele, John Wesley, Sir Henry Havelock, Thackeray, Leech, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Lord Alverstone and many others. The school was removed in 1872 to Godalming, and the buildings were taken over by the Merchant Taylors’ Company for their boys’ school. The hospital for the poor brothers no longer harbours eighty men. Their number is reduced to sixty owing to the depreciation in the value of Sir Thomas Sutton’s land and the fact that since the Charterhouse has always been considered a wealthy foundation no further bequests have ever been made to bring the number once more up to the four score of the founder’s intention. That, briefly told, is the dramatic tale of the Charterhouse. You will readily believe it all if you take the District Railway to Aldersgate Street and go and see the Charterhouse for yourself. Its beauty is unimpaired by time. The Guesten Hall where the poor brethren take their meals, the great sixteenth century carved staircase, the chapel where Colonel Newcome sat, the false duke’s arcade, and the old gatehouse--all are there and many more things to recall the most dramatic pages of England’s history. CHAPTER IX A STROLL IN WHITEHALL AND WESTMINSTER “And all that passes inter nos, May be proclaimed at Charing Cross.” SWIFT. Dr. Johnson once said, “Why, sir, Fleet Street has a very animated appearance, but I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross.” Certainly Charing Cross is the best of all starting-points for exploring expeditions, and by Charing Cross I mean the south-east corner of Trafalgar Square. From there you may wander along the Strand, or north into Bloomsbury, or through Cockspur Street into the realms of Mayfair, or southward to the Thames, and in every direction there are unnoticed stories to be found. UNITED SERVICES MUSEUM “More kindly love have I to that place than to any other in yerth.”--CHAUCER.