Outside the Palace, the road--there is now a road where there was once a marsh or shallow with a ford--is covered with an endless procession of those who make their way to the Palace and the Abbey with supplies. Here are drivers with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep; here are long lines of pack horses laden with things; here are men-at-arms, the following of some great lord: this is a procession which never ceases all the year round. And on the river barges are coming down the stream piled up, laden to the level of the water, with farm produce; and at flood tide barges come up the stream from the Port of London, sent by the merchants whom the King despoils,--yet they have their revenge,--boats laden with the things for which this magnificent Court is insatiable: cloth of gold, velvet, and silk; wines of France and Spain and Cyprus and Gaza; spices, perfumes, inlaid armor and arms, jewels and glass and plate, and wares ecclesiastic for the outer glory of St. Peter and St. Stephen--golden cross and chalice silver gilt, and vestments such as can only be matched in the Church of St. Peter at Rome. Also along the Dover road, and up and down the road called Watling, and up the river and down the river, there ride day and night the King’s messengers. Was there a special service of messengers? I think [Illustration: THE STAR CHAMBER. DEMOLISHED IN 1834.] not; men were dispatched with letters and enjoined to ride swiftly. There were neither telegraphs nor railways nor postal service, yet was the Court of every great king fully supplied with news. If it came a month after the event, so it came to all. We of to-day act on news of the moment; the statesmen of old acted on news of yesterday or yesterday fortnight. But communications with the outer world never ceased; news poured in daily from all quarters: from the Low Countries; from France and Spain; from Rome; from the Holy Land. Whatever happened was carried swiftly over Western Europe. If the king of Scotland crossed the border, in three days it was known in Westminster; if there was a rebellion in Ireland, four days brought the news to Westminster; if the Welsh harried the March, three days sufficed to bring the news to Westminster. Beside the messengers and bearers of dispatches, there were pilgrims who learned and carried about a vast quantity of information; there were the merchants whose ships arrived every day from Antwerp and from Sluys; and there were the foreign ships which came to London Port from the Levant and the Mediterranean. The messengers as they arrived at the Palace of Westminster carried their letters not to the King, but to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Duke of Gloucester, the King’s uncle.