The History of London

of savages, the murders of usurpers, the sacking of cities. Rome itself was sacked by Alaric; the conquest of one country after another made of this period th

their way-their wives and children, ladies as delicate and as helpless as any of our own time-children as unfit as our own to face the miseries of cold and hunger and nakedness-and they went out by the gate of Watling Street, not altogether, not the whole population, but in small companies, for greater safety. They left the City by the gate; they did not journey along th

d barred them: they closed and barred the Bridge: they took out of the houses anything that they wanted-the soft warm mantles, the woollen garments, the coverlets, the pillows and hangings, but they abode in their hovels near the river banks; as for the works of art, the pictures, statues, and tesselated pavements, these they left where they found them or for wantonne

ns were overgrown. Augusta-the proud and stately Augusta-was reduced to a wall enclo

Land. Why, then, did they not take London? Because London was deserted; there was nothing to take: London was silent. No ships going up or down the river reminded the Saxon of the City. It lay amid

was fo

e of London-its position among marshes, the conditi

t of the deserted walls a company of East Saxons. They were hunting: they were armed with spears: they followed the chase through the great forest afterwards called the Middlesex Forest, Epping Fore

an enemy on the wall: none appeared. The gates were closed, the timbers were rotten and fell down at a touch: the men broke thro

and told what

City appears again it is under its