Most fortunately, there exists a document priceless and unique, short as it is and meagre in many of its details, which describes London as it was in the reign of Henry II. It is written by one FitzStephen, Chaplain to Thomas Becket. He was present at the murder of the Archbishop and wrote his life, to which this account is an introduction.

A NORMAN SHIP.
(From the Bayeux Tapestry.)

He says, first of all, that the City contained thirteen larger conventual churches and a hundred and twenty-six parish churches. He writes only fifty years after the Great Fire, so that it is not likely that new parishes had been erected. All the churches which had been destroyed{47} were rebuilt. Most of them were very small parishes, with, doubtless, very small churches. We shall return presently to the question of the churches.

BUILDING A CHURCH IN THE LATER STYLE.
(From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.)

On the east was the White Tower which he calls the{48} 'Palatine Castle:' on the west there were two towers—there was the Tower called Montfichet, where is now Blackfriars station, and Baynard's Castle, close beside it. The walls of the City had seven double gates. The river wall had by this time been taken down. Two miles from the City, on the west, was the Royal Palace (Westminster), fortified with ramparts and connected with th