Stranica 213 [213]
7 THE CHURCHES IQI
cathedral had eaten up all the space
where at first they had held their folk¬
mote. We have all read about the
meeting in Smithfield when Richard II
. — put himself at the head of the people
| and when Walworth stabbed Wat
Tyler. It is hardly worth while to
point out for the hundredth time that
Walworth’s dagger does not figure on
et ggg ar
the city shield—nor any dagger, but
the sword of St. Paul, the emblem of
his martyrdom. It would not be easy,
even for a person very learned in
London topography, to piece together
a view of what Smithfield was like in
those days—with the monastery of the
Canons on its eastern side, and the
old hospital buildings, perhaps half¬
timbered gables like those of the hos¬
pitals at Warwick and Coventry, to the
south. On the edge of the steep hill
leading down towards the Fleet was a
gibbet, perhaps two or three gibbets,
with decaying skeletons hanging to