The 'Desert' was bounded on the north by Tothill Street, Broadway, and Petty France, all with their courts-their sweet and desirable courts; its southern boundary was the Horseferry Road; the Abbey lay along the east; and the western marsh was the fringe of Tothill Fields, now marked by Rochester Row, or perhaps Francis Street. A little remains-here a court, there a bit of street- to mark what the place was like.

Hear what was written about Westminster so late as the

year 1839 (Bardsley on 'Westminster Improvements') : 'Thorney Island consisted chiefly of narrow, dirty streets lined with wretched dwellings, and of numerous miserable courts and alleys, situate in the environs of the Palace and Abbey, where in the olden time the many lawless characters claiming sanctuary found shelter; and so great had been the force of long custom that the houses continued to be rebuilt, century after century, in a miserable manner for the reception of similar degraded outcasts. The inhabitants of these courts and alleys are stated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth "to be the most part of no trade or mystery, to be poor, and many of them wholly given to vice and idleness." And in James I.'s time "almost every fourth house is an alehouse, harbouring all sorts of lewde and badde people." And again: “In these narrow streets, and in their close and insalubrious lanes, courts and alleys, where squalid misery and poverty struggle with filth and wretchedness, where vice reigns unchecked, and in the atmosphere of which the worst diseases are generated and diffused."'

In the little space of a thousand feet by twelve hundred the courts were sometimes so narrow that the people could shake hands across; the tenements were sometimes built of boards nailed together; there were no sanitary arrangements at all; there was no drainage; typhus always held possession; and actually under the very shadow of the Cathedral were gathered together the most dangerous and most villainous wretches in

the whole country. Old Pye Street, Orchard Street, Duck Lane, the Almonry and St. Anne's Street were the homes of the professional street beggar and the professional thief. No respectable person could venture with safety into these streets.

They are now quite safe; the people are rough to look at, but they are no longer thieves and cut-throats by calling. Let us take a short, a very short walk about the Desert. Alas! its glories are gone; the place is not even picturesque : Vice, we know, is sometimes picturesque, even in its most

OLD PYE STREET AND THE RAGGED SCHOOL

hideous mien. Orchard Street has one side pulled down, and the other side presents a squalid, dilapidated appearance in grey brick; it was once a fit entrance for the most wicked part of London. The streets into which it leads-Great St. Anne's Street, Pye Street, Peter Street, Duck Lane (now St. Matthew Street) are all transformed. Huge barracks of lodging-houses stand over the dark and malodorous courts; the place is now no doubt tolerably virtuous, but the artist turns from it with a shudder. There was a time when these

streets were country lanes, having few houses and no courts; at this time many pleasant, ingenious and interesting persons lived in this quarter. For example, Herrick the poet and Purcell the musician lived in St. Anne's Street. But we have already condemned the catalogue of connections. He who seriously studies the streets learns the associations as he goes along.

Outside these streets stretched Tothill Fields and Five Fields. These fields were to Westminster much as Smithfield and Moorfields were to the City of London. Anything out of the common could be done in Tothill Fields. To begin with, they were a pleasant place for walking; in the spring they were full of flowers-the cuckoo flower, the marsh mallow, the spurge, the willow herb, the wild parsley, are enumerated; they contained ponds and streams; in the streams grew watercress, always a favourite sallet' to the people; in the ponds there were ducks-the Westminster boys used to hire dogs to worry the ducks-it is not stated who paid for those ducks. On the north side of the Fields was St. James's Park, with its decoy and Rosamond's Pond, a rectangular pool lying across what is now Birdcage Walk, opposite the Wellington Barracks. Later on, market gardens were laid out in these low-lying meadows.

Tournaments were held in the Fields-not the ordinary exercises or displays of the tilt yard, but the grander occasions, as in 1226 at the coronation of Queen Eleanor. Here,

in the same reign, but later, the Prior of Beverley entertained the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland, the King's son, and many great lords, in tents erected on the field.

Executions were carried out in the Fields, as when was taken Margaret Gourdemains, a witch of Eye beside Westminster'-was it Battersea (Peter's Ey')? or was it Chelsea (Shingle Ey') ?-whose sorcerie and witchcraft Dame Eleanour Cobham had long time used, and by her medicines and drinks enforced the Duke of Gloucester to love her and

judged against them in default. The lists were twenty-one yards square, set with scaffolds crowded with people-for who would not go out to see two men trying to kill each other? The Master of Defence, to whom the proceedings were an excellent advertisement, rode through London at seven in the morning in splendid attire, having the gauntlet borne before him; he entered Westminster Hall, but made no long stay there, going back to King Street, and so through the Sanctuary and Tothill Street to the lists, where he waited for the Judge. At ten the Court of Common Pleas removed to the lists. Then the combatants stood face to face, bare-footed, bare-legged, bare-headed, with their doublet sleeves turned back-ready for the fight; and all hearts beat faster, and the ladies caught their breath and gasped, and their colour came and went. Then the Judge gave order that every person must keep his place and give no help or encouragement by word or by weapon to the combatants. Next-this was the last of the tedious preliminaries: when would they begin?— each champion took oath-This hear you Justices, that I this day neither eate, drunk, nor have upon me neither bone, stone, nor glasse, or any enchantment, sorcerie, or witchcraft, where-through the power of the word of God might be increased or diminished and the devil's power increased; and that my appeal is true, so help me God, and His saints, and by this booke.'

Alas! instead of giving the word to fight it out, the Lord Chief Justice remarked that the plaintiffs were not present; that there could be no fight without them; and that the estate consequently went to the defendant. Then with sad faces and heavy hearts the company dispersed. No fight, after all-nobody killed! To be sure, the Master of Defence invited the 'big broad strong set fellow' to play with him half a score blows; but the latter refused, saying he had come to fight and not to play.

A great Fair was held in these Fields on St. Edward's Day