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 purlieus of the Royal Palace of Whitehall, the Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, which was the seat of Parliament and of the Law Courts. South London was represented by the little borough of Southwark, which was incorporated with the city of London in the reign of Edward VI. Its western promenade was open to the river, and was called Bankside. It was a natural centre of amusement to the citizens of London, and the Globe Theatre on the Bankside is famous through its connexion with Shakespeare.

Such, then, are roughly the boundaries of the district which your imagination has to recreate. It was a place from which it was easy to take a country walk through a lovely series of undulating hills, showing the glories of the city which lay stretched along the river below. There might sometimes be fogs to impede the view, but there was not much smoke, as the fuel used in the houses was mostly wood. The introduction of coal was forbidden as early as the reign of Edward I., "to avoid the sulphurous smell and savour of that firing". It was not till a little later that the increase of manufactures and the diminution of forests compelled the common use of coal.

Small as we may think Elizabethan London to be, its increase was viewed with apprehension, partly on sanitary and partly on political grounds. Royal proclamations were frequently issued forbidding new buildings. At the close of her reign Elizabeth ordered "the pulling down of late builded houses, and voyding of inmates in the cities of London and Westminster, and for the space of three miles distant of