But these terrors loomed darkling in the background for the most part. They belonged rather to the time when the sovereign's palaces at Westminster and at the Tower seemed to hold London in a grip. The palace at Westminster now languished in desuetude; the Tower was a State prison, and--with some ironical intent, perhaps--also the abode of the royal beasts, lions, tigers, leopards, and other captives. The Queen passed in her royal barge down the river with ceremonious pageantry from her palace of Whitehall; the drawbridge raised, the floating court passed the Tower as with lofty indifference on its way to "Placentia," Her Majesty's palace at Greenwich. Out of the silence of history a record speaks like a voice, and tells us that here, in 1594, Shakespeare and his fellows performed at least two comedies or interludes before Her Majesty, and we know even the amounts that were paid them for their services.
[Illustration: PLAN OF LONDON IN THE TIME OF QUEEN ELIZABETH (1563).]
In the _Survey_ of John Stow we have three separable elements: the archæology and history of London, Stow's youthful recollections of London in the time of Henry the Eighth, and Stow's description of the great change which came over London after the dissolution of the religious houses, and continued in process throughout his lifetime. The mediæval conditions were not remote. He could remember when London was clearly defined by the wall, like a girdle, of which the Tower was the knot. No heroic change had befallen; the wall had not been cast down into its accompanying fosse to form a ring-street, as was done when Vienna was transformed from the mediæval state. London had simply filled up the ditch with its refuse; its buildings had simply swarmed over the wall and across the dike; shapeless and haphazard suburbs had grown up, till the surrounding villages became connected with the city. Even more grievous, in the estimation of Stow, was the change which he had witnessed within the city itself. The feudal lords had departed, and built themselves mansions outside the city. The precincts of the dissolved religious establishments had been converted into residential quarters, and a large proportion of the old monastic gardens had been built upon. The outlines of society had become blurred. Formerly, the noble, the priest, and the citizen were the defined social strata. Around each of these was grouped the rest of the social units in positions of dependence. A new type of denizen had arisen, belonging to none of the old categories--the typical Elizabethan Londoner.