London [antikvár]

no single book can attempt to do justice to the complexity of London, the greatest city of the British Commonwealth. It is the diversity of its appeal, the charm discovered in the most unexpected places and the fascination of its traditions and ceremonies which make London unique among the capitals of the modern world. The Roman historian Tacitus gives us the first recorded detail of London, which even in the year a.d. 6z was an important market, though not so large as many other Roman settlements. Towards the end of the Roman era London was enclosed by a wall, but little is known of its subsequent history until the reign of King Alfred, who refortified the city against the Danes. The coming of the Normans brought a change in the fortunes of London, for William the Conqueror granted it a charter and began to build the Tower. Westminster Hall was begun by William Rufus, and in n 76 the first London Bridge was buih. From about 1190 until the fourteenth century the city was governed by the mayor and aldermen. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the period when the benevolent 'Dick' Whittington was four times mayor, the plague first struck London and killed 30,000 people, but the city soon recovered and became extremely prosperous during the sixteenth century. Then, in 1665 and 1666, two catasttophes occurred: the first was another epidemic of plague which killed 100,000 victims, and the other the Great Fire which destroyed practically the whole of the City, including St Paul's Cathedral. Most of London's finest buildings date from the second half of the eighteenth century onwards, and the greatest development of commerce took place in the nineteenth and the present centuries. This commercial development of the capital makes a fascinating story. Merchant companies had existed