Clifford’s Tower, built by King William the Conqueror in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion of its powder magazine in 1684.  Not far away is the battlefield of Towton.  King Henry the Sixth and Queen Margaret were waiting in York for news of the event of that fatal battle,—­which, in its effect, made them exiles, and bore to supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose.  In this church King Edward the Fourth was crowned, 1464, and King Richard the Third was proclaimed king and had his second coronation.

Southward you can see the open space called the Pavement, connecting with Parliament Street, and the red brick church of St. Crux.  In the Pavement the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded for treason against Queen Elizabeth, in 1572, and in St. Crux, one of Wren’s churches, his remains lie buried, beneath a dark blue slab which is shown to visitors.  A few miles away, but easily within reach of your vision, is the field of Marston Moor, where the impetuous Prince Rupert imperiled and well-nigh lost the cause of King Charles the First in 1644; and as you look toward that fatal spot you almost hear, in the chamber of your fancy, the paeans of thanksgiving for the victory, that were uttered in the church beneath.  Cromwell, then a subordinate officer in the Parliamentary army, was one of the worshipers.  Of the fifteen kings, from William of Normandy to Henry of Windsor, whose sculptured effigies appear upon the chancel screen in York Minster, there is scarcely one who has not worshiped in this cathedral....

There it stands, symbolizing, as no other object on earth can ever do, except one of its own great kindred, the promise of immortal life to man and man’s pathetic faith in that promise.  Dark and lonely it comes back upon my vision, but during all hours of its daily and nightly life sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the thought, conduct, and experience of those who dwell around it....

York is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the third in length,—­both St. Alban’s and Winchester being longer.  The present structure is 600 years old, and more than 200 years were occupied in the building of it.  They show you, in the crypt, some fine remains of the Norman church that preceded it on the same site, together with traces of the still older Saxon church that preceded the Norman.  The first one was of wood, and was totally destroyed.  The Saxon remains are a fragment of stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone fashion.  The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the zig-zag style.  There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel.

York and Lincoln compared [Footnote:  From “English Towns and Districts.”]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

The towers of Lincoln, simply as towers, are immeasurably finer than those of York; but the front of York, as a front, far surpasses the front of Lincoln.