Excerpt from A Guide to Great Cities, for Young Travelers and Others Northwestern Europe After the battle of Hastings, the Londoners at first successfully resisted William the Conqueror, but soon thought it wise to submit. William needed a strong hold to overawe the citizens; and the White Tower was commenced in 1078. In 1083 St. Paul's was also begun on the site Of the Old church founded by Ethelbert in 610. The City was now swarming with Norman settlers. It suffered many calamities. In 1077 occurred such a fire as never was before since London was founded. Ten years later, another fire consumed the greatest and fairest part of the whole City. In 1090, also, a hurricane destroyed many churches and six hundred houses. London rapidly became rich and powerful. It was the support of the City that enabled Stephen to hold his own against Matilda. In 1176, London Bridge was rebuilt with stone. In 1189, the first mayor was elected. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.