82 YORK: WITH A FEW NOTES ON BEVERLEY. 
army surrendered Charles I. to the English Parliament on payment 
of £200,000, anda room in the old Guildhall is shown where the 
ransom was confirmed, and also the chair in which the king sat at 
the time. 
In the siege of 1644, during Charles’s last struggle, the walls 
suffered badly. The damage done was repaired about twenty-five 
years later, but afterwards they fell into great decay. 
The walls are pierced in several places to allow passage for the 
various main streets Jeading out of the city, and at the several 
Bars where the ancient entrances were not wide enough to admit 
the traffic of the present day, additional Gothic arches have been 
thrown across the full width of the roads, soas not to destroy the 
continuity of the walls themselves. 
All these entrances through the outer walls are called ‘‘ bars,” 
nearly all the streets being called “ gates.” 
The entrance from the north is called Bootham Bar. ‘This Bar 
had a barbican in 1831, but it was then taken down when the 
general restoration was carried out. It is said that this barbican 
was the most perfect in York, but as the street is very narrow here, 
so that no extra width could be obtained on the inside for an 
extraneous arch, it had to come down to make way for the 
increased traffic. 
From this Bar to Monk Bar, so named after General Monk, 
there is an uninterrupted length of wall. Monk Bar is considered 
to be the most perfect specimen of this description of architecture 
in the kingdom. Upon arriving at this Bar, you pass, on your 
way to the steps, through a chamber in which is drawn up the old 
portcullis. This Bar is higher than the others, and contains two 
stories of vaulted chambers, in which the freemen of the city were 
imprisoned when occasion demanded. The Bartizans are 
embellished, as in some of the other bars, with statues of figures 
throwing down stones. 
The next portion of the wall extends from Foss Island to the 
Castle, and crosses the Watling Street of the Romans. The Bar 
at this point is called Walmgate Bar, the name being supposed to 
be a corruption of Watling Gate. This Bar retains its barbican, 
a 
