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his own happy knack for making himself ridiculous, 

 signalised his stay by taking a childish liking for a local 

 kind of cake called " main bread," and by characteris- 

 tically endeavouring to thrust it down the throats of 

 the inhabitants by specially ordering its manufacture, 

 and by anathematising the still popular " spice bread," 

 almost as violently as he did tobacco. The beginning 

 of Charles I's troubles found him at York, for he went 

 there to meet the Covenanters in 1639, and held a great 

 Council of his peers there in 1640. Two years later 

 he returned, and, worried almost to death for want of 

 funds and friends, was driven to stint his table and to 

 copy despatches with his own hand for want of a trust- 

 worthy secretary. The Eoyal palace was on the site of 

 St. Mary's xYbbey, and by a grim irony of fate was 

 afterwards turned into a blind school, while the printing 

 office, whence the whole country was flooded with Eoy- 

 alist tracts and pamphlets, was in St. William's College. 

 In 1644, the city was besieged by the Parliamentarian 

 army of 40,000 men, the siege being temporarily raised 

 by the arrival of Prince Eupert, who issued from the 

 gates of York a few days after, only, as every one 

 knows, to be cut up root and branch on Marston Moor, 

 the city and castle being surrendered a few weeks later. 

 On the religious life and the church work of York, 

 volumes might well be written. Perhaps the best 

 known miracle play in England was that of the Corpus 

 Christi Guild here, as we find it recommended by a 

 worthy friar minor, Wm. Melton, styled " Professor 

 of Holy Pageantry." There was also the guild of Our 

 Lord's Prayer, to commemorate a miracle play on that 

 subject ; and some idea of the number of the trade guilds 

 may be gleaned from the fact that in 1415 ninety-six 

 crafts joined in procession, exhibiting fifty-four distinct 

 pageants, and carrying blazing torches. The Minster is 

 the pride of the north of England. Burned no less than 

 five times— in 741, 1069, 1080, 1829 and 1840— it 

 has, phcenix-like, risen again, and is now perhaps one 

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