and in 1338 an allied French, Genoese and Spanish fleet sailed up the
estuary and attacked the town to such good purpose that the burgesses
were forced to fly and from a safe distance saw their homes burned to
the ground. Another assault was made by the French in 1432, but
profiting by bitter experience, the citizens had by now constructed
such defences and armed them so well that this attack was an
ignominious failure.

The port was the scene of several great expeditions overseas before it
gave its quota to that greatest of all crusades in 1914. It saw the
start of Richard Lion-Heart's transports, filled with the chivalry of
England, on their way to challenge the power of Islam. The town
records show that 800 hogs were supplied by the citizens for feeding
the army _en route_. Perhaps the most famous of the sailings was that
of the twenty-one ships that carried the English army to the victory
of Creçy. Again seventy years later there was another great sallying
forth to the field of Agincourt, nearly frustrated by the machinations
of Richard, Earl of Cambridge. This scion of the Plantagenets and his
fellow conspirators were beheaded and afterwards buried, as recorded
on a tablet there, in the chapel of God's House. From Southampton the
_Mayflower_ and _Speedwell_ sailed in 1620: the latter being discarded
at Plymouth.

The modern aspect of Southampton's streets is that of the bustle and
activity of a midland town, and the narrow pavements of Below and
Above Bar have that metropolitan air which a crowd of well-dressed
people intent on business or pleasure gives to the better class
provincial city. It would seem that the inevitable accompaniment of
such prosperity is the meanness of poorly-built and squalidly-kept
suburbs. When the superb situation of Southampton is considered one