St. George, the Patron Saint of England, who lived in the early part of the fourth century, and was reckoned among the seven champions of Christendom, was said to have been born in Coventry.  In olden times a chapel, named after him, existed here, in which King Edward IV, when he kept St. George’s Feast on St. George’s Day, April 23rd, 1474, attended service.  Coventry was a much older town than we expected to find it, and, like Lichfield, it was known as the city of the three spires; but here they were on three different churches.  We had many arguments on our journey, both between ourselves and with others, as to why churches should have towers in some places and spires in others.  One gentleman who had travelled extensively through Britain observed that towers were more numerous along the sea coasts and on the borders of Wales and Scotland, while spires were most in evidence in the low Midland plains where trees abounded.  In these districts it was important to have part of the church standing out from the foliage, while on a hill or a bare cliff a short tower was all that was needed.  He actually knew more than one case where the squires in recent times had a short spire placed on the top of the church tower, like the extinguisher of an old candlestick, because it was said they needed guide-posts by which to find their way home from hunting!

[Illustration:  ST. MICHAEL’S CHURCH SPIRE, COVENTRY.]

In olden times, ere the enemy could approach the village, the cattle were able to be driven in the church, while the men kept an easy look-out from the tower, and the loopholes in it served as places where arrows could be shot from safe cover.  In some districts we passed through we could easily distinguish the position of the villages by the spires rising above the foliage, and very pretty they appeared, and at times a rivalry seemed to have existed which should possess the loftiest or most highly decorated spire, some of them being of exceptional beauty.  The parish churches were almost invariably placed on the highest point in the villages, so that before there were any proper roads the parishioners could find their way to church so long as they could see the tower or spire, and to that position at the present day, it is interesting to note, all roads still converge.

We had no idea that the story of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom was so ancient, but we found it dated back to the time of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who in 1043 founded an abbey here which was endowed by his wife, the Lady Godiva.  The earl, the owner of Coventry, levied very hard taxes on the inhabitants, and treated their petitions for relief with scorn.  Lady Godiva, on the contrary, had moved amongst the people, and knew the great privations they had suffered through having to pay these heavy taxes, and had often pleaded with her husband on their behalf.  At last he promised her that he would repeal the taxes if she would ride naked through the town, probably thinking