Our capital city has always been a thriving and colourful place, full of diverse
and determined individuals developing trade and finance, exchanging gossip and
doing business. Abandoned by the Romans, rebuilt by the Saxons, occupied by the
Vikings and reconstructed by the Normans, London would become the largest trade
and financial centre, dominating the world in later centuries. London has always
been a brilliant, vibrant and eclectic place - Henry V was given a triumphal pr
ocession there after his return from Agincourt and the Lord Mayor's river pagean
t was an annual medieval spectacular.