"From the loud camp retired, and noisy | lently opposed the arbitrary mea court, For honourable ease and rural sport. He made his wish with his estate comply, 40001. advanced to him by his gene- "Fair Essex to see, and a place they call Down. There are gardens so stately, and arbours so thick; A portal of stone and a fabric of brick. 'Tis a house for a squire, A justice of peace, or a knight of the shire.', Down Hall was sold to the Selwin family, by whom the old house was pulled down in the latter part of the last century. A rudely framed armchair, the favourite seat of Prior, is preserved in the hall.] [About 6 m. E. of Aythorp Roding, but reached by better roads from Dunmow, whence it is distant 7 m., is Pleshy, best known, like many other places of historical importance, from the mention made of it by Shakespeare. The widowed Duchess of Gloucester, when she bids John of Gaunt commend her to Edmund of York, continues "Bid him-O! what? With all good speed, at Pleshy, visit me. Alack! and what shall good old York there see But empty lodgings, and unfurnish'd walls, sures of Richard II., and was at the head of a powerful party. In 1397 (two years before his own fall) Richard seized the Duke of Gloucester by a skilful piece of treachery. He came to Pleshy from his own palace at with the Duke, begged him to ride Havering (Rte. 2) and after supping with him to London, where an important petition was to be presented the following day. At Stratford, the king rode on; and the Earl Marshal, who duke, hurried him to the Thames, was lying in wait there, seized the and so to Calais, where he was murdered in prison. His body was brought to Pleshy and buried in the ch. of his college (see post); but was afterwards removed to Westminster Abbey. His duchess seems to have been occasionally at Pleshy until her death at Barking Abbey in 1399. (See Rte. 1.) In retaliation for this crime, Sir John Holland, Duke of Exeter, half-brother of Richard II., was seized at Prittlewell and carried to Pleshy in Jan. 1400 (after Richard's deposition) by the followers of the murdered Duke of Gloucester, and beheaded. have been built by Geoffry de ManThe Castle of Pleshy is said to deville, made Earl of Essex by King Stephen. (His chief castle was at Saffron Walden. See Rte. 11.) The barony passed through heiresses to the Fitz Piers, and (1227) to the great house of Bohun. The Bohun Earls of Hereford thus became also Earls of Essex. They were already stables of England. Pleshy passed (in their own right) hereditary Coninto the hands of the Crown soon after the death of the Duchess Eleanor. Rich. II., Act i., Sc. 2. This Duchess was Eleanor Bohun, The castle was founded within heiress of Pleshy. Her husband the lines of a Roman entrenchment, was Thomas of Woodstock, 6th son near which urns and other antiof Ed. III., and uncle of Richard II. quities have been found. This Duke of Gloucester, himself a Mount on which the Norm. keep man of ungoverned ambition, vio- was built, may possibly have formed The part of the Roman works. Nothing remains of the castle except a brick bridge, of one lofty arch, which communicated with the keep. This is covered with ivy, and is very pictu resque as seen from the moat below. A College was founded here by Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, for 9 chaplains, and a noble Ch. with a central tower, was attached to it. In this ch. were buried many of the Staffords, who became connected ROUTE 11. with the Bohuns by the marriage of LONDON TO CAMBRIDGE, BY WALT The Anne, daughter of the Duchess Eleanor, to Thomas and Edmundsuccessively Earls of Stafford. chancel was pulled down by Sir John Gate, to whom the college was granted by Hen. VIII. The rest of the ch. became ruinous and fell. The present building dates from 1708, but has been lately restored. 66 Pleshy" is generally regarded as a corruption of "Plaisir "--but the name in Domesday-Plesinchou-is proof of a different signification. The "hou" seems to indicate the existence of the mound long before the building of Earl Geoffry's castle. At 14 m. Dunmow is reached. (See Rte. 3.) HAM AND BISHOP'S STORTFORD. (SAFFRON END). WALDEN; AUDLEY "The wanton Lea, that oft doth lose its way." Upon its level banks are laid the opening scenes of Walton's Complete Angler;' and in more ancient days (A.D. 896) the Danish "army" under Hæsten, "towed their ships up the Thames and then up the Lea," where they "wrought a work," 20 m. above London. This work was attacked by the Londoners and "other folk," who were defeated, and 4 king's thanes were slain. In harvest time King Alfred encamped near London, so that the corn might be safely reaped; and afterwards he caused the river Lea to be obstructed by two "works," wrought on either bank, so that the heathens" were unable to bring down their ships. They accordingly abandoned their stronghold, and the Londoners carried off such of the Danish ships as were "stalworth."-('Sax. Chron.' ad aan.) Wherefore, says Drayton "Thus the old Lea brags of the Danish blood." The victories of Alfred drove back the Danes to the territory called the Danelagh, of which the 1. bank of the Lea, from its source, formed one of the boundaries. The Lea, like the Thames, has had its swans, as appears by a Tale of two Swannes,' written by W. Vallans, temp. Eliz., and printed by Hearne, in his edition of Leland's Itinerary. The poem describes the voyage of two swans down the Lea, with the places by which they pass.] The line passes on rt. the engine depôt, on 1. Temple Mills, and crosses for 3 m. the marshes bordering on the Lea. 54 m. Lea Bridge Stat., lies about m. E. of the iron bridge, over which the Epping road crosses the Lea. Near it is the Horse and Groom Inn, trophied with jaw-bones and likenesses of "extraordinary big fish," a favourite resort of Cockney anglers. [2 m. rt. is Walthamstow, a village composed in great part of the country seats of opulent citizens (pop. of parish 11,092). The whole parish may be called a town among trees. The Ch. has been much modernised, and is crowded with modern monuments. Walthamstow was the birthplace of Geo. Gascoigne the poet. Here is a large proprietary Grammar School preparatory to King's College, London; an Institution for educating daughters of missionaries; and other charities.] On the 1. are the rising grounds of Clapton and Stamford Hill, and here are copper-mills on the Lea, which is again crossed to reach 7 m. Tottenham Stat. Here the greater part of the cattle and sheep brought out of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, along this line, quit the rly., and after a short rest in "lairs' or pens set apart for the purpose, are driven to London. The line to St. Pancras, which connects the Great Eastern Rly. with the Midland Rly. and the Metropolitan terminus of that line in the New Road, branches off here; a short cut for travellers to the West-end of London, avoiding the crowded streets of the city. 83 m. Park Stat. 9 m. Angel Road Stat. [Here a line branches 1. to Enfield by Edmonton. At 10 m. is Edmonton Stat. In Edmonton ch.-yard Charles Lamb (died 1834) rests, after the many years of "that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood," of which he wrote with so much feeling. 12 m. Enfield Stat. Enfield (Inn: the King's Head, small and poor; the Foresters' Old Oak) is a large village. The Church (St. Andrew) is a compoed-over and embattled building, whose exterior (late Perp.) covers a Dec. chancel and nave. It has a good Dec. E. window, with a W. tower, and over the S. porch a muniment room for the parish archives, in which are some pieces of old armour and buff coats. Between the N. aisle and chancel is the handsome Perp. canopied tomb of Jocosa Tiptoft (d. 1446), mother of the learned Earl of Worcester, bearing her effigy in brass finely engraven, let into a slab of Purbeck marble. The lady wears a mantle embroidered with the arms of Powys impaling Holland. Her head-dress is of the mitred form, and is surmounted with a coronet. She was the daughter of Edward Charlton, Lord Powys, and married Sir John Tiptoft, who was in high reputation with Henry V. and VI., and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Tiptoft and Powys. He died before his wife in 1442. Here is also a marble monument to Nicholas Raynton, lord mayor of London, and his wife, with effigies-1646. In the ch is a tablet to John Abernethy, the famous surgeon, who died at Enfield, 1831, in Abernethy - House in Baker-street. He is buried here. The font is new. The remains of the old Manor House, much altered and incorporated with an inhabited mansion, stand opposite to the ch., but screened from the market-place by low houses. The house is now a school, and has undergone many changes. yet one room on the ground floor still retains its oak panelling; its rich ornamental ceiling with pendants; and its freestone chimney-piece, bearing the Tudor arms, supported by Cadwallader's dragon and badges (the horse and portcullis), with the motto "Sola salus servi redeo: sunt cætera fraudes." Edward VI. was brought to Enfield from Hertford on the death of his father, and kept his court here, being styled by some who saw him about that time "a proper and towardly ympe." The enclosures which formed the palace gardens remain, and within them, near the house, stands the wreck of a noble cedar of Lebanon, planted about 1660. Its trunk measures 17 feet in girth at a foot from the ground. In the middle of the market-place is a small Gothic cross erected by subscription in 1826. Enfield Chace "A forest for her pride, though titled but a chace, Her purlieus and her parks, her circuit full as large As some, perhaps, whose state requires a greater charge " has been divided and enclosed since 1777. Within the last 20 years the trees have been mostly grubbed up and the axe and plough have done their work, though clumps of trees here and there still bear a scanty witness to its former state. The Chace is first mentioned in the reign of Edward II. Hither Elizabeth repaired from Hatfield to drive the deer, and here Sir Walter Scott has laid one of the closing scenes of the Fortunes of Nigel.' Monkey-mead Plain, in Enfield Chace, is the supposed site of the battle of Barnet. wooded heights of Epping Forest are in England." Hentzner, in his seen rt. On the rt. is seen the ivy-Travels in England' (1598), decovered church-tower of Chingford. 13 m. Ordnance Factory Stat., adjoins the factories established here by Government in 1811. 14 m. Waltham Stat., m. from Waltham Cross, 14 m. from Waltham Abbey. Waltham Cross (Inn: Four Swans) is in Hertfordshire, and is named from the finest remaining of "Queen Eleanor's Crosses "-memorials of the places at which the corpse of the queen of Edward I. rested each night on its journey from Lincoln to London for interment. The Waltham Cross (which stands nearly in front of the inn, and but a short distance from the station) has been completely "restored;" but "has suffered very materially from the well-meant indiscretion of its admirers: however faithfully the old work may have been copied in the new erection, it does at best but show how well we can imitate the original, and affords very equivocal evidence of the state of the arts in the reign of Edward I."-Fergusson. scribes the gardens as of unusual beauty. Burleigh constantly entertained Elizabeth here; each visit costing the Lord Treasurer from 20001. to 3000l. "The Queen hath been seen here," says the writer of Lord Burleigh's life (in Peck's Des. Cur.), “in as great royalty, and served as bountifully and magnificently, as at anie other tyme or place, all at his Lordship's charge." James I. stayed here four days on his way from Scotland to London; and the Lords of the Council here first paid him their homage. After it became his own property Theobalds was one of his most favourite palaces; and he died here, March 27, 1625. Charles I. was occasionally here. The petition of both houses of parliament was presented to him at Theobalds (Feb. 1642) and he went hence to put himself at the head of his army. Although the house was in excellent repair it was pulled down by order of the parliamentary commissioners in 1650, and the money from the sale of the materials, 8295l. 118., was divided among the army. The site of the palace is marked by the houses which form what is known as Theobalds Square, built in 1765. [About 1 m. W. of Waltham Cross, in Hertfordshire, is Theobalds In 1633 Henry Cary, Lord FalkPark, the site of the palace built by land, lost his life by an accident in Lord Burleigh, and exchanged by the park of Theobalds. The New his son, the Earl of Salisbury, with River runs through it; and James I. James I., for Hatfield. Of this mag- was so much interested with this nificent house, one of the most stately great work of Sir Hugh Myddleton's, in England, not a fragment remains. that he assisted the engineer with It consisted of two principal quad- his help as King, and with the State rangles; and was rich with long purse. In this new river, in Theogalleries, leaded walks, towers, tur- balds park, James was afterwards rets, fountains, and "pleasant con- nearly drowned. He was riding one ceits." There was one walk "so winter's evening with his son Prince delightful and pleasant, facing the Charles, when his horse stumbled, middle of the house, and the several fell, and flung the King into the towers, turretts, windowes, chim- water. This was partly frozen, and neyes, walkes, and balconies, that James disappeared under thin ice, the like walke for length, pleasant-only his boots remaining visible. Sir ness and delight is rare to be seene Richard Young rushed into the water |