tool of a rebellious Parliament,' Speaker | through Godstow pound-lock, catching a Lenthal, who bought the manor and lived glimpse of Witham, now the seat of Lord here. It is a mile or two beyond, at the Abingdon, where once lived the Lord ferry below Cumnor, that the river turns Norris, who was beheaded on suspicion of northwards; and here at least we must an intrigue with Anne Boleyn, and begin leave our boat with the ferryman for an to encounter skiffs and pair-oars, manned hour, and stroll up to the quiet, mournful by hungry undergraduates bent on lunchlittle village, to see all that is left of the ing on the marvellous Godstow eels, and 'haunted towers of Cumnor Hall,' and the playing skittles while the cooking goes on. monument of Anthony Forster, servant to And now we are passing Pool meadow, the Earl of Leicester. Happily for Eng- and, shooting under the Faringdon-road lishmen, Sir Walter Scott, when a boy, bridge, are within the precincts of the read Mickle's ballad of Cumnor. The bal- University. But Oxford is, unluckily for lad is long, not to say wearisome, but has itself and us, not in Berkshire, so we pass a plaintive music in parts which took hold along the ugly outskirts of the town, and of the poet's imagination; for instance, in under the second bridge, where the old the openingfamiliar scene burts on us-the great boat builders' establishments, the University barge and the College barges moored along the shore, Christchurch meadow, with the noble avenue of the Long Walk, and the grey colleges in the background. The river is alive with boats, from the racing eight to the fresman's tub starting for a voyage of adventure and discovery, as we pass the mouth of the Cherwell, and pull gently down the noble reach below, full of the memories of neck-and-neck races, of dry throats, benumbed arms, and And now the wellbounding hearts. 'The dews of summer night did fall, The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silver'd the walls of Cumner Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby.' The story of the murder of the poor young Countess, as told in 'Kenilworth, is for the most part faithful, though Sir Walter has needlessly, we think, altered the character of Forster, who, being a man formerly addicted to hospitality, company, mirth, and music, was afterwards observed to forsake all this, and, being af fected with much melancholy (some say with madness), pined and drooped away.' Sir John Robertsett, the Countess's father, caused the body to be taken up, and the coroner to sit upon it, but nothing came of it; and the good Earl, to make plain to the world the great love he bore to her while alive,' says Ashmole, 'caused her body to be reburied in St. Mary's church, Oxford, with great pomp and solemnity.' Unfortunately Dr. Babington, who preached the funeral sermon, 'tript once or twice in his speech,' speaking of that virtuous lady so pitifully murdered-trippings, let us hope, not thrown away upon the good Earl sitting below in widower's weeds. It was to Cumnor Hall that Thomas Penthecost, alias Rowland, the last Abbot of Abingdon, retired after the supression of his convent by the commissioners of Henry VIII., on a pension of 2007. a-year allowed him by the King, in consideration of his haste in acknowledging the royal supremacy. The other mitred Abbot of Berks, he of Reading, came to quite another end, as we shall see, and, to our mind, an honester one. Cumnor is a melancholy place in all its memories, whether of temporizing old abbots or captive countesses, and we shall not be sorry to get back to our boat again. We pass on under Ensham bridge, and known thud, thud' comes floating up to up under the willows; the crew swing as breakers-down of strongholds, done their work more thoroughly than in Berkshire. Of the abbeys and priories there is scarcely a trace; Windsor and the gateway of Donnington Castle are the only remains of fortresses; of Newbury, Reading, Faringdon, and the other castles, the sites are not certainly known. The work, perhaps, could not be done negligently so close under the master's eye. The abbey of Abingdon was founded about the year 680 by Heane, nephew of Cissa, king of the West Saxons, who had a palace there. At the time of Domesday survey the abbey owned upwards of thirty manors in Berkshire; and here William I., keeping his Easter in 1084, left his son Henry to be educated, under the care of Robert D'Oyley, his favourite, so that the John Huchyns layde the first stoon in the monks of Abingdon have the honour of Kynge's name; Sir Peter Besils, curteys and keend, For his fadir soule, and his frendes, he dyd as he scholde, He gaf hem stonys i-nowhe into the werkys end Al so mony as they neded fetche hem if they wolde.' Then 'The pepul preved her power with the pecoyse And mattock was man-handeled right welle a whyle, With spades and schovells they made suche a noyse That men might here hem thens a myle.' And so the bridge was built, and there were great rejoicings : For now is Culham Hithe (the ferry) i-com to an ende, An al the contre the better and no man the worse. Few folke there were coulde that way wende But they waged a wed, or payed of her purse; And if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge, He schulde be ryght soone i-bid for to goo aboute, And of the pore penyles the hire-ward wolde have A hood or a girdel, and let hem goo withoute. We must moor our boat here below the bridge, and spend an hour in hunting out the old bits of wall and gateway which are all that remain of one of the most splendid abbeys of England. Here we may remark once for all that in no county of England have Henry's commissioners, Cromwell's soldiers, and other having turned out the most accomplished held his Court here in 1276, from which of Royal English scholars. Henry III. time the abbey seems not to have been visited by our kings. The revenue at the dissolution was 18767. 108. 9d. After this the cloth trade, which was the chief trade of the town, was almost disused in Abingdon, and thus, both their mainstays having gone, the citizens fell into great poverty, so that Sir John Mason (a native of the town, who held an office in the royal household, and was afterwards Chancellor of the University of Oxford) applied to Queen Mary on their behalf, who gave them a Charter of Incorporation, and also a grant of lands, of the value of 1027. 68. 7d. per annum, to enable them to pay their fee-farm rent and maintain the state and reputation of the town--a quiet melancholy old place, rather going astern in these competitive days, but worth a visit from Oxford student or sentimental traveller. Gliding by Sutton Courtenay, we reach the quiet little village of Wittenham, which belonged to the Dunches, one of whom married Cromwell's aunt. Their son, Edmund Dunch, was a favourite with the Protector, who made him a peer by the title of Baron Burnell, of which title he was divested at the Restoration, whereupon the author of The Mysteries of the Good Old Cause' (1560) says sneeringly, He was the husband of that fine Mrs. Dunch, and a great favourite with the Protector, and had a patent to be lord of the Lord knows what, and how little he deserves it.' Passing Sinodun Hill, with the earthworks of unknown defenders on its quaint round top, and the hamlet of Brightwell at its foot, where was another of the castles levelled in the wars of Stephen, we approach the oldest bridge probably which now spans the Thames. It is not known by whom the nineteen stone arches of Wallingford Bridge were laid down, but whoever he may have been, they do their architect great credit. Those of our company who do not value old associations, unless some fair ruin or venerable church remains to speak to their senses of the times that are gone, had better sit quietly in the boat and get their luncheon, while we explore the little borough-town of Wallingford, for there is nothing of the picturesque to be found therein. But let the rest follow us, and we have no fear of not interesting them. This piece of an old wall near the river must be our text, for it is all that remains of Wallingford Castle, and it is the castle that has given the town a history. tor Cromwell, dated the 18th of November, 1652. Robert D'Oyley left an only daughter and heiress, Maud by name, who, with her second husband, Brian Fitzcount, declared for her namesake, the Empress Maud, when she arrived in England. There is a romantic story of the escape of the Empress from beleaguered Oxford, in white garments, almost alone, over the frozen Thames, and through the deep snow, to Wallingford, followed, in a few days, by the baffled usurper and his army. Brian Fitzcount held out manfully against siege, storm, and blockade, till in 1153 matters began to look serious, Stephen having built a castle at Cromarsh, on the opposite bank, while the supplies were running short. In good time Henry II. came to the rescue, and blockaded Cromarsh, and Stephen hastened to its relief. The armies lay only three furlongs apart; but their leaders, for once, had the sense not to risk all on a battle, and the treaty of Wallingford settled the succession, and ended that cruel war. Brian and his wife were sick of such doings: they had no children--so she took the veil at a convent in Normandy, and he, still bent on fighting, but desirous, at the same time, to make the most of this world and the next in the manner of his own day, carried his strong body off to the Crusades, and left it in the Holy Land. Wallingford reverted to the Crown, and Henry II., on the Easter after his accession, held here a general council of barons and bishops. The famous Duke of Schomberg went to see the site, and is reported to have said that he scarcely knew a place that might be made so fit as this for securing any person in the time of danger and distress;' and from the times of the Britons, who gave it the name of Guallhen, the old fort,' all ruling persons seem to have been of the same opinion. But we shall not take our audience back beyond the Conquest, at which time Wallingford was a hold of the first importance, for we find William marching there almost immediately after the battle of Hastings. Here he received the submission of Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and found a well-disposed Saxon Thane, named Wigod, For the next century Wallingford had in possession of the town, who, besides his a stormy time of it. John seized it durother merits, was getting old, and had ing his brother's absence, and the barons one only child, a marriageable daughter, took it from him. After he came to the by name Aldith. This young lady was throne he got up a meeting and mock reforthwith married by the Conqueror to conciliation with the barons here, and Robert D'Oyley, his favourite, whom we managed to repossess himself of the castle, have already come across at Abingdon, which he gave to his son Richard, king of and who was left to spend his honeymoon the Romans, who entertained the Court in Berkshire, with orders to make the cas- here splendidly on St. Cecilia's Day, on tle as strong as might be. Robert set to the occasion of his marriage. Edward II. work diligently, and finished the fortifica- gave it to Piers Gaveston in 1308, who, tions; even the three dikes, large, deep, at a tournament held here in 1309, by his and well watered, with embatteled waulle insolence to the Earl of Lancaster and about eache of the two firste dikes,' which other nobles, laid the ground for that Leland visited, and all the goodly build-hatred which cost him his head in 1312. ings with the toures and dongeon which be within the three dikes, the size and magnificence of which used to strike me' (Camden) with astonishment when I came thither a lad from Oxford' (as we used to do in those days when the plague or other sickness broke out), and which lasted until the Order in Council of the Lord Protec In the war which followed, Lord Mortimer surprised the castle for the king. The Lords, Berkeley and Audley were then sent there as prisoners; whereupon Sir John Goldington and Sir Edward De la Beche, a priest, afterwards Archdeacon of Berks, endeavouring a rescue in 1323, get with their band into the castle by a pos tern near the Thames, and, after a severe fight, are beaten and made prisoners for their pains. But the barons must have got in somehow within the next year or two, for (in 1325) we find Sir Roger d'Amory besieging it for the king, taking it in thirty-five days, for which feat he received the sum of 51. 7s. In the very next year, however, we find the king a prisoner at Kenilworth, and his disconsolate queen keeping her Christmas at Wallingford, and entertaining a great company of knights and barons. A mad world! No wonder that all the poor folk who were not killed found this sort of place too hot for them; and whereas in the thirteenth century there were eleven churches (Leland says fourteen) in Wallingford, in the sixteenth there remained three only. Sir Wm. Blackstone (the author of the Commentaries) was a native of Wallingford, and did much for the improvement of the town; his house and estate have only very recently passed from his descendants. We are now rounding the highest part of the instep of Berkshire, and the scenery begins to change. We are leaving the rich Vale of White Horse, which has stretched far away to our right ever since we passed Radley, and approaching the chalk-hills which form its southern boundary. We are not ashamed to acknowledge, that, notwithstanding all the lectures on physical geography which scientific friends have for many years poured upon us, we are still possessed with wonder when we see a river deliberately running right through a range of hills. Here is this range of chalk-hills coming up from distant Wiltshire, and sweeping away north-east through Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, as brave and strong as you please; and, just at this point, at Cholsey in the county of Berks, the Thames runs right into them as if it were the most natural thing in the world. When in our college days we attended the course of an eminent professor of geology, he began a most interesting lecture with, If any of you should ever hear a man talk about a convulsion of nature, set him down as an ass; our reverence for the memory of the lecturer, therefore, forbids our believing that a convulsion of nature has enabled the Thames to run through the chalk range; so, having nothing to substitute, we will return to the river with our wonder unabated. But before entering the hills we must go and see Cholsey barn, for its like does not occur again in Berkshire, or elsewhere, so far as we know. It was one of the tithe barns where the monks of Abingdon garnered their share of the harvest. The Abbey is gone, but the barn stands yet, a monster in brick 303 feet long, 54 wide, and 51 high: on a small tablet near one of the doors you may read, 'In this barn John Lanesley threshed, for Mr. Joseph Hopkins, 5 quarters 7 bushels and a half of wheat in 13 hours, on March 15, 1747'!! Worthy deed to be done in the monster barn. Was ever so huge a barn, or so tremendous a thresher! But there is no question of the fact. Jon Lanesley lived some years into the present century, and earned full labourers' wages until he was 92 years old: he, and the Hopkins family, who were still tenants of the farm, vouched for the truth of the story to Lysons, who records it. There are several more of these tithe barns in Berkshire, of which the one at Coxwell, near Faringdon, stands next to the Cholsey barn. It is 148 feet long and 40 wide, and is reckoned a magnificent piece of brickwork by the initiated. It belonged to the Abbey of Beaulieu in Hampshire. If the worthy monks could fill such barns as these with their tenths of the yearly harvest, what crops there must have been in those days! We now pass under the Great Western Railway and come upon pretty little Streatley, which lieth opposite to Goring station on the said railway; taking its name, people say, from stratum,' for it was the Roman station at which the Ickenild Way entered Berkshire. The hills, clothed with finer wood than is generally met with on this range, rise at the back, and grand English views may be seen by those who will climb them. And now we are, for the next ten miles, in one of the choicest pieces of Thames scenery-steep hills, noble woods, and gentleman's seats scattered thickly along either bank, but nothing to detain us, save the exquisite river scenery, until we come to Pangbourn. Here we must stop, and those of our crew who are not anglers should walk, while the eels are frying and the chops boiling, up to quaint, quiet, old Bere Court, out of reverence for Hugh Faringdon, the last Abbot of Reading, whose arms may still be found in the painted glass of the Old Hall windows. Bere Court was the summer residence of the Abbots. Here too Sir John Davis, the friend of Drake, the rough old hard-fisted sea-king, created a knight banneret at the taking of Cadiz, and better known than loved by the Dons on the Spanish Main, spent the last twelve years of h's eventful life in studious retirement.' He was an excellent mathematician, and entered deeply into the science of judicial astrology. A poor ending for the old sea-king, this twelve years of judicial astrology. Those who can throw a long line, and make their minnow spin as it touches the water, will do well to take a cast in the waters of the great lasher; for, deep down along the willowy side, under skirting-board, or behind old pile or swaying weed, lurk monsters of the deep--trout, fabulous weighted, pink as salmon, game as pheasants. But let no tyro waste his time trying for these, which are given only to the hand of the master; are there not punts for the beginner, stocked with ground-bait and gentles, and much coarse fish, with perch and chub, to be thankful for-punts which will sway lazily in the stream, while he fishes or paints, or dreams, gazing into the joyous water as it leaps into the lasher and comes swirling and eddying past him? No wonder that the poor wearied Cockney finds rest and pleasure in coming down here to angle out his short holiday. And now we cast off the boat again, and dropping down under the well-timbered banks pass Maple Durham pound, and, after some three quarters of an hour steady pulling, shoot Caversham bridge, and come to Reading, our county town, lying on gentle rising ground between the Kennet and Thames, quiet, quaint, and respectable to look upon. The town has seen stirring scenes since the building of those old walls, which rise gaunt and bare by the side of the new gaol-gaunt and bare, but almost indestructible. The contractor for the new Assize Courts is even now at his wits' end, for in digging his foundations he has come upon masses of the Abbey wall, of which it is a day's work for a man to prize away a few feet with heavy pickaxe. The tough old wall makes itself respected still, and the labourer with numbed fingers wonders what the mortar could have been made of in those days, and offers you a small fragment as a curiosity. The old town turns its worst side toward the railway, and no wonder; for the Great Western embankment ruthlessly cuts it off from its fair and rich river side, from King's mead, and Brigham's mead, and goes far to spoil the view of the townsfolk with its straight unplanted banks, huge ugly sheds, and unmeaning stations. Reading, named (we will believe for want of a better derivation) from 'redyng,' the British name for fern, first appears in English history in A.D. 871, when it was taken and sacked by the Danes, and a fierce battle was fought within and about it, in which Ethelwulf, Alderman of Berkshire, was slain, and Alfred first saw blood drawn, and learnt what it was to be beaten. It was burnt again by the Danes in A.D. 1006, and had scarcely recovered itself at the Conquest, for in Domesday Book we find only 29 houses in the town paying tax to the king. But in the early years of Henry I., who was its great benefactor, and founded the magnificent Abbey, in which kings held high feasts and parliaments, and whose revenue at its dissolution was returned at 21167. 38. 9d., Reading took its place finally at the head of Berkshire towns. 6 It is pleasantly told in the old story of The Six worthy Yeomen of the West,' how King Henry came to love Reading and to build his great Abbey here. The authenticity of the story, which turns upon the state of the cloth trade, is, perhaps, more than doubtful. No doubt in early times (as the author of the Six worthy Yeomen' begins) among all crafts this was the onely chiefe, for that it was the greatest merchandize by the which our countree became famouse throwout alle nations;' no doubt Reading was through several centuries one of the centres of this trade; but it could hardly have been so flourishing as he represents it to have been in Henry I.'s time; in fact, we believe that Cole of Reading, the great clothier, lived in Edward I.'s reign, if not later: nevertheless, having no other suggestion to make, we give the story for what it is worth. 'King Henry, riding with divers of his nobility to appease the fury of the Welshmen, met a great number of waines loaden with cloth comming to London, and seeing them still drive one after another so many together, demanded whose they were. The waine men answered in this sort, "Coles of Reading" (quoth they). Then by and by the King asked another, saying, hee; and againe anon after he asked the same "Whose cloth is all this?" "Old Coles," quoth questions to others, and still they answered "Old Coles." And it is to be remembred, that the King met them in such a place so narrow and straight, that hee with the rest of his traine were faine to stand as close to the hedge, whilest the carts passed by, the which at that time being in number about two hundred was neere hand an hour ere the King cd get roome to be gone; so that by his long stay he began to be displeased, altho' the admiration of that sight did much qualifie his furie.' On his return from Wales the King 'entred into communication on the commodi |