Another fifty years were to pass away before the bridge between Putney and Fulham was actually built, and according to tradition it was George II., when Prince of Wales, who brought about what was then considered an extraordinary innovation, impelled thereto by the inconvenience to which he was put when hunting in the Surrey forests an incidental illustration of the great change that has taken place since the sites of Putney, Wimbledon, Barnes, and Richmond were the haunts of wild animals that used to go down to the river to drink, and if sorely pressed in the chase, were able to swim over to the further side. Sir Robert Walpole, father of the more celebrated Horace, was entrusted with the onerous task of carrying a bill through Parliament authorising the construction of the bridge, which was begun in 1727 and completed in 1729. It very quickly justified the predictions of its promoters, for in 1731 the revenue yielded by the tolls amounted to £1500 a year, a sum that was nearly doubled by the beginning of the nineteenth century. The tolls were not remitted until 1880, by which time the bridge was already in so lamentable a state of decay that it had to be pulled down. It was replaced by the present structure, which, though it cannot be called a work of art, has nothing unsightly about it, a commendation that cannot, unfortunately, be extended to the aqueduct of the Chelsea Waterworks that spans the stream a little higher up, and has done more to spoil the picturesque appearance of Fulham and Putney than anything else.
Connected with the parish church of Putney, which, as already stated, was rebuilt in 1836, is a gem of early sixteenth-century architecture, a little chapel with a beautiful fan tracery roof, built by Bishop West of Ely, who was the son of a baker of Putney, and greatly loved his native place. The chapel originally stood on the south of the chancel, but when the restoration of the main building took place it was carefully removed to its present position, and is still practically what it was when first completed, though the ancient window-frames have been filled in with modern stained glass. Unfortunately, some of the quaint monuments that were in the old church have been destroyed, but its successor still retains some interesting tombs with characteristic laudatory inscriptions, including those of Richard Lister, some time Lord Mayor of London, and his wife Margaret Diggs, and of Philadelphia Palmer, whilst in the Bishop's Chapel is a noteworthy brass to the memory of John Welbeck and his wife.
Less than a century ago Putney still owned many an historic mansion standing in its own grounds, including the so-called Palace, Fairfax House, Essex House, Windsor Lodge, and Putney House, but they have all, alas, been demolished, as has also the no less interesting gabled cottage by the riverside in which Henry VIII.'s hated minister Thomas Cromwell was born, and the more important Lime Grove House, standing well back from the village on the road to Wimbledon, in which the great historian Edward Gibbon first saw the light. Fortunately, however, their sites can still be identified, and are even now, to some extent, haunted by the memory of the great names associated with them. The palace, built about the end of the fifteenth century, and now represented by River Street and River Terrace, was a place of no little note, and was connected with the one occupied by the Bishop of London by a subterranean passage. Long the seat of the Waldeck family, the palace was owned in the reign of Elizabeth by Mr. John Lacy, a wealthy cloth-merchant, who several times entertained the maiden queen in it. Her first visit took place in 1579, and her last in 1603, when she was on her way to her beloved palace at Richmond, where she died two months later. To the Putney Palace came also her successor James I., just before his coronation, and thirty-nine years later it was for a time the headquarters of one of his son's most bitter enemies, General Lord Fairfax, who had succeeded the Earl of Essex in command of the Parliamentary army that was encamped at Putney during the three months of 1647 when Charles I. was a prisoner at Hampton Court. The mansion was then the property of the High Sheriff, Mr. Wymonsold, and after the Restoration it changed hands many times. Early in the nineteenth century the property was thrown into Chancery, and sold to a gentleman whose name, fortunately perhaps for his memory, has not been preserved, for he showed no appreciation for the associations connected with the beautiful old house, but had it pulled down to make room for totally uninteresting buildings. The only still existing relics of the palace are the iron entrance-gates, that were often flung open to admit Queen Elizabeth and her retinue, which were bought by a brush manufacturer of Putney, by whose descendants they are prized as heirlooms.
Fairfax House, named, not as is generally taken for granted, after the Parliamentarian leader, but a private gentleman, was until quite recently one of the most noteworthy features of the High Street, and the lawn overshadowed by trees, said to have been planted by Bishop Juxon in the happy days before his royal master's troubles began, is still in existence. Essex House, that stood not far from Fairfax House, is generally supposed to have been built by Queen Elizabeth's ill-fated favourite, and he may probably have been living in it when his royal mistress was the guest of Mr. Lacy at Putney Palace. It, too, was destroyed in the iconoclastic nineteenth century, but in a humble shop occupying part of its site is preserved a very significant relic of it—a ceiling bearing the coat of arms of Queen Elizabeth, set in a circlet representing the Prince of Wales's feathers and the Harp of Ireland, and with the initials of Essex and the queen worked into a true-lovers' knot.
Of Windsor Lodge, once, it is said, part of a convent, some remains were dug up a short time ago proving it to have been a fine building in the Gothic style; but of Putney House, in which George III. was often entertained by its owner, Mr. Gerard Van Neck, the memory alone survives, for after serving from 1839 to 1857 as a college for civil engineers, it was pulled down and is now replaced by a row of commonplace villas.
It is difficult to determine exactly where the cottage stood in which Thomas Cromwell was born, but it is well known that his father, who held a good position in Putney as a blacksmith, brewer, wool-merchant, and inn-keeper, owned a considerable amount of property under the lord of the manor of Wimbledon. Part of his land was by the Thames, and was known as the 'Homestall,' the probability being that the homestead in which the family lived, the brewery, and hostelry were three separate buildings grouped together not far from the parish church. In any case, the young Thomas must have been very familiar with riverside Putney; he often helped to load his father's barges with wool, to be taken down to the ships awaiting them below London Bridge, and he attended a day-school close to his home. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to his uncle John Williams, who was then overseer of Wimbledon Manor and lived in a homestead at Mortlake, on the site of which is a house still named after him. On the death of his master in 1502, Thomas Cromwell collected the Wimbledon rents till the appointment was given to his father, under whom he worked until 1504, when he fell into disgrace and ran away from home. What his crime was is not known, but his father never forgave him, and for many years his native place knew him no more. Walter Cromwell, too, seems to have lost the good position he had long held in Putney, and he would have died in absolute want but for the generosity of his son-in-law Morgan Williams, who gave him a little cottage on Wimbledon Green, near to his own brewery and inn, called the Crooked Billet, the site of which is now occupied by a group of small houses. In this cottage the elder Cromwell died in 1516, without having seen his son again. By this time, however, Thomas had returned to England and was already in the service of Wolsey, the Crooked Billet had passed into the hands of his sister and her husband, and all connection between him and the neighbourhood seemed to be finally severed. Strange to say, however, some twenty-three years later he became lord of the manor of the very estate on which he was born, and owner of the princely income it yielded which he had himself once helped to collect for another. No doubt he had sometimes in the interval landed at the steps near his old home when in attendance as secretary on Cardinal Wolsey, who often halted at Putney on his way up the river to Richmond or Hampton Court before the memorable occasion in 1529—ten years before his protégé became lord of the manor of Wimbledon, when in his sad journey to Esher after the Great Seal had been taken from him, he eluded the malice of his enemies by going by land, attended only by two or three faithful servants, riding up the then gorse and heather-clad Putney Hill towards the heath, which he intended to cross in a westerly direction. The story goes that the disgraced favourite was stopped before he reached the summit of the ascent by a messenger from the king, no less a personage than the Lord Chamberlain, Sir John Norris, who gave him a ring in token that he was once more forgiven. In his gratitude and surprise he is said to have hurriedly dismounted, to fall on his knees in the road, and give earnest thanks to God for this unexpected mercy. Sir John followed his example, their escorts looking on in amazement; and when the two great men rose up again, a deeply interesting conversation took place between them, Wolsey declaring that the tidings were worth half a kingdom, and bitterly regretting that he had nothing to send to his master to prove his deep appreciation of his goodness, adding, on second thoughts, 'but here is my fool that rides beside me, take him, I beseech thee, to court, and give him to his majesty; I assure you he is worth a thousand pounds for any nobleman's pleasure.'
If there be any truth in this graphic tale, it must have been with a light heart that the cardinal proceeded on his way; but, as is well known, the end was already close at hand: he was shortly afterwards charged with high treason, and died of a broken heart at Leicester Abbey on his way to London to stand his trial. Never again did he use the long familiar landing-stage at Putney, or make a stately progress up the river to his palace at Hampton Court. As the star of Wolsey set, however, another man, whose name is also closely associated with Putney, rose into prominence, for Edmund Bonner, who owed much to him, and lived in a house now destroyed at the foot of the hill, had by that time won the king's confidence, and in 1540 was rewarded for his tactful zeal by being made Bishop of London. His end, though not quite so dramatic as that of his first patron, but for whom he would probably have remained an obscure lawyer all his life, was sad enough, for he died in poverty and disgrace in the Marshalsea Prison, after his Putney home had passed into the hands of strangers.
Putney Heath
Fortunately, in spite of all the encroachments of the builder in and near the once secluded hamlet of Putney, the heath, named after it, that is divided only by a road from the scarcely less beautiful Wimbledon Common, and extends on the other side to the charming park of Richmond, has been permanently secured to the public, and will probably ever remain one of the most popular of the open-air resorts near London. Its loftier portions command extensive views, and although until quite recently it had a somewhat sinister reputation as a favourite haunt of highwaymen, it is also associated with many interesting historic memories. On it, for instance, in 1648, when the doom of Charles I. was already practically sealed, the people of Surrey met to draw up a petition for the re-establishment of Episcopacy, and there soon after the Restoration Charles II. held a grand review of his army. In 1652 a duel took place on the heath between Lord Chandos and Colonel Henry Compton, in which the latter was killed; in 1798 William Pitt, then Prime Minister, met William Tierney, M.P. for Southwark, one of his most determined political opponents, and rendered the encounter abortive by firing in the air; and in 1809 occurred the meeting between the two great statesmen, George Canning and Lord Castlereagh, the result of a temporary estrangement only, in which the former was slightly wounded in the thigh, whilst the future Foreign Secretary, who was to do so much to promote the coalition against Napoleon, escaped unhurt. It is unfortunately impossible to identify exactly the scenes of these various duels, but the last is known to have occurred on what is now the garden of the private residence, Wildcroft, near an obelisk that was set up a century after the breaking out of the Great Fire of London to commemorate the discovery by David Hartley of a means for rendering buildings fireproof.
Bowling-Green House
On the outskirts of Putney Heath are several houses that have been at one time or another occupied by persons of note, of which the most interesting is perhaps that in which William Pitt lived for some years and died. It occupies the site and retains the name of Bowling-Green House, a noted place of entertainment to which the fashionable world of London used to flock in the early eighteenth century to meet their friends at breakfast or at supper, and to take part in or watch the bowling matches that took place on the fine green belonging to the inn that is constantly referred to in the contemporary press, and was long considered the finest in England. The ancient hostelry was pulled down about 1760 and replaced a little later by the present Bowling-Green House, that was occupied for some little time by Admiral Cornwallis before the more famous William Pitt took possession of it, hoping to find in its quiet seclusion exemption from the many cares that harassed the closing years of his brief but chequered career. Already, before he took up his abode in his new home, the storm had broken that led to his resignation in 1801, and even after his return to office in 1804 nothing but disappointment, aggravated by physical suffering, awaited him. The disgrace of his trusted friend Lord Melville, who was often his guest at Putney, and with whom he there discussed, after the death of Nelson, the difficult question of what should be done for Lady Hamilton, was a bitter blow to him, and even the victory of Trafalgar failed to restore to him confidence in the future of the country he had loved and served so well. To the very last, however, Pitt retained an outward cheerfulness, and many anecdotes are told of the interviews that took place between him and his distinguished visitors in Bowling-Green House. Lord Brougham, for instance, relates how he and Lord Wellesley, the latter fresh from his triumphs in India, went together early in January 1806 to see the great peace minister, who though he was to pass away but a few days later, welcomed them gaily, declaring he would soon be well again, and showing the greatest interest in all the news they brought him. Strange to say, in spite of the devoted attachment of many friends, and the deep love of his gifted niece Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived with him for three years at Putney, Pitt is said to have died absolutely alone. The story has again and again been repeated that a messenger who called to inquire for him on the day of his death, after waiting a long time at the door, which stood open, went into Bowling-Green House unannounced, and found his way to the minister's bedroom, where the man who, a short time before, had been so popular, lay dead, unwatched by a single attendant. Whatever truth there may be in this report, there is no doubt that Pitt was deeply mourned throughout the length and breadth of England; a public funeral, and a grave in Westminster Abbey, were voted for him by an immense majority in the House of Commons, and his memory was long held dear in the neighbourhood in which he breathed his last. Lady Hester Stanhope is said never to have fully recovered from his loss; she indignantly refused the increase in the annuity granted to her by the king because that increase was suggested by Fox, her beloved uncle's political opponent, and a few years after Pitt's death she left England, to which she never returned, to embark on her extraordinary career in the East.
Not far from Bowling-Green House is a villa in which Mrs. Siddons and her daughters lived for two years; on the hill is a house in which Pitt resided before his removal to his last home; in another the portrait-painter, Henry Fuseli, died in 1825; in West Lodge, facing the common, some of Douglas Jerrold's essays were written; and in the Pines still lives the famous poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. The neighbouring hamlet of Roehampton, too, has many interesting associations, for before the beautiful park that belonged to the manor was sold for building, there were many fine old mansions in it that were the homes of distinguished men. The estate was long the property of the Crown, but it was given by Charles I. to Sir Richard Weston, who added to the manor-house a chapel (the site of which is occupied by the present church) that was consecrated by Bishop Laud in 1632. Three years later the new owner, who had then become Earl of Portland, added many acres to his property, but his son and successor was compelled, in consequence of his losses during the Civil War, to sell his noble inheritance. It was bought in 1640 by Sir Thomas Lloyd, from whom it passed to the famous beauty, Christina, Duchess of Devonshire, who kept up a cipher correspondence with Charles II. during his exile. After the Restoration, Roehampton Park House was the scene of many a brilliant gathering, the king and queen having often been the guests of the duchess, but its memories did not save it from being again sold in 1698, and after changing hands several times it became the property of Lord Huntingfield, who pulled it down to replace it by a still standing villa known as Roehampton Grove. On part of the park was erected the Convent of the Sacred Heart, and the remainder was divided amongst different purchasers, but some few fine old mansions still remain to bear witness to the time when Roehampton was an aristocratic suburb, including the seat of the Earl of Leven and Melville, and Manresa House, now a Jesuit College, that was built for the Earl of Bessborough, and long bore his name.
Barnes
Another village in intimate touch with Putney is Barnes, that some fifty years ago was a pretty riverside hamlet, but is now rapidly growing into a densely populated suburb, the pond on the green fed by the Beverley Brook, and the still unenclosed common alone preserving to it something of its rural character. The ancient church has been so often restored that, with the exception of the fifteenth-century tower, it retains little of the original structure, and most of the ancestral homesteads, that were once a distinctive feature of the neighbourhood, have been pulled down. Within the church, however, are preserved a few interesting memorials of the long ago, such as a brass in memory of William Millebourne, who died in 1415, and a tablet bearing an inscription to Edward Rose of London, who just before his death, in 1653, bequeathed £20 for the purchase of an acre of land, the proceeds of the cultivation of which were to be given to the poor of Barnes after the deduction of enough to keep his own tomb in repair, for the planting of more trees about his grave, and the preservation from injury by the erection of a wooden paling, instructions that were literally obeyed for a long spell of years. The eighteenth-century mural monument to Sir Richard Hoare is also noteworthy, and in the churchyard, which with its venerable trees has an old-world appearance, are several ancient tombs with quaint inscriptions, besides the one in which rests Richard Rose.
Barn Elms
The history of Barnes can be traced back to Saxon times, its manor having been given by King Athelstan to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, who have held it ever since, though it has been leased to many different tenants. The village is probably named after some early occupant of the ancient homestead that occupied the site of the modern mansion known as Barn Elms, now the headquarters of the popular Ranelagh Club, that with a smaller house connected with it stands in well-cultivated grounds sloping down to the river. In the predecessor of the present Barn Elms Sir Francis Walsingham, who rented it on a long lease from 1579, often received his exacting mistress Queen Elizabeth, and there possibly he may have submitted to her some of the correspondence between the Queen of Scots and her adherents that had been intercepted by his spies. Elizabeth was at Barn Elms in 1588, the year after Mary's execution, when Walsingham had already retired from office, and was a comparatively poor man, but in spite of this the queen was attended by her whole court, who were entertained at her host's expense. In fact, as was the case with many other favourites, the sovereign's partiality nearly ruined the ex-minister, who when he died in 1590 left his widow scarcely enough money to keep up Barn Elms. She was, however, able to leave the lease to her daughter, one of the famous beauties of the day, who was three times married, first to Sir Philip Sidney, then to the Earl of Essex, and lastly to the Earl of Clanricarde. As Countess of Essex she resided for some time in her old home, but the house was deserted after her third wedding, and there is a gap in its history till 1663, when it or the smaller house connected with it was occupied by the then popular poet Samuel Cowley, who was there visited, it is said, by Milton and other contemporary literary celebrities. John Evelyn, and later Samuel Pepys, had both a great affection for Barn Elms, but the latter took a dislike to it after the tragedy that occurred in its grounds in 1678, when the Earl of Shrewsbury was mortally wounded in a duel with Charles II.'s infamous favourite George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. The wife of the former had left him to become the mistress of the latter, and the story goes that she was present at the encounter disguised as a page holding her lover's horse.
During the reign of George II. Barn Elms was the scene of many a merry entertainment, in which the great musician Handel sometimes took part, for it was tenanted by the famous Master of Revels at the English court, Count Heidegger, who was noted for his skill in improvising startling effects. He was succeeded on his death by the wealthy banker Sir Richard Hoare, and in the early nineteenth century it was the home of the editor of the Weekly Political Register, William Cobbett, who was aptly called the Ishmael of politics, for his hand was often against every other member of his own party. Somewhat later Barn Elms was rented by Sir Lancelot Shadwell, Vice-Chancellor of England, who was a noted swimmer and keenly interested in river sports. At his hospitable table were several times entertained the crews of the Oxford and Cambridge boats on the evenings of the annual race, that was rowed for the first time from Putney to Mortlake in 1848, the earlier contests having taken place on another course.
The historic Barn Elms house has long since ceased to be, but the smaller residence attached to it, which was known in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as Queen Elizabeth's Dairy, is still standing. In it lived for many years, and died in 1735, the eminent bookseller Jacob Tonson, founder of the famous Kit Cat Club, to which belonged all the chief literary men of the day, including Sir Robert Walpole, Congreve, Dryden, Steele, and Addison, for whose accommodation Tonson added a gallery to his house which was hung with their portraits, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was then court painter. On the death of the owner the gallery was pulled down, and the portraits were removed to the seat of his family at Bayfordbury, but the surroundings of the meeting-place of the Club are even now much what they were in the eighteenth century.
Barnes
The river at Barnes, that here makes a sudden bend to the north, is spanned by several bridges, and its banks are lined with good houses, some of which are associated with famous names. In one of those on the Terrace, for instance, resided the French political refugees the Count and Countess d'Antraigues, who were assassinated in 1812 by an Italian in their service; and in the mansion known as St. Anne's lived the famous eighteenth-century beauty Lady Archer. In an old house overlooking the common Henry Fielding wrote some of his novels, Monk Lewis composed his Crazy Jane in a cottage not far off that cannot now be identified; and amongst the rectors of the parish were the Latin scholar Dr. Hare, the eloquent preacher Henry Melvill, and the well-known hymn-writer, the Rev. John Ellerton. At Barnes, too, in a house now destroyed, lived and died the brother-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham, Robert Beale, who was perhaps introduced to Queen Elizabeth at Barn Elms, and who was chosen by her for the painful mission of taking to Mary, Queen of Scots, the warrant for her execution, and in the same river-side village the zealous anabaptist Abrezer Coppe took refuge on his release from Newgate in 1651, where he had been imprisoned for a year for issuing his extraordinary pamphlet The Fiery Flying Roll. Disguised as a doctor, and calling himself Hiam, he divided his time between preaching and prescribing for patients, and managed to escape further persecution, dying a natural death in 1692, when he was buried under his assumed name in Barnes churchyard.
Wimbledon
Scarcely less interesting than the charming riverside districts of Surrey described above is the neighbouring parish of Wimbledon, that stretches southwards from Wandsworth, Putney, Roehampton and Barnes to Merton and Cheam, and westwards to Kingston, the river Wandle dividing it from Mitcham on the east. Long before the Conquest, Wimbledon Common, that was then but a small portion of vast unenclosed wild lands, was the scene of events that had their share in determining the fate of southern England, and since that epoch-making event it has again and again been associated with typical incidents of the national life. The remains of very extensive entrenchments on its south-western side, locally known as Bensbury, that were unfortunately almost destroyed in 1880 by the owner of the property, prove that it was at a very early date the scene of important military operations, but whether these entrenchments were the work of British, Roman, or Saxon hands there is no evidence to prove. Popular opinion, however, long since decided that Cæsar was the first occupier of the Rounds, as the earthworks were called, and the few still existing relics will probably always be associated with his name. Possibly, indeed, he may have halted on the common during the campaign of B.C. 54, and even have drank from the spring of pure water about a quarter of a mile from his supposed camp, that is preserved from defilement by a stone casing provided at the expense of Sir Henry Peek, who was for some time owner of the mansion known as Wimbledon House. It is as difficult to determine the origin of the word Wimbledon as it is to decide who was the maker of the so-called Cæsar's Camp. It is very differently spelt by various chroniclers, and the probability is that the two first syllables preserve the name of an early Saxon owner of the manor, and that the last simply means hill. In the Saxon Chronicle reference is made to a battle that took place at Wibbandune, possibly near the much-discussed camp, between Ceawlin, King of Wessex, and Æthelbricht, King of Kent, in which the latter was defeated, but Wimbledon is not mentioned in Doomsday Book, it having been one of many submanors belonging to Mortlake. It was separated from the latter by Henry VIII., to be bestowed upon Thomas Cromwell, who was then at the very zenith of his prosperity, for he had fulfilled his promise that he would make his master the richest monarch who had ever ruled over England. He was raised to the peerage as Baron of Okeham, and almost immediately afterwards created Earl of Essex. It was, however, but for one brief year that he was allowed to enjoy his new dignities and possessions, and it had scarcely ended before the fickle Henry turned against him. The once highly favoured minister was accused of treason, and eight weeks after he became an earl he was beheaded on Tower Hill. The manor of Wimbledon reverted to the Crown, and later it was given by the king to Catherine Parr for her life. On the death of her stepmother in 1547, Queen Mary bestowed it on Cardinal Pole, then only a deacon, with whom it was popularly believed she was in love before her marriage with Philip II. of Spain. Pole, however, never resided at Wimbledon, and the property was taken from him before his death, which took place the day after that of the queen, whose evil genius he had been. Queen Elizabeth granted the manor in 1576 to Sir Christopher Hatton, from whom it passed by purchase to Sir Thomas Cecil, son of the great statesman Sir William Cecil, better known as Lord Burghley. The new owner pulled down the old manor-house and replaced it by a magnificent structure, that until its demolition early in the eighteenth century by Sir Theodore Jansen was considered the finest private residence near London. It was designed by John Thorpe, whose architectural drawing for it, bearing the inscription, 'Wymbledon, an house standing on the edge of a hie hill,' is preserved in the Soane Museum. Queen Elizabeth was often the guest of Lord Burghley in the house he inherited from his father, the approaches to which appear to have been but little in keeping with its grandeur, as proved by an entry in the Kingston Churchwarden's book for 1599 recording the payment of twenty pence for mending the ways when the queen went from Wimbledon to Nonsuch.
Lord Burghley, who had been created Earl of Essex, before his death left his Wimbledon property to his youngest son, Edward Cecil, who received the title of Lord Wimbledon in 1626. The latter, who was an eloquent writer as well as a distinguished soldier, and is included in Horace Walpole's catalogue of royal and noble authors, died in 1638, at the beginning of the acute stage of the conflict between autocratic and constitutional government, and his heir sold his Wimbledon home to Queen Henrietta Maria, who was often there with her husband and children during the few years of happiness that remained to them. Only a short time before the end of his troubled career, Charles I. gave orders that some melon seeds from Spain should be planted in the gardens, but whether this was done or not is not known. The beautiful house and estate were sold in 1649 by the Parliamentary Commissioners to a Mr. Baynes, from whom they were soon afterwards purchased by General Lambert, who is said to have found great consolation for the troubles resulting from his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the Protector by cultivating flowers, the tulips and gilliflowers he raised at Wimbledon having been the finest that could be had for love or money.
After the Restoration Charles II. gave back the Wimbledon manor-house to his widowed mother, but it was too full of sad memories for her to care to live in it, and she sold it in 1661—the year, by the way, of the trial of General Lambert for treason—to John Digby, Earl of Bristol, who with the aid of the famous John Evelyn soon completely transformed it to suit his own taste. It was in the parish church of Wimbledon that the earl made his famous renunciation of the Roman Catholic religion, that was described by the French ambassador, who happened to be present, as an insolent and daring act; and it was whilst he was living in his half-finished mansion that he narrowly escaped arrest somewhat later when Charles II. sent messengers to arrest him. The Earl of Bristol died at Wimbledon in 1676, and his estate, after changing hands several times, was bought in 1717 by Sir Theodore Jansen, one of the promoters of the luckless South Sea scheme, who, with little reverence for the beauty and historic associations of the house, at once began to pull it down. Before he had time to build another he and his fellow-speculators were ruined, and the Wimbledon estate was sold by him to Sarah Jennings, the famous Duchess of Marlborough. She in her turn built a new and costly mansion which she bequeathed, with the rest of the property, to her grandson, John Spencer, to whose descendants it belonged—passing, in accordance with the custom known as borough English, to the youngest, not the eldest son—until 1871, when it was sold and broken up into a number of small holdings. The house built for the duchess, in which Hannah More was the guest, in 1786, of the Bishop of St. Asaph, was burned down in 1785, and the then owner replaced it with that still standing, known as Wimbledon Park House, that is associated with the memory of Sir William Paxton, the architect of the Crystal Palace, who began his career as assistant to his brother, who was head gardener for many years to the Cecil family.
At the present time Wimbledon, in spite of all the changes that have taken place in its general appearance, is one of the most beautiful of the London suburbs, and though it has lost its historic manor-house, it retains many fine old mansions that bear witness to its aristocratic associations. Amongst these, perhaps the finest is Eagle House, on the Green, a noble Jacobean structure, with ten gables, built by Robert Bell, a wealthy London merchant in the reign of James I., and occupied for some years, from 1789, by the Right Honourable William Grenville, the relation and colleague of William Pitt, who often visited him there, one of the bedrooms being still named after him. A house not far off, known as Wimbledon Lodge, was at the same time the home of the famous philanthropist, William Wilberforce, who in his Journal makes many allusions to his happy meetings at Eagle House with William Pitt, whom he sometimes persuaded to go to church with him.
At Chester House, another fine old mansion that faces the common, John Horne Tooke spent the last years of his life, and died in 1812, leaving instructions in his will that he should be buried in a mausoleum, still preserved in the garden; but his wishes were disregarded, for he rests in the churchyard of Ealing. Near the Crooked Billet, already referred to in connection with Thomas Cromwell, lived John Murray, founder of the publishing house named after him, and amongst his neighbours were William Gifford, the first editor of the Quarterly Review, and James Perry, the originator of the Morning Chronicle. Melrose House, on West Hill, now a home for incurables, was once the seat of the Duke of Sutherland. Madame Goldschmidt, better known as Jenny Lind, lived for several years in Wimbledon Park, and it was in Wresil Lodge that the celebrated Anglo-Indian statesman, Sir Bartle Frere, passed away.
The Parsonage of Wimbledon is a very picturesque old homestead, but there is little of interest about the modern parish church, that has had several predecessors, except the mortuary chapel connected with it that was built in the early seventeenth century as a family vault by Lord Wimbledon. There are, however, two or three noteworthy eighteenth-century tombs in the churchyard, that also owns a memorial to the celebrated American painter, Gilbert Stuart Newton, who died at Chelsea in 1835.
The chief glory of Wimbledon is now, as it has been for centuries, its breezy elevated common, that is more than a thousand acres in extent, and with Putney Heath, Richmond Park, Ham and Sheen commons, form an unbroken stretch of varied scenery unrivalled even in the heart of the country for its rural charm. Peaceful as Wimbledon Common now seems, however, it has witnessed many stirring and gruesome incidents, for it was long a favourite haunt of highwaymen and a noted place for duels. The secluded Coombe Wood on its outskirts, beloved of Constable and Stothard, where stands the house occupied by Lord Liverpool when he was Prime Minister, was the chief lurking-place of those lying in wait for unwary travellers, who were often not only robbed but murdered in broad daylight. It was no unusual thing for the bodies of criminals to be left hanging in chains till they rotted away near the spot where their worst deeds were done, and in a contemporary caricature of the duel already referred to between William Pitt and William Tierney, the remains of the notorious Jerry Abershaw, who suffered death at Kensington in 1735, are seen in the background dangling from a post close to the Windmill which is still such a picturesque feature of the common.
WIMBLEDON COMMON
WIMBLEDON COMMON
In 1789 occurred the encounter between Colonel Lennox, later Duke of Richmond, and the Duke of York, second son of George III., that caused much excitement at the time, for it was unusual for a commoner to challenge a prince of the blood, though the latter was in this case undoubtedly in the wrong, a fact of which he proved his sense by refusing to fire at his antagonist, who had to be content with discharging one bullet only that passed harmlessly through his adversary's hair. In 1807 a duel was fought in Coombe Wood, in which both parties were slightly wounded, between Sir Francis Burdett, the famous Conservative statesman, and Mr. Paull, who had been one of his agents in his successful candidature for Westminster; and in 1809 a certain Mr. Payne was mortally wounded in a duel on the common with a Mr. Clarke, who had made dishonourable proposals to his sister. More celebrated than either of these meetings, however, was that of 1839, when the Marquis of Londonderry met Henry Grattan, son of the famous Irish patriot of that name, and, after allowing his opponent to fire at him, discharged his own pistol in the air, a quiet way of proving his contempt for the duel as a mode of settling quarrels. A year later the future Emperor Napoleon III. challenged his fellow-countryman, Comte Léon, to a combat on Wimbledon Common, but a dispute having arisen between them when on the ground as to the weapons to be used, so much delay was caused that the police appeared on the scene and arrested the whole party, who were brought before the magistrate at Bow Street and bound over to keep the peace. Far more serious than this fiasco was the encounter, in the same year, between the Earl of Cardigan, later leader of the famous charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and Captain Harvey Tuckett, one of his officers, whom he had treated with unwarrantable harshness. The latter was seriously wounded, and public indignation against the earl was very great, but though he was tried by his peers in 1841 he escaped punishment through a legal quibble, his counsel having pretended that it was impossible to prove the identity of the sufferer with the Captain Tuckett named in the indictment.
By the middle of the nineteenth century duelling had quite gone out of fashion in England; and although a few hostile meetings have since taken place on Wimbledon Common, they have been mere farces unworthy of serious consideration. The beautiful open space has since then become associated with memories of a far more ennobling kind, for it has been the scene of many a great gathering of volunteers, which have made the name of Wimbledon known throughout the civilised world, and have done more, perhaps, than anything else to make military service popular in England.
It is usual to date the beginning of the great volunteer movement from 1859, when General Peel, then Minister of War, sanctioned the acceptance by the authorities of those who offered themselves to take part in the national defence, but the way had been long before prepared by the formation of local associations, amongst which that of Wimbledon, founded in 1799, was the first. A corps of cavalry and one of infantry were quickly formed, in which all the leading gentlemen of the parish were enrolled. The example thus set was eagerly followed, and in 1798 George III. reviewed on Wimbledon Common a regiment more than six hundred strong. By 1803 the volunteers numbered no less than 355,307, and there can be no doubt that had Napoleon realised the expectations of the people of England by invasion, the self-constituted army would have proved itself fully equal to the emergency. After the battle of Waterloo the volunteer force was disbanded; but the spirit which had animated it was not extinct, and when some years later a new war with France seemed imminent, a single spark was all that was needed to kindle anew the patriotic enthusiasm of the whole nation, which resulted in the formation of a new volunteer army, in many respects superior to its predecessor. In June 1860 Queen Victoria reviewed that army in Hyde Park, and a month later took place on Wimbledon Common the inauguration of the National Rifle Association, Her Majesty firing the first shot. From that time to 1887, when the meetings were transferred to Bisley, the volunteers encamped on the beautiful common every summer, representative teams from every part of the United Kingdom and some of the colonies taking part in the various competitions, which, with the reviews that terminated the operations, attracted thousands of spectators. Wimbledon Common is now comparatively deserted, but the memory of the volunteers is kept green by the fine flagstaff, the loftiest in England, that rises up a short distance from the windmill, and consists of the trunk of a single Californian pine that was towed across the Atlantic by a liner, and was the gift of a Canadian corps in acknowledgment of the hospitality received during a visit to the camp. Now and then, as when in 1906 the London companies of the Royal Volunteer Army Medical Corps and a party of Electrical Royal Engineers rehearsed first aid to the wounded after a fight supposed to have taken place in the night, the common is still turned to account as a practising-ground, but it is at present chiefly noted as being the headquarters of the London and Scottish Golf and the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Clubs.
Merton
Within easy reach of Wimbledon are a number of villages, including Merton, Morden, Malden, Mitcham, and Tooting, which, though they have all recently been promoted to the doubtful dignity of becoming suburbs of London, still retain some few relics of the days gone by when they were secluded woodland hamlets. Of these the most important is Merton—inseparably connected with the memory of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton—the history of which can be traced back to the eighth century, when its site was the scene of a terrible tragedy, for it was there that in 784 the noble king of the West Saxons, Cynewulf, who was on a visit to a lady to whom he was deeply attached, was treacherously slain, with all his attendants, by the Ætheling Cyneheard, a crime that was fearfully avenged the day after, when the murderer and all his followers but one fell victims to the rage of Cynewulf's thanes. According to some authorities, it was near the Surrey Merton that the battle took place between the English and the Danes in 871, when King Æthelred was wounded to death, and at which his brother, the future King Alfred, was present; but it must be added that the balance of evidence is in favour of that important event, which inaugurated a new era for England, having occurred elsewhere. In any case, however, it is certain that Merton—the name of which is supposed to signify the town on the mere, from its vicinity to the ponds of the Wandle—was a valuable manor at the time of the Conquest, when it was the property of King Harold. It was confiscated by William I., and was retained by the Crown until it was bestowed by Henry I. on the so-called Gilbert the Norman, founder of the famous priory of Merton that was long the glory of the neighbourhood.
Originally a humble community of monks living in a small timber-built house near a Norman church, also built by Gilbert, the new settlement quickly attracted so many novices that it was soon decided to transfer it to a more extensive site, and in the course of a few years a stately structure, of which, unfortunately, but a few scanty relics remain, rose up on the banks of the Wandle. The first stone was laid by Gilbert the Norman in 1130, but he did not live to see the completion of his work, for he died the same year, after having carefully secured the property to the Augustinians. From the first the priory enjoyed many special privileges, including that of a seat in Parliament for its abbot and the right of sanctuary, of which Hubert de Burgh, who had acted as Regent during the minority of Henry III., availed himself when he was fleeing from the wrath of his ungrateful master in 1234. It was in the spacious hall of the priory that met, two years later, the great council of the nation that defeated the attempt of the king and pope, who were for once inspired by a common ambition, to force upon the people what was known as the 'Rule of the Canon Law for the legitimisation of children born before the wedlock of their parents.' Earls and barons alike stood firm, declaring that nothing would induce them to change the established laws of England; and it was not until several centuries later that what became known as the Statute of Merton was to a great extent nullified by the passing of the Legitimacy Act of 1858.
As time went on Merton Priory became a celebrated place of education, numbering amongst its pupils many boys who later rose to eminence, including Thomas à Becket, who was there for some time before he was sent to Pevensey Castle for his military training, and Walter de Merton, who became Lord High Chancellor of England in 1261, and founded in 1264 at the neighbouring village of Malden the college of Merton, that was transferred in 1274 to Oxford, and enjoys the distinction of having been the first institution in that city that was organised on collegiate lines.
Within easy distance of London, Merton was often visited by the reigning sovereigns, who repaid the hospitality they received from the abbot with constant gifts of land or money, so that by the time of the suppression of the monasteries the abbey grounds, that were enclosed by a wall, a few portions of which are still standing, were no less than sixty acres in extent, and its revenues amounted to more than a thousand pounds a year. In addition to this, the priory owned many estates in other parts of the country, with the advowsons of several churches, but all its property was snatched away by Henry VIII., who let the abbey on lease, but retained the manor of Merton, which remained the property of the Crown until 1610, when it was sold by James I. to a certain Thomas Hunt, since which time it changed hands again and again before its lands were broken up into small holdings and built upon. Of the ancient manor-house not a trace is left, though possibly the so-called manor farm may occupy its site, but the abbey remained uninjured for some time longer. It had been given by Queen Mary just before her death to the monastery of Sheen, but was reclaimed by her successor, who granted a long lease of it to the cofferer of the royal household, Gregory Lovell, who died at Merton in 1597; and was buried in the parish church. In 1610 the historic building was sold to a certain Thomas Hunt, who passed it on to his heirs in good preservation, as proved by the fact that it was one of the strong places fortified during the Civil War. In 1668 it became the property of a member of the Pepys family, and its purchase by his 'Cosen Tom' is referred to by Samuel Pepys in his Diary for that year. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the priory and chapel were still beautiful buildings, but long before the end they had been despoiled and converted into a calico-printing factory. Part of the materials were used to build a mansion that occupied the site of the modern house now called Merton Abbey, and a single Norman arch incorporated in the factory is all that remains to bear witness to the glory of the monastery founded by Gilbert the Norman. The railway connecting Wimbledon and Tooting runs right across what were once the abbey grounds; but in the portion belonging to the house referred to above are some fish-ponds that were probably used by the monks.
Fortunately the parish church of Merton, in which Lord Nelson, Sir William and Lady Hamilton often worshipped, with its tiled roof, squat timber tower, and octagonal spire, its Norman arch at the northern end and Early English pillars in the nave, retains, in spite of frequent restoration, very much the appearance that it did when first completed early in the twelfth century. Two of the ancient lancet windows remain, the arms of the priory in old stained glass have been worked into the modern east window, on the south wall is a mural monument, with kneeling effigies, to the memory of Gregory Lovell, his wife, and their eight children, and in the nave are the hatchments of the great families who at different times owned the manor of Merton, and also one bearing the arms of Lord Nelson that was presented after his death by Lady Hamilton. In the vestry is preserved the pew in which the lovers used to sit, and in the churchyard are several quaint old tombs, including that of the second wife of the famous bookseller, James Luckington, who lived for some years at Merton.
Opposite to the church is an interesting Elizabethan mansion standing well back from the road in extensive grounds, with fine entrance-gates of wrought iron, that was long erroneously supposed to have been the original manor-house of Merton, and close to the gates is a flight of stone steps that are said to have been used by Lord Nelson for mounting and dismounting when he rode to church from his beloved home on the Wandle, known as Merton Place, where he spent the happiest years of his life, and from which he went forth never to return five weeks before the battle of Trafalgar, in which he lost his life.
Unfortunately, absolutely no trace is now left of Merton Place, for it was sold in 1808 by Lady Hamilton, to whom it had been bequeathed, and its site is now occupied by a street of commonplace villas, the names of Nelson Place and the Nelson Arms alone recalling the days when the great naval hero was a familiar figure in the village. Opposite the railway station, however, is a ruined castellated gate overgrown with ivy that once gave access to the estate which Nelson and his beloved Emma called Paradise Merton, which witnessed the closing scenes of a romance without a parallel in history or fiction. On the improvement of that estate large sums of money were expended, and after the credulous or wilfully blind Sir William Hamilton had passed away, the long disowned but deeply loved Horatia was brought to live with her mother, her absent father betraying in his letters a deep solicitude for her welfare, as when he begs that 'a strong netting about three feet high may be placed round the Nile,' as he called the stream running through the grounds, 'that the little thing may not tumble in.'
Malden
Malden, the Anglo-Saxon name of which signifies the Hill of the Cross, has now even less that is distinctive about it than Merton, but it is noteworthy as having been the first site of the college referred to above, founded in 1240 by Walter de Merton, who at that date bought Malden Manor, the history of which can be traced back to the time of the Doomsday Survey, when with that of the neighbouring Chessington it was the property of Richard de Tonbridge. Merton College retained its estate at Mitcham until the dissolution of the monasteries, when Henry VIII. took 120 acres of it—now part of the populous suburb known as Worcester Park—to add them to the grounds of Nonsuch Palace. Later Queen Elizabeth confiscated the manors of Malden and Chessington with the advowsons of both livings for a term of no less than five hundred years, salving her conscience by paying a nominal rent of forty pounds, but in the reign of her successor the members of the college succeeded in bringing about a compromise, by the terms of which the then owner of the lease and his heirs were allowed to retain it for another eighty years.
The parish church of Malden, though it has been again and again restored, still retains traces of Saxon work in the walls of the chancel, that now serves as an aisle of the greatly enlarged building, and in the east window are the arms of Walter de Merton and of Bishop Ravis, who occupied the see of London in the early nineteenth century, whilst the position occupied by the altar in the first chapel is marked by a stone slab bearing the inscription: 'Here stood the Lord's Table on Maeldune, the Hill of the Cross for nigh a thousand years.'
Some two miles from Merton is the still secluded village of Morden, or the settlement on the great hill, the manor of which belonged at the time of the Conquest to the abbey of Westminster, and became the property of the Crown on the dissolution of the monasteries. It was granted by Edward VI. to Edward Whitchurch and Lionel Ducket, and since then has changed hands many times. Its ancient manor-house is still represented by a mansion known as Morden Hall, and its parish church retains the tower of a much earlier building, whilst on its walls hang many fine old brasses and a number of hatchments of great antiquarian interest.
Mitcham
The extensive parish of Mitcham, that stretches away from Merton and Morden to Beddington, Carshalton, and Croydon on the south, and on the east to Streatham and Norwood includes one of the most beautiful commons near London, set in a border of fields planted with lavender bushes and sweet-smelling herbs. It is associated, moreover, with many interesting memories, and at the time of the Conquest was an extremely valuable property, including no less than five manors that were later reduced to three, which changed hands so often that it is almost impossible to trace their history. It is enough to add that Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, owned a house at Mitcham that still bears his name, that Sir Walter Raleigh occupied another for some time that belonged to his wife, Elizabeth Throckmorton, and that in a mansion now pulled down Sir Julius Cæsar received Queen Elizabeth in 1598, an honour that according to his own account cost him considerably more than £700. On the banks of the Wandle, in a villa known as Grove House, lived Sir Thomas More, and two centuries later it was the home of a man of a very different type, Lord Clive, who in 1774, just before he took his own life, gave it to the great lawyer Alexander Wedderburn, the future Lord Chancellor of England, who had defended him at his trial. In 1789 Grove House was bought by the London banker Sir Samuel Hoare, who often showed hospitality in it to Hannah More, the Wilberforces and the Macaulays. Dr. Donne, the famous Dean of St. Paul, who died in 1631, was also at one time a resident at Mitcham; Charles Mathews, who was to make such a great reputation as a comedian, used to ride over on his pony for a gallop on Mitcham Common when he was at school at Clapham; and Dr. Johnson was fond of dining in the neighbourhood when he was the guest of Mrs. Thrale at Streatham.
The original village of Mitcham, picturesquely situated on the Wandle, that here works several mills, is now but the nucleus of a rapidly growing town; and it is very much the same with its neighbour Tooting, that retains little except the common, which is now its chief distinction, to recall the days when Queen Elizabeth was the guest of the lord of the manor, Lord Burghley, or those a century later, when the author of Robinson Crusoe lived in a little house on the road that still bears his name and founded the conventicle now replaced by the Defoe Presbyterian chapel. The ancient parish church of Tooting, of which that conventicle soon became a serious rival, was pulled down some eighty years ago to make room for a modern successor; of the beautiful convent of the Holy Cross, that once stood just without the village, and is said to have been connected with the church by a subterranean passage, not a trace remains; whilst a few dignified-looking mansions with wrought-iron entrance-gates, and the two inns known as the Castle and the Angel, are the only houses with any claim to antiquity.
Mortlake
Few villages near London have undergone such vicissitudes of fortune as Mortlake, of which Wimbledon, Putney, and Barnes were once dependencies, but which is now a somewhat uninteresting suburb, redeemed from the commonplace by its situation on the river alone, and but for the one day in the year, when the University boat-race is run, and it is crowded with those interested in the contest, deserted by all but its residents. A great brewery and numerous malt-kilns replace the palace that was long a private residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the famous tapestry manufactory, founded in 1619 by Sir Thomas Crane, in which, under the direction of the Italian Verrio, work equal to that done in France was produced, not a trace remains. Gone, too, is the mansion by the water where lived the famous astrologer Dr. Dee, who was there often visited by Queen Elizabeth, but who in spite of the great reputation he long enjoyed, died in absolute poverty in 1608; and it is impossible to identify the sites of the houses that are known to have been occupied by Sir Philip Francis, the bitter enemy of Warren Hastings, Henry Addington, the first Lord Sidmouth, prime minister when the Peace of Amiens was signed, Sir John Barnard, whom Sir Robert Walpole called the one incorruptible member of Parliament, all of whom, as well as Dr. Dee, are buried in Mortlake church, and commemorated by monuments or tablets in it. The pottery works, too, which to a certain extent made up for the loss of the tapestry manufactory when the latter was removed to Windsor, though they flourished for nearly a century, were abandoned about 1800, and it is only the expert collector who now remembers that the quaint Toby Philpot jugs were first made in them, and that a peculiar kind of white stoneware was produced in a rival factory hard by.
THE SHIP INN, MORTLAKE
THE SHIP INN, MORTLAKE
The church of Mortlake was founded as early as 1348, when the parish was first cut off from that of Wimbledon, but it has been so often restored that, but for the lower portion of the tower, it retains scarcely anything of its original structure. Above its western entrance is the unusual inscription, 'Vivat Rex Henricus VIII.,' and on an oaken screen in the chancel is an interesting painting representing the Entombment, by the Dutch artist Van der Gutch, who lived for some little time at Mortlake during the last decade of the eighteenth century. In the Roman Catholic cemetery that adjoins the Protestant churchyard rest the remains of the famous Oriental scholar and traveller, Sir Richard Burton, and his devoted wife, in an ornate tomb, representing an Arab tent, that was erected before her death at the expense of Lady Burton, who, in spite of her husband's well-known heterodox opinions, was determined that the world should believe him to have died in what she considered the only true faith.
Pleasantly situated at a bend of the river between Mortlake and Kew, opposite to Chiswick and Isleworth, which present a very picturesque appearance from the towing-path on the Surrey side, and owning a green some twelve acres in extent, the ancient village of Kew still retains, in spite of the great number of modern houses in its parish, something of the rural charm that distinguished it before the beautiful gardens with which its name is now chiefly associated were laid out.
Kew
The original meaning of the word Kew, that used to be very variously spelt, Kayhoo, Kayburgh, and Kayo being some of the forms, has not been determined, but the settlement is supposed to date from very ancient times, bronze spear-heads and fragments of British pottery having been recently found in the bed of the river, near some piles that had probably served as the foundations of huts, a little above the old bridge that was replaced in 1903 by that known as King Edward VII.'s, it having been opened by him in 1904. The first actual reference to Kew, however, occurs in a thirteenth-century roll of the royal manor of Richmond, in which it was then included, although, strictly speaking, it remained a hamlet of Kingston until 1769, when it became a separate parish.
There appears to have been a small chapel of ease at Kew, the site of which is unknown, as early as 1532, and in it may sometimes have worshipped the Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII. and widow of Louis XII. of France, with her second husband, Charles Brandon, Duke of Norfolk, who owned a mansion near by, as did also Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester, ancestor of the inventor of the steam engine. Later, Kew was the home for a short time of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who had been sentenced to death, as well as his father, for his share in the conspiracy to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, yet for all that rose into high favour with Queen Elizabeth, to whom he paid assiduous court, though he was already married to the unfortunate Amy Robsart. Whether the maiden queen was ever his guest at Kew it is impossible to say, but after his death she paid several visits to Sir John Pickering, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, who owned a mansion near the green, now pulled down, and spent large sums on her entertainment in 1594 and 1595. The house that belonged to Robert Dudley was sold by him to Sir Hugh Portman, a merchant of Holland, for which reason it was long called the Dutch House, and is still standing just inside the chief gates of Kew Gardens. It is now known as the Palace, a very misleading name, that more rightly belonged to a much larger building that was opposite to it, and was called Kew House. The latter belonged in the early seventeenth century to a Mr. Bennett, and passed, as part of the marriage portion of his daughter, to her husband Sir Henry, later Lord Capel, who was the first founder of the famous gardens, that were referred to by Rowland Whyte in a letter to Sir Robert Sydney, dated August 27, 1678, 'as containing the choicest fruit of any plantation in England.' Lord Capel became, many years later, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and never returned to his Kew home, but his widow resided in it until her death in 1721, when she was buried in Kew church. The property then passed to Lady Elizabeth, grand-niece of Lord Capel, who had married Mr. Molyneux, private secretary to the then Prince of Wales. Molyneux was devoted to astronomical science, and whilst he was living at Kew he and the more celebrated James Bradley made a very important discovery in connection with the aberration of the fixed stars with the aid of a large zenith-sector, the spot in Kew Gardens where it used to stand being marked by a sundial, the gift, in 1830, of William IV.
In 1728 Lady Elizabeth Molyneux was left a widow, and in 1730 the Prince of Wales obtained from her a long lease of Kew House, which he did not live to profit by. On his untimely death, however, the Princess of Wales remained in it, and continued the work on the grounds begun by Lord Capel, entrusting the superintendence of the alterations to Sir William Chambers, then considered the leading architect of the day, who designed the lofty pagoda, the great orangery, and the various semi-classical buildings in the gardens, whilst Sir William Aston, a noted horticulturist, was chosen as advisory botanist. Before the Princess of Wales died in 1772 the appearance of the Kew estate was completely transformed, and when her son, George III., took possession of it, his wife Queen Charlotte continued constantly to add to the rare plants in its hothouses. So enamoured did the king become of Kew House that, a few years later, he bought the property from the then representative of the Capel family, retiring to it whenever possible to amuse himself with gardening and farming. He added several acres in Mortlake parish and part of the Old Deer Park of Richmond to the already extensive grounds, a considerable portion of which he converted into grazing land for a fine flock of merino sheep, in which he took a great pride. The house, a picturesque half-timbered building, soon became too small for its owner's ambitious schemes, and shortly before his first attack of insanity he had it pulled down to make way for a huge mansion, which, had it been completed, would have been more like a mediæval stronghold than a residential palace. It was scarcely begun, however, before the king's strange malady increased upon him, and after his death his son George IV., who hated Kew, which was associated with many sad memories for him, decided not to have it completed. In 1827 all that was left of it was cleared away, and its very site is now practically forgotten.
Meanwhile the Dutch House had become even more closely associated with the royal family than its opposite neighbour. It was occupied for some time by Queen Caroline, consort of George II., and in 1781 was bought by George III. for Queen Charlotte, who brought up her large family in it, for which reason it became known, first, as the Royal Nursery, and later as the Princes' House. It was in it that the unfortunate king was shut up when he lost his reason, whilst his wife and children resided in Kew House, and when the latter was pulled down the Dutch House became the chief suburban residence of the royal family. In its drawing-room, fitted up for the occasion as a chapel, were married, on July 11, 1818, the royal brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Kent, the latter the future father of Queen Victoria, who was born in 1819 in Kensington Palace. In it, too, on November 1818, Queen Charlotte died, and from that time the house was comparatively neglected. It is still the property of the Crown, is kept in good repair, and remains a noteworthy example of sixteenth-century domestic architecture, but it is never likely to be again used as a royal residence. On the other hand the gardens connected with it have become even more beautiful than they were in the time of the Georges. They were given to the nation by Queen Victoria in 1841, and since then, under the able direction of the distinguished botanists Sir William Hooker, his son Sir Joseph Hooker, Sir W. Thisselton Dyer, and their successors, they have become not only an endless source of delight to thousands of sightseers, but also a centre of scientific research. In the museums are preserved examples of a vast number of vegetable products, so that they form, with the infinite variety of growing plants in the grounds and houses, an all but perfect epitome of botany. Moreover, until quite recently, the Observatory, situated on the land filched for a time by George III. from the Richmond Deer Park, was for many years noted for the good astronomical work done in it, but unfortunately, though the building is still standing, the savants, who for so long studied the heavenly bodies from it, have been driven away by the electric trams running between Brentford and Twickenham, that caused such an oscillation of the delicate instruments in use that the accuracy of the observations taken was destroyed. Kew now knows the astronomers no more; they have taken refuge in a remote district in Dumfriesshire, where as yet no tramways disturb their peace, their departure marking the beginning of a new era for the neighbourhood in which they worked so long, and where commercial enterprise has won a complete, though somewhat inglorious, victory over science.
The parish church of Kew, that is still a royal chapel, rises from the green, on land presented by Queen Anne to the people, and dedicated in compliment to her to her namesake, the mother of the Virgin. It was completed in 1714, and is a fairly good example of early eighteenth-century ecclesiastical architecture, for though it has been considerably enlarged, the original style has been preserved. The great gallery at the western end was added by George III. for the use of his large family, and a supplementary chancel, with the mortuary chapel in which rest the remains of the Duke of Cambridge, youngest son of that monarch, was completed in 1833. According to popular tradition George III. was married in Kew Church to the beautiful Quakeress Hannah Lightfoot, whom he had wooed and won long before he saw his future consort, who, it is said, insisted on going through the ceremony of wedlock again in the same building, after the story of her husband's relations with her predecessor came to her ears. However that may be, the old place of worship is full of memories of the royal family; in it the blind King George of Hanover, who was born in a house now used as one of the Herbariums of the Botanic Gardens, was baptized, and there, many years later, the Duchess of Teck, who resided for a long time in Cambridge Cottage, still standing on the green, was married to the father of the present Princess of Wales. A stained-glass window commemorates the duchess, and amongst the hatchments on the walls are two unpretending tablets, one in honour of the portrait painter Johann Zoffany, the other of the more famous Thomas Gainsborough, both of whom are buried in the churchyard, the latter, in accordance with his own instructions, near his old friend Joshua Kirby, who was one of his first patrons.
Sheen
Full of interest as is the history of Kew, it is surpassed in fascination by that of the neighbouring royal borough of Richmond, so varied have been the vicissitudes through which it has passed, and so many are the great names associated with it. Originally known as Syenes, and later as Sheen, Richmond was at the time of the Conquest included in the manor of Kingston, when it was but one of many riverside hamlets tenanted chiefly by fishermen. The Anglo-Saxon form of the word Sheen signifies gleaming or beautiful, and certain lovers of Richmond have assumed that it was from the first distinguished above its fellows by its charm, but this is scarcely borne out by evidence, for the name was in use when the sites of the future monasteries, palace, and town were still mere waste lands, often under water, and differing but little if at all from the adjoining districts up and down stream.
It seems certain that there was a manor-house at Sheen as early as the beginning of the twelfth century, and in it Henry I. resided for a short time, probably welcoming there his widowed daughter, Matilda, who on the death of her husband, Henry V. of Germany in 1126, returned to England to be accepted at the following meeting of the Witan as heiress-apparent of her father's kingdom. The Sheen estate was given later by Henry I. to a butler in his service named Michael Belet, but it was not long before it reverted to the Crown, to which it has ever since belonged. Edward I. was several times at Sheen, receiving the Scottish commissioners there in 1300, but the house he occupied was practically rebuilt and converted into a palace by Edward III., who often held his court in it, showing princely hospitality to many distinguished guests before the news of the death of his beloved son, the Black Prince, broke his heart. In it, deserted it is said by all his courtiers, and attended only by a single priest, the once powerful monarch died in 1377, his unworthy mistress, Alice Ferrers, having, when she saw the end was near, absconded with all the valuables she could carry away, including several valuable rings which she had torn off the fingers of her dying lover.
When the news of Edward's death reached London, his four surviving sons hastened down to the palace at Sheen to pay to their dead father the honours they had withheld from him during the closing years of his life; but whether the body was taken to Westminster for interment by road or by river history does not say. Soon after the funeral Richard II., then a boy of ten years old, received the formal announcement of his succession to the throne from a deputation of leading London citizens, who were received by him and his brother in the great hall, when the young king became so excited that he could not restrain his emotion, but kissed his guests all round on both cheeks. The next day he left his early home mounted on a white horse and robed in white, attended by all his great nobles, who also wore white in honour of the occasion, to make his public entry into his capital. A few years later he brought home to Sheen his beloved bride, Anne of Bohemia, and until her early death he was often there with her, holding regal state and entertaining hundreds of guests every day.