Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

CHAPTER VIII
COLCHESTER AND GAINSBOROUGH'S COUNTRY

An afternoon's drive—Lexden—Close to Colchester—Earlier visit assumed—Probable site of Cunobelin's city—Position described by the Quarterly—Boadicea's revenge—Stoke by Nayland—A commanding hill—The church—Constable's praise—Gainsborough at Sudbury—"Damn your nose, madam!"—Gainsborough at school—"Tom Peartree"—Gainsborough's Suffolk landscapes—Long Melford—A halt for an exceptional church—Seventeenth-century monograph on—Inscriptions in flint—Long Melford a centre of the cloth trade—The Martins, or Martyns, and the church—Its past glories—Its splendid treasures—Ancient customs—The Cordells—Cavendish, the home of the Cavendish family—Clare and "the illustrious family of Clare"—Strongbow—The Valley of the Colne—The De Veres and Castle Hedingham—Macaulay on their fame—Their end—Little Maplestead—A round church—Back to Colchester.

A nice little drive, with a pause for tea and antiquarianism, of forty or fifty miles may be taken from Colchester any fine summer's afternoon by following something like the route here laid down. Thirty years ago this sentence would have been held to be proof positive of lunacy in the writer; now it is a conspicuous illustration of his willingness to be contented with moderately long journeys. It is a willingness, save the mark, which grows on the motorist with experience and familiarity with the new locomotion.

We will start by way of Lexden, but we will not halt there, full of interest as it is; for Lexden is but two miles from the heart of Colchester, and it shall be assumed that, at some time or other, the motorist will walk these two miles for the sake of his health and of his figure, and spend a little time in examining a spot of real interest. Still he shall be told its story now. Not many pages back there was occasion to mention the colony planted near Colchester, as it now is, by Claudius, and of the lethargy of the veterans who were the first colonists. They ought to have settled themselves as a community ready for defence at once. Historians agree that, instead of doing this, they found the dwellings hitherto occupied by the British sufficiently comfortable for their purpose, and never troubled themselves upon the question of defensive position. Those ancient British dwellings, due to Cunobelin's migration from St. Albans (which is historical, whereas much concerning Cunobelin is mystery), probably stood where Lexden stands now. Such, at any rate, was the opinion of a Quarterly Reviewer, who thought the surroundings fitted in well with his theory, as in fact they do. "To the north of it flows the Colne in a deep, and what must have been in those days a marshy valley, while on the south it is flanked by a smaller stream still called the Roman River, which probably made its way through dense forests. These two streams, meeting in the estuary of the Colne, enclose on three sides the peninsula on which Lexden stands, and across this neck of land, or such part of it as was not occupied by marsh or wood, two or perhaps three parallel lines of ramparts may now be traced for two or more miles, supposed to be British, from the flint celts which have been found about them." (This last sentence would certainly not be permitted in the Quarterly Review of these days, but its meaning is quite clear.) "… Near the centre of these lines a conspicuous mound still exists, which we would gladly believe to be the sepulchre of the great Cunobelin. A small Roman camp, or more properly a castellum, is still well preserved at no great distance from the south-west angle of this British fortification." The comment of "Murray," probably in this instance the late Mr. Augustus Hare, is "Whatever may be thought of these arguments, the suggestion is interesting and gives a certain importance to Lexden." As to Cunobelin, obviously there is no attempt at argument, nothing more than a pious aspiration; the rest of the argument is, on the whole, rather better than the English in which it is expressed, and perhaps as little of it rests on mere supposition as we have a right to expect in a case of this kind. The only weak part of the hypothesis appears to be that the august Quarterly Reviewer assumes marsh or forest where he does not find the lines of the ancient rampart. It would be safer, it is suggested, to assume marsh only or, where the elevation of the ground is against marsh and there is no rampart, vanished rampart, rather than vanished forest. The "celts," to one who does not profess to have made a profound study of British antiquities, seem to be neither here nor there in the argument. South-eastern Britons had some civilization even before Cæsar came. They were tillers of the soil and, apparently, had commerce with the Continent, even in metals. They resisted Cæsar by force, and their scythe-chariots (afterwards the model for the Roman travelling carriages) were not without their effect upon the legions. A people who could make these scythe-chariots, who severed the mistletoe with a golden sickle, were hardly likely to use flint knives in daily life. It follows, or at any rate seems to follow, that the "celts," if they are evidence of any period at all, as of course they must be, are evidence of men who lived near Lexden long before Cunobelin.

Still, on the whole, the argument that Lexden represents the Camulodunum of the Britons (I wonder what they really called it, for Camulodunum is about as unBritish as it well can be) is fairly strong. It is strong enough at any rate to warrant the belief that here "the British warrior Queen," letting her barbarian troops loose on the panic-stricken and defenceless colonists, avenged her wrongs ruthlessly and in a wild abandon of cruelty. Sluggish Colne and the Roman river really did, we may take it for almost certain, run with the blood of Romans; and this is no figure of speech, as it usually is when battles are so described. Camulodunum was not a battle but a massacre; Boadicea was furens femina with a vengeance, and with good cause. She really had bled from the Roman rods, her daughters had been outraged, her just possessions had been stolen; the Iceni were, clearly, in a wild ecstasy of murderous madness. If ever there was slaughter grim and great in this world, Lexden saw it in the year of grace 61. Another place, some say Messing, not far off and near Kelvedon, saw the tables turned a little later. Then, said the Romans, eighty thousand British fell, and Boadicea anticipated the vengeance of her foes by taking poison before they reached her. Still, if she in any way resembled her sisters of to-day, she had enjoyed at least some measure of satisfaction.

From Lexden, a Roman road runs all the way to Haverhill, at the south-west corner of Suffolk; but Haverhill is just beyond our route of to-day, and is certainly not worth a detour. We are going now almost due north, through Wake's Colne and Bures St. Mary to Stoke by Nayland, in Suffolk and across the Stour. Wake's Colne is reserved for the return journey to which, since that journey follows the downward course of the Colne for some considerable distance, it belongs more properly. Bures St. Mary appears to be far more probably than Bury St. Edmunds the place of the coronation of King Edmund of East Anglia; but that and his canonization, as we noted in connection with Bury St. Edmunds, were long ago, so long indeed, that if Bures St. Mary fails to attract otherwise, the legend does not matter. For us, at any rate, Bures St. Mary is but a place passed on one side in entering the valley of the Stour and Gainsborough's country. Whether any of the views "near Sudbury" included the remarkably striking hill on which Stoke by Nayland stands ignorance prevents me from stating, but certainly, that house-crowned hill, rising as it does from the very flat land below and the leisurely Stour, makes, as a valued picture in my possession proves to demonstration, an ideal subject for a modern artist. Its value is due to abruptness of contrast. At Bridgnorth from the Severn, and at Durham, the hills with their clusters of old roofs, rise more abruptly and to a greater height, are more rugged, not necessarily therefore more truly picturesque. At Durham, however, and at Bridgnorth, we are in country where hills are many; at Stoke by Nayland a commanding hill seems all the more commanding in that it is unlike anything in the neighbourhood. No wonder artists love this quiet riverside scene. Of that scene, apart from the hill and the ancient houses, the grand Perpendicular church is the conspicuous glory. It "ranks with the great churches of the Eastern Counties." These are Constable's words, and they may be trusted the more in that he was not merely a mighty artist in landscape, a native of these parts, and devotedly attached to his native county (which, indeed, might make for prejudice), but also, as his "Salisbury Cathedral" shows, thoroughly and appreciatively versed in ecclesiastical architecture.

To me, however, Gainsborough has greater charm than Constable, partly, perhaps, because of the extraordinary fascination of his portraits of persons. The reference here is not to the fashionable portrait painter of Bath, but to the later days wherein he limned the features of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (Heaven forbid that I should enter into the obvious pitfall of discussion which yawns for the unwary here), of Maria Linley and her brother (it is at Knole and a proud possession of Lord Sackville), of Mrs. Sheridan, of Mrs. Siddons, and of the Blue Boy. The model for the Blue Boy, I learn from Mr. Walter Armstrong's monograph, was the son of a wholesale ironmonger named Buttall in Greek Street, Soho. An excellent reproduction of the Mrs. Siddons, in the same monograph (Seeley 1894), lies under my eye now, and as I look at those wonderfully clean-cut and strong features, I can almost hear the painter saying, in his comic wrath, "Damn your nose, madam, there is no end to it." The story, retailed by Mr. Armstrong, makes one feel that Thomas Gainsborough was a man and a brother, and here at Sudbury it is a delight to follow the story of his early days. "He was the youngest of a family of nine, all brought up reputably and well by his father, a thrifty tradesman variously described as a milliner, a crape manufacturer and a shroud maker, who, no doubt, combined all these avocations and, said scandal, occasionally helped them out with a little quiet smuggling." The shroud-making industry was introduced by Gainsborough the elder, from Coventry, and he seems to have enjoyed a monopoly of it; "crape manufacture," as Mr. Armstrong explains, simply meant dealer in the woollen trade introduced with the Flemish weavers by Edward III into Sudbury. The house of Gainsborough's birth, once the "Black Horse," is gone. Stories of his odd but clever brothers and of his pranksome youth survive and give delight. John was an inventor in many kinds, all but a genius, never practical. Humphrey began as an inventor, but degenerated or rose to be a dissenting minister. Still, he invented a novel sundial, preserved in the British Museum, and a tide-mill for which the Society of Arts awarded him a prize of £50.

Thomas, England's Gainsborough, went to the Sudbury Grammar School, cut his name in the woodwork like other boys, covered his books with sketches. Art was bubbling in him and would not be denied. His holidays were all spent in sketching, and it is related that he once took in his schoolmaster, who was also his uncle, with an exact imitation of his father's familiar request "Give Tom a holiday." At Sudbury it was, too, that he drew a lightning portrait, afterwards known as "Tom Peartree," of a peasant whom he saw gazing wistfully at his father's pear trees, which had been sadly lightened of their burden in the preceding days, and that portrait led at once to the identification of the thief who, confronted with it, confessed.

Thomas Gainsborough was not a thwarted genius. He was sent to London at fourteen to study under Hayman, an indifferent artist and a hard liver. From fourteen to eighteen he was loose about London, under a bad influence to start with, and that he sowed a fine lot of wild oats was no wonder. But at eighteen he returned to Sudbury and to landscape, and worked very hard at it. Here again let Mr. Armstrong be quoted, because his authority is real: "In his early years Gainsborough painted landscape with the minutest care. I know pictures dating probably from about 1748 which excel any Dutchman in the elaboration with which such things as the ruts in a country road, and the grasses beside it, or the gnarled trunk and rough bark of some ancient willow, are made out. In the National Gallery of Ireland we have one such picture. It represents just such a characteristic bit of Suffolk scenery as Wynants would have chosen had he carried his Batavian patience over the North Sea. Across a sand-pit in the foreground a deep country road winds away into the distance, where the roofs of a village suggest its objective. An old horse, a silvery sky with a fine arabesque of windy clouds, and a few old weather-stunted trees complete the picture. The execution is so elaborate that the surface is fused into one unbroken breadth of enamel. The Great Cornard Wood," (Suffolk of course) "in the National Gallery, cannot have been painted very much later than this. Its colour has the same gray coolness, its tone is as high, and its execution almost as elaborate." Gainsborough may or may not have been, as Reynolds said, the greatest living landscape painter. Reynolds probably said it to annoy Wilson, who was present. But Horace Walpole pronounced one of his pictures to be "in the style of Rubens, and by far the best landscape ever painted in England, and equal to the great masters." For us the truly interesting point is that this was said of Sudbury's greatest man, and that the valley of the Stour gave to this man, Thomas Gainsborough, all his early inspiration, all his early subjects in landscape. By the way, in stating that Thomas Gainsborough was Sudbury's greatest man I had forgotten Simon of Sudbury, who probably never uttered a coarse oath, nor drank too much wine, nor was, to quote Gainsborough of himself, "deeply read in petticoats." But let any reader who has persevered thus far lay his hand on his heart and reflect honestly whether he can say offhand who Simon of Sudbury was. Well, he was an archbishop of Canterbury who was hanged during Wat Tyler's rebellion. His fate leaves me, and probably the reader also, quite unmoved.

Now let us hie, climbing a hill of 1 in 14, to Long Melford, and tea, and really fine architecture, for Long Melford is grand and, when one halts for any long time a-motoring, a good cause must needs be offered.

Assuredly after the 3-1/4 miles to Long Melford, so called from the length of its street, have been accomplished the excuse needs no making. The village on one side of the green, the spreading trees of Melford Hall, itself a typical Elizabethan mansion, the exceptionally stately church and, last of all, the hill which lends dignity and variety to the whole, combined to make an ideal halting-place. By all means order tea at one of the village inns and, after it, make a thorough inspection of the church, for the interesting particulars concerning which acknowledgment is due to a monograph, undated and probably published for private circulation, apparently by the Rev. R. Francis, some time rector. The author, whosoever he may have been, transcribes much from certain MSS. of 1688 onwards concerning the former state of the church, and from this we may borrow a little. "Much about the middle of the Parish of Melford, al's Long Melford, in Suffolk, upon an hill, most pleasant for air and prospect, there standeth a large and beautiful Church called Trinity Church, because dedicated to the Holy and undivided Trinity.... Part of it was an old erection, viz. the whole North Ile, the Steeple, a great part of the Porch and p'haps the East End of the South Ile. All the other parts are of a much later erection, as by the different sort of building, and the several inscriptions still extant round and about the said Church may most evidently appear.... The Middle Ile, from the Steeple, exclusive, to the East End of the Chancell, hath one entire advanced roof, in length 152 ft. and 6 inches, distant from the pavement beneath 41 feet and 6 inches, supported on each side with ten arched Pillars, separating the said Middle Ile from the 2 other Iles, which are in height 24 feet, and in length 135 feet and 4 inches.... The pious Benefactors concerned in the building the advanced Ile may be known, and let their memories never perish, by the inscriptions under the Battlements, without the Church, and by like inscriptions in the windows, undemolished, within the Church." Of this last sentence an antiquary no doubt could give an exact translation into modern English, but I must be content to follow the general sense, which is indeed pretty clear. The reference is to very curious inscriptions, in flints let into the walls, which, notwithstanding restoration and because it has been carried out with taste and reverence, still remain in part. The names of the benefactors follow, amongst them being many Martins, or Martyns, who are here mentioned to the exclusion of others partly because, when the church was restored in 1869, the Rev. C. J. Martyn, their patron, bore much of the expense and their clothmark, a token of the former greatness of Long Melford and its cause, is frequently mentioned; but most of all because the monograph, like many another treasure, has been lent to me out of sheer goodwill by Mr. Paulin Martin, of Abingdon, my neighbour, antiquary and healer of men. Long Melford "stood by clothing," as the saying went in the fifteenth century. So did its people, and this majestic Perpendicular church, built of flint and stone, is an abiding monument of their wealth and of their piety.

The beautiful church suffered during the Reformation. Roger Martin, of that date, speaks of many ornaments in the past tense. "There was a goodly mount, made of one great Tree, and set up at the foot of the window there" (behind the High Altar), "carved very artificially, with The Story of Christ's Passion.... There was also in my Ile, called Jesus Ile, at the back of the Altar, a table with a crucifix on it, with the two thieves hanging, on every side one, which is in my house decayed, and the same I hope my heires will repaire, and restore again, one day." Other vanished ornaments good Roger enumerates, and then sundry ceremonies in the church and customary celebrations of the village, whereof some examples may be given.

"Upon Palm Sunday, the Blessed Sacrament was carried in procession about the Church-yard, under a fair Canopy, borne by four Yeomen; the Procession coming to the Church Gate, went westward, and they with the Blessed Sacrament, went Eastward; and when the procession came against the door of Mr. Clopton's Ile" (the Cloptons were large benefactors), "they, with the Blessed Sacrament, and with a little bell and singing, approached at the East end of our Ladie's Chappell, at which time a Boy, with a thing in his hand, pointed to it, signifying a Prophet, as I think, sang, standing upon the Tyrret that is on the said Mr. Clopton's Ile doore, Ecce Rex tuus venit, &c.; and then all did kneel down, and then, rising up, went and met the Sacrament, and so then, went singing together, into the Church, and coming near the Porch, a Boy, or one of the Clerks, did cast over among the Boys flowers, and singing cakes, &c."

Some there be, doubtless, whose gorge will rise at this account of ancient usage in and about the church, but surely none can object to the next extract, pointing as it does to a feeling of real friendship between rich and poor.

"Memorand. On St. James's Even, there was bonefire, and a tub of ale, and bread then given to the poor, and, before my doore, there were made, three other bonefires, viz. on Midsummer Even, on the Even of St. Peter and St. Paul, when they had the like drinkings, and on St. Thomas's Even, on which, if it fell not on the fish day, they had some long pyes of mutton, and peasecods, set out upon boards, with the aforesaid quantity of bread, and ale; and, in all these bonefires, some of the friends and more civil poor neighbours were called in, and sat at the board, with my Grandfather, who had, at the lighting of the bonefires, wax tapers, with balls of wax, red and green, set up, all the breadth of the Hall, lighted then, and burning there, before the image of St. John the Baptist; and after they were put out, a watch candle was lighted, and set in the midst of the said Hall, upon the pavement, burning all night."

A list of utensils, furniture, jewels, ornaments and relics follows that would make a collector's mouth water, but it may not all be quoted. Thirteen chalices there were, "the best Chalice, gilt," weighing 133-1/2 ounces. Amongst other objects were "a relique of the Pillar that our Saviour Christ was bound to," several examples of the Pax (a piece of metal with the picture of Christ on it, to be kissed by all after Mass, typical of the Kiss of Peace), several silver ships, many rings and jewels, gorgeous coats for "Our Lady," copes and vestments belonging to the Church and like articles in great number, but the list is of immense length. Celebrated in the church were many Cloptons and Martins, and "Sir William Cordell, Knt. of Melford Hall, Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls, in the time of Philip and Mary, and Queen Elizabeth," who married Mary, the daughter of Richard Clopton, Esq., of Fore Hall. His epitaph contained the lines—

 
Pauperibus largus, victum, vestemque ministrans
Insuper Hospitii condidit ille domum.
 

Here, to avoid insult to those who have Latin, and to afford them an opportunity of laughing at me, while at the same time the unlearned may follow the meaning, let me attempt the rare venture of a translation into English Elegiacs:

 
Good to the poor was Sir William, a giver of food and of raiment,
And of his own good will founded an Hospital home.
 

Of the foundation referred to a full account may be found in Sir William Cordell's will (a.d. 1580) recorded in extracts from the Visitation of Suffolk, edited by Joseph Jackson Howard, ll.d. (printed by S. Tymms, Lowestoft, 1867). It included a building, a warden, and twelve almsmen, and it was to be continued—for it had been founded in good Sir William's lifetime—after his death. It was, in effect, the kind of foundation which Anthony Trollope took and gave pleasure in describing; nor, as the long will shows plainly enough, was the benefaction made at his expense of leaving the testator's relations at all pinched for money. In fact, his widow, Dame Mary Cordell, in 1584, "being sikelye in body, and nevertheless of good and p'fecte remembrance," made a will in which she disposed of much property, devoting some of it to this very hospital, and some, almost as a matter of course, to Long Melford Church. Dame Mary was prescient. The will made in 1584 was proved in October 1585.

So thoroughly comfortable were the people of Long Melford in the days of old that the temptation to mention the fact that a "Long Melford" was once a name for a purse is irresistible, because the conjunction is so appropriate. The temptation ought, perhaps, to be resisted because, although the fact has been read and remembered, it appears to be unfamiliar to Suffolk natives, and the source of information cannot be traced. It has eluded fairly diligent search; but the fact has certainly been noticed since this book was undertaken. I can remember no more than that it was a purse of some peculiar make; and it would seem fairly safe to imply that it was of capacious dimensions. Still, as the inscriptions already mentioned show, those long purses were always laid under contribution for the adornment of the church which was Long Melford's pride, and among the most prosperous and the most generous benefactors of it were the Martins or Martyns. The first of them came from Dorsetshire to Melford and was buried there in 1438. How the family made its money the "clothmark" proves; and the Visitation shows how they spread over the county and made their mark in the country. Roger, who died in 1543, was a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn; Sir Roger, who died in 1573, had been Lord Mayor of London; Roger, born 1639, was created a baronet; daughters married into good families all over East Anglia. But it was a tradition of the family that all should be brought back to Long Melford for burial; and it was also a tradition to do something for the church. It was a tradition which lasted till 1851 at any rate, and it may very likely still be held in honour; for we read in "Murray" that there was, at that time, very large expenditure on the chantries chancel by Sir William Parker and the Rev. C. J. Martyn, the patron of the living. Sir William Parker, it may be added, was the owner of Melford Hall, which formerly belonged to the Cordells and, being Elizabethan, was no doubt built by the Sir William Cordell already named, who flourished in the reign of Elizabeth.

At Cavendish, a few miles to the westward, we are at the original home of a family better known than the Cordells or the Martins, and of real note in history. "In the chancel of the Church was buried Chief Justice Sir John Cavendish, beheaded by Wat Tyler's mob. His younger son, John, and Esquire to Richard II is said to have slain this sturdy rebel." So "Murray," but the last statement, standing alone, is merely irritating. What is the sense of saying this, and no more, to a generation taught by painstaking historians to believe that Walworth, the Lord Mayor, struck Wat Tyler to the ground "where he was instantly dispatched by others of the King's attendants"? Of course young John Cavendish may have been one of these attendants; but in any case Walworth was the protagonist, and should have been mentioned at least. According to the just custom of Indian sport the credit belongs to him who gets in the first spear, and in the Highlands the sportsman who lays the stag low, not the gillie who grallochs him, possesses the honour of the day.

The story of the Cavendish family shall not be told here, for it is long, and not free from controversial points, and, of course, they are still in the land and of far greater consequence now than they ever were when Cavendish was their chief home. The glory of the village has waned and theirs has waxed. Of both the next village, Clare, and of the family who gave it their name or took theirs from it, Ichabod may be written without reserve. The Earls of Clare flourished from the days of the Conquest to those of Bannockburn, where the last of the race lost his life, and during that period of nearly two hundred and fifty years they clearly held high sway in these parts of East Anglia. Their great seat was at Clare, in a castle long desecrated by a railway station, the castle itself being built in connection with one of those great and mysterious mounds, like that of Thetford, concerning which the ancients were far more willing than the moderns are to write with assurance. The names of several adjacent places, Stoke by Clare, for example, serve at once to show how wide was the area of the Clare influence and to raise the suspicion that the place was named after them and not they after the place. Not, perhaps, the greatest of them, but certainly the one whose memory has lasted longest, was "Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Strigul," who came to the assistance of Dermot Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, in 1172. Dermot, it may be remembered, had carried off the wife of a brother Prince, named Ororic of Breffny, who, with the assistance of the King of Connaught, Roderic, had invaded Leinster and had expelled Dermot. Dermot then laid his case before our Henry II, offering to hold his kingdom in vassalage for Henry, if help to recover it were forthcoming, and Henry, being busy in Guienne, but having an eye for the main chance, gave him letters patent authorizing subjects of the Crown of England to assist him in his efforts. At Bristol Dermot met Strongbow, and Hume, citing the not unduly truthful Giraldus Cambrensis as his authority, proceeds: "This nobleman, who was of the illustrious house of Clare, had impaired his fortune by expensive pleasures, and being ready for any desperate undertaking, he promised assistance to Dermot, on condition that he should espouse Eva, daughter of that Prince, and be declared heir to all his dominions." How Strongbow eventually conquered the Irish princes in one great battle, how Henry, jealous of Strongbow's power, crossed to Ireland and made a Royal progress, and how the island was not fully subdued until Elizabeth's time, are more or less matters of history, so far as the history of those days in Ireland can really be ascertained. But the most striking part of the passage quoted is, in these days, the simple confidence with which the historian speaks of "the illustrious family of Clare." How little that confidence would be justified now is plain to me from inquiries addressed in apparently artless curiosity to more than one highly cultivated man and woman about the time of writing. Macaulay's schoolboy, the omnipresent paragon of marvellous memory, would no doubt have known all about this famous family; but it flourished, and perished, so long ago that the "man on the road" is not likely to be hurt by a reminder of the associations properly belonging to that valley of the Stour which was beloved of Gainsborough and of Constable.

On we go through Stoke by Clare, Ridgewell, and Tilbury-juxta-Clare (how these old place-names serve to stimulate historical curiosity!) to another valley, that of the Colne, full of memories of another family, bulking fully as large in the annals of England as the Clares, and lasting far longer. The valley of the Colne, which we follow on our return journey to Colchester, was the De Vere country. They were the Earls of Oxford of course, and in this case there is no affectation of confidence in the standard of average knowledge in the use of the words "of course." Rather are they employed in regret, for a good long stretch of my course might be accomplished at a comfortable canter (or "on my highest gear" over the open road, if this metaphor be preferred), by mentioning only a few of the great occasions between the Conquest and the eighteenth century in which this magnificent House played its part in shaping the destinies of England. Still, by way of kindly relief to the reader, Macaulay's sonorous passage summarizing the grandeur of the De Veres must needs be quoted. It was written by him as the first comment on the list of Lords Lieutenant, who "peremptorily refused to stoop to the odious service which was required of them" by James II, that is to say, the service of revising the Commission of the Peace with the view to retaining upon it only those gentlemen who were prepared to support the King's policy of packing a Parliament in 1687.