THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

1,4V.—TUR SUBURBAN COUNTIES AND HERTFORDSHIRE :— TAINES—the lost of the towns in this Province whose 0 burgesses are mentioned in the Domesday Survey—has had a Roman origin assigned it by some antiquaries, and has been identified with the Pontes of the Itineraries. But there are no traces of Roman remains here, and, as we have already said, we incline to a site between Weybridge and Cowey Stakes for that station, if we suppose the road from CALLEVA ATAEBATUld to LoNnnsrum to have passed from Hampshire through north-west Surrey. Camden and others suppose the name of the town to have been derived from the Saxon Stana, a stone, in allusion to a boundary-stone to mark the extent of the jurisdiction of the City of London over the Thames, standing on the margin of the river, near Staines Church, and bearing the date of 1280. The Saxon Chronicle tells us that an army of Danes, after burning Oxford in the year 1009, passed the Thames at this point. In the Domesday Survey the property at this place is described as follows :—" The Abbot of St. Peter [at Westminster] holds Stones for 19 hides. There is land to 24 ploughs; 11 hides belong to the demesne, and there are 13 ploughs therein. The villanes have 11 ploughs. Here are 3 villanes of half a hide- each ; and 4 villanes of 1 hide ; and 8 villanes of half a virgate each ; and 36 bordars [cottagers] of 3 hides ; and 1 villane of I virgate ; and 4 bordars of 40 acres; and 10 bordars of 5 acres each and 5 collars of 4 acres each ; and 8 bordars of 1 virgate ; and collars of 9 acres ; and 12 slaves ; and 46 burgesses who pay 40e. a year. Here are 6 mills of 64s., and 1 wear of 6s. 8d., and I wear which pays nothing. Pasture for the cattle of the ville. Meadow for 24 ploughs, and 20s. over and above. Pannage for

30 hogs, and 2 arpents of vineyard. Four berewicks belong to this manor, and they belonged to it in King Edward's time. Its

whole value is 351.; the same when received in King Edward's time 40/. The manor lay and lies in the demesne of the Church of St. Peter." A Guild for a certain number of brethren and sisters, "in honour of God and the Virgin Mary," was founded here in 1456, by John Lord Berners, Sir John Wenlock, and others, in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, in Staines Church. There is a bridge over the Thames here. The population of the town was in 1861

2,584, and it is the seat of a Poor Law union, as well as a rail- way station. There are extensive mustard mills and some flour

mills, a brewery, &c. Staines, however, cannot be said to have maintained the position as a borough which it held in the time of the Survey.

The other towns of any importance in this Province we must glance at very cursorily. In North Surrey we may refer to.

Chertsey, Richmond, and Croydon. Chertsey was in Saxon times Ceortseye. From Bede calling it Ceroti Insula it has been con- jectured that it once stood on an island ; but the expression may only mean that it was partly surrounded by water. Its early im- portance was derived from a Benedictine abbey, founded in 666. by Frithwold, one of the Kings of Surrey, tributary to Wulffiere,

King of Mercia. The monastery was pillaged and destroyed by the Northmen, and rebuilt by King Edgar. A few fragments of walls now alone remain. The inhabitants in 1801 were 2,819; in

1861, 2,910. The original name of Richmond was Schene, or Scheen, altered to Sheen. Henry L had a palace here, and

Chaucer was surveyor of the works to the Palace of Sheen in the reign of Richard II. The palace was destroyed by fire in 1499, while Henry VII. was residing there, and that King rebuilding

it, called it Richmond, after his own earldom ; and here he died,

as did also Queen Elizabeth. It was partly demolished during the Commonwealth, and in the last century all was destroyed except.

some of the offices, which now remain as private dwellings. The

park formerly attached to the palace was in modern times called the Old Park, and ran along the banks of the Thames to Kew

Gardens, with which it was united by George III. It must be dis-

tinguished from Richmond Park, which was enclosed by Charles I. under the name of the New Park, and comprises 2,253 acres. There was once a Carthusian monastery here. Richmond, which is now completely suburbanized, long preserved a courtly and aristocratic character well harmonizing with its situation, and the delightful

prospect over the cultivated valley of the Thames commanded by the

high ground, Richmond Hill, in its immediate vicinity. The same courtly character, which once existed in the neighbourhood of Hampton Court Palace, Bushey Park, and Twickenham, on the

Middlesex side of the river, is now nearly swept away by the same overwhelming suburban tide. Ham House, however, on the Thames, nearly opposite Twickenham, the old seat of the Tolle- maches, Earls of Dysart, and recalling the memory of the celebrated Countess of Dysart and Duchess of Lauderdale, the widow of Sir Lionel Tollemache, and the "Bess of my Heart" of the ballads, still remains, with its stately avenue, a nearly solitary monument of the Tudor and Stuart periods.

Differing widely from the neighbourhood just described, but still preserving a tradition of ecclesiastical magnificence, is the

town of Croydon, now a sort of capital to the suburban districts of East Surrey, as Richmond is to those of West Surrey. Croy-

don had a grant of a market and fair as early as the reign of Edward I. Two other markets and fairs were granted by the two succeeding kings, and "Croydon Fair" is still a flourishing

institution. Camden and Gale mention a tradition that there was formerly a royal palace on the west side of it. The manor WU in the possession of the Archbishops of Canterbury before the Domesday Survey, and has so continued (except during the Commonwealth) ever since. A manor house or palace, near the church, was for several centuries an occasional residence of the Archbishops, and had attached to it a park of 170 acres. Sir William Walworth was Keeper of this park in the reign of Richard IL "In July, 1573, Archbishop Parker entertained Queen Eliza- beth and her whole Court here seven days," and Archbishop Whitgift was more than once visited by the same Queen. During the civil war of Charles I. Croydon Palace was first leased by the Parliament to the Earl of Nottingham, and then to Sir William Brereton. Archbishop Juxon fitted it up again as an ecclesiastical residence after the Restoration. It is believed to have been originally a wooden edifice, but to have been rebuilt in stone in the middle of the fourteenth century. In 1780, as the palace had not been inhabited for twenty years, and was in a ruinous condition, it was sold by Act of Parliament, and bought by Sir Abraham Pitches. It subsequently descended to the low estate of a calico manufactory and bleaching-ground, the chapel being used for a school-room. The fine old parish church, containing many striking monuments to the memory of Grindal and other Arch- bishops, was destroyed by fire a few years ago. An Act of Par- liament was passed in 1807 to empower the Archbishop of Canterbury to purchase a suitable place for an Archiepiscopal summer residence, instead of building a new palace at Croydon ; and the estate and house called Addington Place, about three miles east of Croydon, were accordingly purchased, and annexed to the See, and are now the Palace of the Primates of All England.

Barnet, otherwise called Chipping-Barnet, to distinguish it from East Barnet, in the same county, or High Barnet, from its elevated situation, was formerly known as Bergnet, the Saxon for "a small hill." In the Saxon time its site was occupied "by a large and thick wood, which was granted to the Church of St. Alban's by the name of the woods of Southaw, Borham, and Huzeliege." The little town rose under the auspices of the Abbots of St. Alban's, who obtained leave from Henry II. to establish a market in the town, which became subsequently a large cattle market. From this market it is said to have obtained its cognomen of Chipping. Its importance arose chiefly from this market and the fairs held also in the town, and from its beings great thorough- fare and one of the stages on the great Northern road. This was the cause of the principal street being nearly a mile in length. On Gladsmore Heath, in its neighbourhood, was fought, on April 14th, 1471, the battle in which Warwick the Kingmaker fell and the House of York triumphed. The market and fairs of the town still constitute what importance it possesses, though the cessation of the long stage-coaches has rendered its name less familiar in general at the present day. The population of the parish of Chipping- Barnet was, in 1851, 2,380, and in 1861, 2,989, so that it may be considered a rapidly increasing place. Ware, now a town of 5,000 inhabitants, and a considerable seat of the malt trade, appears in Domesday Survey as Wants, and in the other old documents as Ouare and Guaris. It is situated on the west bank of the river Lea, and was the scene of several struggles between Alfred and the Northmen, who entrenched themselves here. It was rated at the Conquest at fifty shillings, but did not become independent of Hertford till long afterwards. The Conqueror gave it to Hugh de Grantmesnil. The manor subsequently passed to Saber de Quincey, Earl of Winchester, in right of his wife. "Before his time, a great iron chain was put across the bridge, to prevent a road here to the disadvantage of Hertford. The Bailiff of Hertford had the keys in his power, and no carriage with horses or harness could go over without paying a toll to him worth 10/. 3s. 4d. yearly. But the Earl broke the chain, and laid the road open, which made this a great thoroughfare, brought trade to the town, and occasioned buildings in it." This was in the reign of King John. There was a Benedictine Priory, which was made a cell by De Grantmesnil to the Abbey of St. Ebrulph, at Utica, in Normandy. It was seized with the other alien priories by Edward III., and farmed at 2001. per annum. Henry V. gave it to the monks of Shene, and part of its possessions was granted by Henry VIII. to Trinity College, Cambridge. De Quincey's son Robert obtained from the Crown a grant of a market and annual fair at Ware. After passing through several families by heiresses, the manor of Ware came to the Kingmaker, and from him to his son-in-law, George, Duke of Clarence, after whose death it became Crown property, and was granted by Henry VII. to his mother, the Countess of Richmond. Henry VIII. restored it to Clarence's daughter, .Margaret, Countess of Salis- bury, but on her attainder and execution it again fell to the Crown. Queen Mary restored it to the heiresses of Margaret's son, Lord Montague, and the reversion was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Katherine, the eldest heiress, who sold it to Thomas Faushaw, Queen's Remembrancer in the Exchequer. The Fanshaws were very active in the cause of Charles I., and suffered accordingly. After the Restoration, however, Sir Richard Fan- shaw was created Viscount Fanshaw, and became a representative for the county of Hertford. The manor was afterwards sold to the Byde family—London citizens—who represented Hertford in the Convention Parliament of 1689. A great tournament was held at Ware in the reign of Henry III., in defiance of the King's pro- hibition, in which Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, was killed, and several other knights wounded. The town was much damaged by a flood in 1408. There is or was preserved in an inn of this town an immense and curiously carved bedstead, known as the "great bed of Ware," about which curious stories were told.

Chelmsford—situated near the centre of the county of Essex— at the confluence of the rivers Chelmer and Cam, is now the shire town of Essex. It is not nearly so ancient a town as Colchester or Maldon, for there was not a road near its site till Henry L's time, when Maurice, Bishop of London (to which see it was attached till Bonner's time) built a bridge over the Chelmer, to which it owed its importance, for the great road, which before passed through Writtle, two miles to the west, was in consequence brought to Chelmsford. In the first of John, the Bishop of Lon- don obtained for it a weekly market and other privileges. Bishop Bonner granted the town and manor to Henry VIII. in 1545, and in July, 1563, Queen Elizabeth bestowed them on Thomas Mildmay, whose family thenceforward predominated in the place. Chelmsford had grown rapidly in importance from the time of Henry I., and in the eleventh of Edward HI. sent four members to a Council held at Westminster. It also became the place for holding all assizes and sessions of the peace for Essex, and so became the shire town by common repute long before it was formally made so by a statute of the eleventh of Henry VII. On a small island called Mesopo- tamia, formed, near Chelmsford, by two branches of the Cheliner, was long held a mock election of a member for Parliament on the occasion of county elections, the mock member being duly charred and then ducked in the river. Chelmsford is chiefly dependent on the neighbouring agricultural district, having corn mills, &c., and manufacturing agricultural implements. It is now a rapidly declining town, the population having sunk from 6,033 in 1851 to 5,513 in 1861.

Harwich—with which place we must conclude our notice of the towns of this Province—is a sea-port town, situated on the extremity of a spit of land projecting into the estuary formed by the rivers Stour and Orwell. The harbour is protected on the east by Landguard Point, a promontory from the Suffolk coast ; and ou the south by the Beacon Cliff. In accordance with the report of a Royal Commission in 1844, Harwich was made a harbour of refuge, the Commissioners reporting that it is remarkably well situated for the convenience of a North Sea squadron, and for the protection of the mouth of the Thames ; that it is the only safe harbour along the coast, and is in the direct line of traffic between the Thames and the northern ports of the kingdom, as well as the trade from the North of Europe. Harwich seems to have been a Roman station or stronghold, for there are still trace- able remains of a very extensive camp, and tesselated pavements and other Roman relics have been dug up at different times, the high road leading to the camp and the town, and bearing the name of the Street, having supplied several Roman coins. Harwich, however, did not attain any importance as a town till after the Norman Conquest, and is said to have sprung up from the decay of Orwell, a place reported to have once stood on the West Rocks, and to have been overwhelmed by the sea, with a large adjoining tract of land. In the reign of Edward H., Thomas de Boteler, the King's Butler, was Lord of the Manor, and through his interest the place was made a borough corporate and market town by a charter of the year 1318. James I. granted it the charter by which it was governed down to the Municipal Corporations' Act of William IV. It returned members to Parliament in 1334, but not again till 1615. Its reputation in this respect in modern times has not been of the best, and it is now semi-disfranchised. The population in 1851 was 4,451; in 1861, 5,070. It is a watering-place, but its prosperity chiefly depends on shipping and shipbuilding, and the Royal dockyard established here. Roman cement is manufactured from a atone found in the London clay. here, and there is a fishing trade of some extent.

Among the worthies of Hertfordshire may be mentioned Sir John Mandeville, the traveller of the fourteenth century (born at St. Alban's), and Chief Justice Sir Francis Pemberton, a native of the same place. Lord Bacon, who took his title from St. Alban's, though not actually born in Hertfordshire, is inseparably con- nected with Gorhambury, which (purchased by his father, Sir Nicholas, from the Maynard family), came to him on the death of his brother, Anthony. It afterwards came into the possession of the Grimstons, a family prominent in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Hertfordshire, who rose into public notice in the reign of Henry VII. The Harbottle Grimstons, father and son, were conspicuous in the Civil War of Charles I., on the Presbyterian side, the latter of them being elected Speaker of the Commons at the Restoration, and afterwards becoming Master of the Rolls. Hunsdon, in Hert- fordshire, recalls the memory of the Carey family; Caasiobury, the Capels ; Theobalds and Hatfield, the Cecils and King James I.; and Cheshunt, Richard Cromwell, who lived there for a time after the Restoration. Nicholas de Breakspear, Pope Adrian IV., the only Englishman who became Pope (in 1154), is said to have been a native of Hertfordshire, where there is a place, Breakspears, about three miles to the north of Abbots Langley. Bishop Seth Ward was born at Buntingford. Sir Ralph Sadler, a native of Hackney, in Middlesex—the well known Tudor diplomatist—had the manor of Standon granted him by Queen Elizabeth. Yardley-Bury is the seat of the Chauncey family, to one of whom we owe an early history of Hertfordshire, which has been more or less followed by all subsequent county historians. linebworth will always remain connected with the name of Edward Bulwer- Lytton, the representative (maternally) of the old Hertfordshire family of Lytton, and the well known novelist and statesman. Black Nottley, near Braintree, in Essex, was the birthplace of William Bedell, Bishop of Killmore, and of John Ray, the naturalist. Writtle, in the same county, was the birthplace of Dr. John Bastwick, the Puritan physician who suffered so cruelly at the hands of Archbishop Laud. Sir Thomas Roe, the eminent diplomatist of the reign of Charles I., was born at Leyton, in Essex.

Such are a few of the more remarkable names connected with this Province, to be supplemented, of course, by those which belong to the more specially metropolitan districts.