Duchess; and the Duchess of Ormond; and last, Esmond's kind, good mistress, and that bewitching and heartless coquette Beatrice; Esmond himself had a lodging at Kensington, near the Square.

Shall we recall the fearful treason that was hatched there, and how the plot was defeated by the very man whom it was intended to make a king; how Esmond spent one night at the Greyhound tavern in an agony of love-sick fear; how the great Jacobite meeting was held at the King's Arms; out of the window of which Kensington Palace Green and the barracks could plainly be seen, and how from that window the baulked conspirators saw the staunch Whig soldiers of Argyll'sold regiment take the place of Ormond's Tory-led Guards, and how, in consequence of this and other matters, the plot failed, and Queen Anne came to the throne-most of which is unhistoric and untrue, but is,. nevertheless, as familiar to us as the historical and truthful account of good Queen Anne's accession.

The old Square has a musty appearance now, and there is but little to remind one of its departed glories. So we wave it an unregretful adieu, and once more entering High Street, pass on until we arrive at Earl's

Terrace, at the back of which stands what is called in Knight's "London" a delicious square, known as Edwardes, the family name of Lord Kensington. Its great peculiarity is that the central enclosure is more spacious and better cultivated than the size of the houses would seem to warrant. Garden ground near

London costs money, and landlords are not usually anxious to leave much of their property in advantageous situations uncovered with interest-paying brick and mortar. Tradition says that Edwardes Square was the work of a Frenchman, that he existed about the commencement of the present ccntury, and that he built the square with a view to the time when the British Isles would form part of La Grande Empire which Napoleon was forming, and when French tastes and French incomes would rule the market. Leigh Hunt, in his old Court Suburb, tells us that Coleridge once had lodgings in the square, and this seems very probable. If so, it is the only great name of which the square can boast, for the houses are not big enough to hold ambassadors, politicians, or prelates.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD.

Their History-Sebastian Harris, the Heretic-Among the Tombstones.

NEARLY opposite the turning leading from Kensington Square, but on the opposite side of the High Street, stands the Parish church, a handsome Gothic edifice erected by the late Sir Gilbert Scott, but in spite of its architectural beauty, and its bravery of stained glass windows, with Kensington Church modern we have nothing to do. The old Parish Church is the object of our investigations, so this must be a mental ramble, though the old building is far more familiar to our eyes than the new. The handsome edifice that stands there now suggests but faint recollections of the square country-like Church that so recently occupied its place. Our ramble, this morn

ing, then, must be among books and memory, rather than among places and things.

Even in the times of Doomsday Book there were three virgates of land set aside for a priest. The next fact of importance solves the question-Why was the church called St. Mary Abbot's? It obtained the name thus: Geoffry, the eldest son of the first lord of Kensington, Aubrey de Vere, had been cured of an illness by the Abbot of Abingdon, and, on his deathbed he persuaded his father to bestow the church of Kensington on that monastery. Whether the dying Geoffry made this request out of gratitude for his cure, or, what is perhaps just as probable, as a sort of counter-balance for his sins, history sayeth not, but at all events, in the reign of Henry the First, St. Mary's became the property of the Abbot of Abingdon, and had the affix Abbot's added to its name to denote the change of ownership.

The De Veres, like most of the Norman aristocracy, were bountiful in their gifts to priests and monks, and among other endowments was one at Colne, in Essex.

In the beginning of the fourteenth century, the

Prior of Colne and the Abbot of Abingdon quarrelled about the right to the monastery at Kensington. The dispute was settled in favour of the Abbot. The tithes and expenses were to be divided between the latter and the Vicar. The Bishop of London was to collate to the Vicarage, a privilege which is still in force.

We may pass over some two centuries before anything interesting turns up again, but no doubt in that time the church was pulled down and rebuilt, or at all events repaired more than once. In the time of bluff king Hal, we find a notice of proceedings against one Sebastian Harris, who had got hold of an English translation of the New Testament, and another book, equally bad in the eyes of the Church, called "Unis Dissidentium," which was found to contain the Lutheran heresy. For this heinous offence he was cited to appear before the Vicar General (a recently appointed officer of the Romish Church, one of whose duties was to hunt up the followers of Luther) at St. Paul's, there to make oath, says the old record, that he would not retain these books nor sell them, nor lend them, and, on pain of excommunication, not to stay in London longer than a day and a night, nor to be