The George Inn, of which the quadrangle is shown, is a brewery as well as a large hotel. The ancient part of it is here given, the more modern portions resemble any first-class hotel. Here we have the same arrangement as in other inns of the mediæval period—a gallery running round an open court, approached by an external staircase. I was unable to collect much information about this interesting hostelry; but, doubtless, the scene here
given differs but little from what it did when Oliver Cromwell saw it. St. Neots is an extremely interesting old town with a very noble church, which contains a peal of eight bells, but it is often inundated by the rising of the Ouse.
Katherine of Arragon, after her divorce from Henry VIII., resided much in Huntingdonshire; sometimes at Kimbolton, now the seat of the Duke of Manchester, and sometimes at Buckden, on the west side of the Ouse, about five miles from St. Neots. This is a very interesting little country town, and the ancient palace of the bishops of Lincoln (for the Abbot of Ely granted the manor to the bishops of Lincoln) stands in the middle of the village. The mansion is beautifully built in brick, and had been erected about half a century before the divorce of Queen Katherine. Kimbolton is a small market town on the Kym, a tributary of the Ouse, and can of course boast of a fine old church. The second scene of the fourth act of “Henry VIII.,” already alluded to, is laid here, where Katherine hears from her attendants of the death of Wolsey at Leicester Abbey. Very little is left of Leicester Abbey; it certainly shows by the foundations that are left of it what a grand old building it must at one time have been, but the gardens and park are
turned into a market-gardener’s premises. They are very comfortable, and the excellently worked stone that lies about indicates pretty well how carefully the Abbey had been built. Wolsey had reached Sheffield Park when he was struck down by a mortal sickness, and then “by slow and easy stages came to Leicester.” His last words to Lieutenant Kingston much resemble his speech in Shakespeare, where the reverend Abbot
“With all his convent honourably received him,
To whom he gave these words—‘O father Abbot,
An old man broken with the storms of state
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity.’”
The recorded speech to Kingston doubtless suggested this passage in Shakespeare. “I pray you,” he says, “have me commended most humbly to his majesty, and beseech him, on my behalf, to call to his gracious remembrance all things that have passed between us from the beginning, especially respecting Queen Katherine and himself, and then shall his conscience know whether I have offended him or not. He is a prince of most royal courage, and hath a princely heart, for rather than miss or want any part of his will he will endanger the one half of his kingdom. And, I do assure you, I have often kneeled before him in his privy chamber, sometimes for three hours together, to persuade him from his appetite, and could not prevail. And, Master Kingston, this I will say, had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. Howbeit, this is my just reward for my pains and diligence, not regarding my service to God but only my duty to my prince.”
Market Bosworth is twelve miles west of the county town, and here the last great battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought. The scene of the battle was Redmoor plain, nearly two miles from the town. When the conflict took place, in 1485, it was a moor grown over with thistles and scutch grass. King Richard’s army encamped at Elmsthorpe and Stapleton; they numbered some 16,000 men, and his officers made their head-quarters at Elmsthorpe church. Richmond’s were at Atherstone in Warwickshire. Here the seceders from Richard III.’s army met him, and joined their forces before the decisive battle. The whole tale is tremendously told in Shakespeare, and the well where Richard slaked his thirst during the battle is pointed out on a farm in the neighbourhood. This place is well worth a visit, and, singularly enough, the country people are tolerably versed in the details of the conflict, and are able to point out the localities with some probable accuracy. The house where Richmond stayed on his road to Bosworth has already been engraved in the account of Shrewsbury, and unhappily the “Blue Boar Inn” at Leicester, where his stone coffin was used for a drinking-trough for horses and cattle, has been pulled down; many persons are able to recollect it, and say it was picturesque, but I have not yet found a drawing of it.