Birmingham has many fine public and private buildings and some attractive streets, though much of the town is made up of narrow lanes and dingy houses, with huge factories in every direction. There are several small parks, the gifts of opulent residents, notably Aston Hall. This was formerly the residence of the Holte family, and the fine old mansion which still stands in the grounds was built by Sir Thomas Holte in the reign of James I. Charles I. is said to have slept here for two nights before the battle of Edgehill, for which offence the house was cannonaded by the Puritans and its owners fined. The grounds, covering about forty-two acres, are now a park, and a picturesque little church has been built near the mansion. Some of the factories of this metropolis of hardware are fine structures, but when their product is spoken of, "Brummagem" is sometimes quoted as synonymous for showy sham. Here they are said to make gods for the heathen and antiquities of the Pharaoh age for Egypt, with all sorts of relics for all kinds of battlefields. But Birmingham nevertheless has a reputation for more solid wares. Its people are the true descendants of Tubal Cain, for one of its historians attractively says that the Arab eats with a Birmingham spoon; the Egyptian takes his bowl of sherbet from a Birmingham tray; the American Indian shoots a Birmingham rifle; the Hindoo dines on Birmingham plate and sees by the light of a Birmingham lamp; the South American horsemen wear Birmingham spurs and gaudily deck their jackets with Birmingham buttons; the West Indian cuts down the sugar-cane with Birmingham hatchets and presses the juice into Birmingham vats and coolers; the German lights his pipe on a Birmingham tinder-box; the emigrant cooks his dinner in a Birmingham saucepan over a Birmingham stove; and so on ad infinitum. A century ago this famous town was known as the "toy-shop of Europe." Its glass-workers stand at the head of their profession, and here are made the great lighthouse lenses and the finest stained glass to be found in English windows. The Messrs. Elkington, whose reputation is worldwide, here invented the process of electro-plating. It is a great place for jewelry and the champion emporium for buttons. It is also the great English workshop for swords, guns, and other small-arms, and here are turned out by the million Gillott's steel pens. Over all these industries presides the magnificent Town Hall, a Grecian temple standing upon an arcade basement, and built of hard limestone brought from the island of Anglesea. The interior is chiefly a vast assembly-room, where concerts are given and political meetings held, the latter usually being the more exciting, for we are told that when party feeling runs high some of the Birmingham folk "are a little too fond of preferring force to argument." But, although famed for its Radical politics and the introduction of the "caucus" into England, Birmingham will always be chiefly known by its manufactures, and these will recall its illustrious inventors, Boulton and Watt. Their factory was at Soho, just north of the town. Here Watt brought the steam-engine to perfection, here gas was first used, plating was perfected, and myriads of inventions were developed. "The labors of Boulton and Watt at Soho," says the historian Langford, "changed the commercial aspects of the world." Their history is, however, but an epitome of the wonderful story of this great city of the glass and metal-workers, whose products supply the entire globe.
THE TOWN-HALL, BIRMINGHAM.
FOTHERINGHAY.
In our journey through Midland England we have paused at many of the prison-houses of Mary Queen of Scots. In Northamptonshire, near Elton, are the remains of the foundations of the castle of Fotheringhay, out in a field, with the mound of the keep rising in front of them; this was the unfortunate queen's last prison. It was a noted castle, dating from the twelfth century, and had been a principal residence of the Plantagenets. Here Mary was tried and beheaded, February 8, 1587. She is said to have borne up under her great afflictions with marvellous courage. Conducted to the scaffold after taking leave of all, she made a short address, declaring that she had never sought the life of her cousin Elizabeth—that she was queen-born, not subject to the laws, and forgiving all. Her attendants in tears then assisted her to remove her clothing, but she firmly said, "Instead of weeping, rejoice; I am very happy to leave this world and in so good a cause." Then she knelt, and after praying stretched out her neck to the executioner, imagining that he would strike off her head while in an upright posture and with the sword, as in France; they told her of her mistake, and without ceasing to pray she laid her head on the block. There was a universal feeling of compassion, even the headsman himself being so moved that he did his work with unsteady hand, the axe falling on the back of her head and wounding her; but she did not move nor utter a complaint, and, repeating the blow, he struck off her head, which he held up, saying, "God save Queen Elizabeth!" Her lips moved for some time after death, and few recognized her features, they were so much changed.
HOLMBY HOUSE.
Also in Northamptonshire is Holmby House, where King Charles I. was captured by the army previous to his trial. It was built by Sir Christopher Hatton in Queen Elizabeth's time, but only the gates and some outbuildings remain. After the battle of Naseby the king surrendered himself to the Scots, and they, through an arrangement with the English Parliament, conducted him to Holmby House, where he maintained something of sovereign state, though under the surveillance of the Parliamentary commissioners. He devoted his time to receiving visitors, the bowling-green, and the chess-table. This continued for some months, when a struggle began between the army and the Parliament to decide whose captive he was. The army subsequently, by a plot, got possession of Holmby, and, practically making prisoners of the garrison and the commissioners of Parliament, they abducted the king and took him to a house near Huntingdon. Fairfax sent two regiments of troops thither to escort him back to Holmby, but he had been treated with great courtesy and declined to go back. Thus by his own practical consent the king was taken possession of by Cromwell, Fairfax, and Ireton, who were in command, although they denied it, and put the whole blame on one Cornet Joyce who was in command of the detachment of troops that took possession of Holmby. The king was ultimately taken to London, tried, and executed in Whitehall. At Ashby St. Leger, near Daventry, in Northamptonshire, is the gate-house of the ancient manor of the Catesbys, of whom Robert Catesby was the contriver of the Gunpowder Plot. The thirteen conspirators who framed the plot met in a room over the gateway which the villagers call the "Plot-room," and here Guy Fawkes was equipped for his task, which so alarmed the kingdom that to this day the cellars of the Parliament Houses are searched before the session begins for fear a new plot may have been hatched, while the anniversary is kept as a solemn holiday in London. The lantern used by Guy Fawkes is still preserved in the Oxford Museum having been given to the University in 1641.
BEDFORD CASTLE.
One of the most ancient of the strongholds of Midland England was the Bedicanford of the Saxons, where contests took place between them and the Britons as early as the sixth century. It stood in a fertile valley on the Ouse, and is also mentioned in the subsequent contests with the Danes, having been destroyed by them in the eleventh century. Finally, William Rufus built a castle there, and its name gradually changed to Bedford. It was for years subject to every storm of civil war—was taken and retaken, the most famous siege lasting sixty days, when Henry III. personally conducted the operations, being attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the chief peers of the realm: this was in 1224, and the most ingenious engines of war were used to batter down the castle-walls, which till then had been regarded as impregnable. The stronghold was ultimately captured, chiefly through the agency of a lofty wooden castle higher than the walls, which gave an opportunity of seeing all that passed within. The governor of the castle, twenty-four knights, and eighty soldiers, making most of the garrison, were hanged. King Henry then dismantled it and filled up the ditches, so as to "uproot this nursery of sedition." The ruins lasted some time afterward, but now only the site is known, located alongside the river Ouse, which runs through the city of Bedford. This town is of great interest, though, as Camden wrote two centuries ago, it is more eminent for its "pleasant situation and antiquity than for anything of beauty and stateliness." Its neighborhood has been a noted mine for antiquities, disclosing remains of ancient races of men and of almost pre-historic animals of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The town lies rather low on the river, with a handsome bridge connecting the two parts, and pretty gardens fringing each shore. This bridge is a modern structure, having succeeded the "old bridge," which stood there several centuries with a gate-house at either end, in the larger of which was the old jail, that had for its most distinguished occupant that sturdy townsman of Bedford, John Bunyan. The castle-mound, which is all that is left, and on which once stood the keep, is on the river-shore just below the bridge, and is now used for a bowling-green in the garden of the chief hotel. The memorials of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, first a prisoner and then a minister of the gospel in Bedford, are probably the most prized remains of ancient days that Bedford has, though they are now becoming scarce.