A noble cavalier rode beside her, and the result has been
"That even in the present time the custom's not forgot;
But few there are who know the tale connected with the spot,
Though to each baby in the land the nursery-rhymes are told
About the lady robed in white and Banbury Cross of old."
BERKS AND WILTS CANAL.
Broughton Castle is a fine castellated mansion a short distance south-west of Banbury. It dates from the Elizabethan era, and its owner, Viscount Saye and Sele, in Charles I.'s reign, thinking that his services were not sufficiently rewarded, took the side of Parliament, in which his son represented Banbury. When the king dissolved Parliament, it assembled clandestinely in Broughton Castle. Here the Parliamentary leaders met in a room with thick walls, so that no sounds could escape. Here also were raised the earliest troops for the Parliament, and the "Blue-coats" of the Sayes were conspicuous at the battle of Edgehill, which was fought only a few miles away. Immediately afterwards King Charles besieged Broughton Castle, captured and plundered it. This famous old building witnessed in this way the earliest steps that led to the English Revolution, and it is kept in quite good preservation. Subsequently, when Oliver Cromwell became the leader of the Parliamentary party, he held his Parliament in Banbury at the Roebuck Inn, a fine piece of architecture, with a great window that lights up one of the best rooms in England of the earlier days of the Elizabethan era. A low door leads from the courtyard to this noted council-chamber where Cromwell held his Parliament, and it remains in much the same condition as then.
Through Oxfordshire is laid out one of those picturesque water-ways of the olden time—the Berks and Wilts Canal—which, though almost superseded by the omnipresent railway, still exists to furnish pretty scenery with its shady towing-paths and rustic swing-bridges. Almost the only traffic that remains to this canal, which comes out upon the Thames near Oxford, is carrying timber. The growth of English timber is slow, but some is still produced by the process of thinning the woods so as to make shapely trees, for otherwise the tall trunks would force themselves up almost without spreading branches.