Charles II. is said to have taken refuge in Ham House on one occasion when fleeing for his life from his enemies, narrowly escaping capture, and his brother James II. was to have been sent there after his deposition in 1688, but he pleaded so earnestly against it, declaring it to be a cold and comfortless place in the winter, that he was allowed to go to Rochester. In the eighteenth century the reputation of Ham House as one of the most beautiful seats near London was fully maintained, in spite of the carping criticism to which it was subjected by Horace Walpole, one of whose nieces had married its owner, the Earl of Dysart. Queen Charlotte was a frequent visitor there, and later William IV. was often the guest of the famous Lady Dysart, who died at a great age in 1840. Since then the time-honoured building has been little altered, and to the art treasures accumulated by its early owners have been added many fine paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hoppner, Vandyck, and other great masters. It remains one of the very few historic mansions on the Thames that have escaped destruction, and those who now own it have given many proofs of their respect for its traditions.
Kingston
To pass from Richmond, Petersham, and Ham, that still bear the unmistakable impress of the past, to modern Kingston and its suburbs Surbiton and Norbiton, is to enter a different world, so completely has the ancient city, which is referred to in a charter of King Edred bearing date 946 as the 'royal town where kings are hallowed,' been transformed since the days when the Saxon kings were crowned in it, sitting on the stone still preserved in a railed-in space opposite the Courthouse. There, as inscribed upon the venerable relic, Athelstan, Edmund, Edred, Edgar, Edward the Martyr, Ethelred II., and Edmund received their crowns; there the national councils assembled; and there took place the tragic scenes between Dunstan and the young king Edwy, whom the archbishop dared to follow to the chamber of his bride, Œlgifa, an intrusion the newly wedded wife never forgave, and that had much to do with her bitter hostility to her husband's adviser. In 1200 the reluctant King John was compelled to give the citizens of Kingston their first charter, and in the royal town Henry III. was defied in 1264 by the turbulent barons in the once formidable castle, the very site of which cannot now be determined. Into Kingston, in 1472, marched Falconbridge with fifty thousand men in pursuit of Edward IV., whose tenure of the throne was still insecure, to find the bridge, the only one that then spanned the river above the City of London, broken down, so that he was obliged to return by the way that he had come; and at Kingston many years afterwards, the ill-fated Katharine of Aragon, then a happy-hearted girl of sixteen, halted for a night on her way to be married to Prince Arthur, elder brother of the second husband who was to treat her so cruelly. In 1554 the doomed Sir Thomas Wyatt, in arms against Queen Mary, secured a temporary success by crossing the river at Kingston on a bridge of boats, and in 1647 the old town was for some months the headquarters of General Fairfax in command of the Parliamentarian troops. There a year later the last stand was made under the Earl of Holland of the Royalists, who were cut to pieces, their leader falling after a desperate resistance against fearful odds. Since then Kingston has enjoyed a long spell of peace and security, but it has lost the distinction that belonged to it in those days of unrest, retaining but very few survivals of the past. Its parish church, one of the largest in England, was founded in the early thirteenth century, but it has been almost completely modernised, part of its tower and the southern aisle of the chancel being all that are left of the original structure. It contains, however, some interesting monuments, notably the altar-tomb of Sir Anthony Benn, who died in 1618, and a seated marble statue of the Countess of Liverpool by Chantrey, with several fine brasses, including that to Robert Skern and his wife Joan, daughter of Alice Ferrers, and according to tradition of Edward III., and that to John Hertcombe and his wife, who died in 1477 and 1478.
A few old houses in the market-place are all that now remain of the many mansions that were once the pride of royal Kingston, but its fine situation on the Thames preserves to it something of the distinction it enjoyed for so long. It is, moreover, in touch with much beautiful Surrey scenery and within easy reach by water of many picturesque riverside villages, such as Thames Ditton, much frequented by boating men and anglers, and East Molesey on the junction of the Mole with the Thames opposite Hampton Court, a favourite resort of holiday-makers in the summer, when the towing-path is lined with gaily decorated house-boats and pleasure-crafts of great variety are constantly passing up and down stream.