were the candidates. "The remembrance of the famous contests of 1768 and 1769, when party feeling ran so high in favour of the popular candidate, is still kept up," writes Lysons, "by the sign of Wilkes's Head and No. 45.” Brentford is still conventionally regarded as the chief town of Middlesex for election purposes, a fact which strongly attests our innate conservatism. The nominations of the county members have taken place here "from time immemorial," and all sorts of good stories and jokes are extant respecting these elections. Bubb Dodington writes, under date March 8th, 1749:--" The election for the county of Middlesex. Sir Francis Dashwood, Messrs. Furnese, Breton, and I, went in Sir Francis's coach at eight o'clock to Mr. Cooke's in Lincoln's Inn Fields. A great meeting there. We set out with him about nine -my coach following-and went through Knightsbridge, Kensington, by the Gravel Pits, to Acton, and from thence to Stanwell Heath, which was the general rendezvous. From thence to Brentford Butts, which was the place of poll. It began about one. I polled early, and got to my coach, which was so wedged in that, after much delay, I found it impossible to make use of it, so that Mr. Breton and I were forced to take two of my servants' horses, with livery housings, and ride without boots ten miles to Lord Middlesex's at Walton, to meet their Royal Highnesses at dinner. . . . My coach. did not arrive till nine. . . . Poll for Mr. Cooke, 1617; for Mr. Honywood, 1201. We carried it by 416." Paul Whitehead thus refers to the election at Brentford : "Now, nearer town, and all agog, They know dear London by its fog; The cry of "Wilkes and Liberty!" held its ground for many a long day. Was it in order to furnish an example of the meaning of this cry that, in the election riots of 1769, when Wilkes was a candidate, the mob destroyed the poll-books, and killed one person at the hustings? Colonel Luttrell and Wilkes were standing to gether on the hustings at Brentford, when Wilkes asked his adversary, privately, "whether he thought there were more fools or knaves among the large crowds of Wilkites below?" "I'll tell them what you say, and so put an end to you at once," said the colonel. Wilkes was unmoved; and on Luttrell asking him why he felt no fear at such a threat, he replied quietly, "Because I should tell them that it was a fabrication, and they would put an end to you, and not to me." Mr. J. T. Smith, in his "Book for a Rainy Day," prints the following letter from Lord North to Sir Eardley Wilmot, under date of 1st April, 1769, having reference to the candidature of Colonel Luttrell and Wilkes : "My friend Colonel Luttrell having informed me that many persons depending upon the Court of Common Pleas are freeholders of Middlesex, &c., not having the honour of being acquainted with you himself, desires me to apply to for you your interest with your friends in his behalf. It is manifest how much it is for the honour of Parliament, and the quiet of this country in future times, that Mr. Wilkes should have an antagonist at the next Brentford election, and that his antagonist should meet with a respectable support. The state of the country has been examined, and there is the greatest reason to believe that the Colonel will have a very considerable show of legal votes, nay, even a majority, if his friends are not deterred from appearing at the poll. It is the game of Mr. Wilkes and his friends to increase those alarms, but they cannot frighten the candidate from his purpose; and I am very confident that the voters will run no risk. I hope, therefore, you will excuse this application. There is nothing, I imagine, that every true friend of this country must wish more than to see Mr. Wilkes disappointed in his projects; and nothing, I am convinced, will defeat them more effectually than to fill up the vacant seat for Middlesex, especially if it can be done for a fair majority of legal votes. I am, Sir, with the greatest truth and respect, your most faithful, humble servant, "NORTH." "John Wilkes he was for Middlesex, They chose him knight of the shire; The popularity of Wilkes was carried to so great an extent, that his friends in all classes displayed some article on which his effigy was portrayed, such as salad or punch bowls, ale or milk jugs, plates, dishes, and even heads of canes. The squib engravings of him, published from the commencement of his notoriety to his silent state when Chamberlain of London, would extend to several volumes. Hogarth's portrait of him, which by the collectors was considered a caricature, is recom See the Wilmot Letters, in the British Museum. "Parson Horne," of course, is Mr. Horne Tooke Brentford.] GEORGE III. AND "OLD GANG ABOOT." 39 mended as the best likeness by those who knew he was something of a philosopher, and that he him personally. In his personal appearance Wilkes was exceedingly ill-favoured, as a glance at his portrait will show; and the peculiar squint which he unfortunately possessed gave rise to the epigram in "Wine and Walnuts," beginning "The d-1 at Lincoln climbed upon the steeple, As Wilkes did at Brentford to squint at the people." Macfarlane, the author of the "History of George III.," was killed by the pole of a coach during one of the election processions of Sir Francis Burdett, at the entrance of the town. In fact, as the Annual Register of 1802 informs us, to such a state of turbulence had the inhabitants of Brentford arrived on these occasions that "it is impossible for any but those who have witnessed a Middlesex election to conceive the picture it exhibited it was a continued scene of riot, disorder, and tumult." A good story is told of one of the inhabitants of Brentford in the last century. Happening to be travelling in Germany, where "Electors" are, or were, not uncommon, he was called on, as he entered the gates of a town, to describe himself, after the usual manner of strangers. "I am an elector of Middlesex," he replied. The German officials, knowing that an Elector was inferior only to a king or a prince, but knowing nothing of the meaning of the term in England, immediately ordered the guards to be called out, and received him with military honours. The only manor in this parish, according to Lysons, is that of Bordeston, or Burston, commonly called Boston, which formed part of the possessions of the convent of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. Edward VI. granted it to the Duke of Somerset, on whose attainder it reverted to the Crown. Queen Elizabeth granted it to Robert, Earl of Leicester, who sold it in the same year to Sir Thomas Gresham. Having passed through several intermediate hands, it was bought in 1670 by James Clitherow, Esq., a merchant of London, of which he was Lord Mayor and a representative in Parliament, and in whose family it still remains. Boston House stands on gently rising ground, a little less than a mile north-west of the town. It was built partly by Lady Reade, and partly by Mr. Clitherow. About half a mile to the north a large oak-tree, called Gospel Oak, divides Brentford from Hanwell. Sion House Academy, near Brentford, was the first school to which the poet Shelley was sent as preparatory for Eton. Even here he showed that • See "Old and New London," Vol. I., p. 420. had his own views on most subjects upon which boys are generally disposed to accept the opinions of others. Wyke Farm, between Brentford and Osterley Park, was the residence of John Robinson, who rose by the favour of Lord Lonsdale from the position of a foot-boy at Lowther Castle to be M.P. for Appleby and for other places, and ultimately Secretary to the Treasury under Lord North's administration. A good story about this place is told by Mr. Serjeant Atkinson :-"King George III., in returning from the chase to Kew Palace, was obliged to ride across Wyke Farm. One day, on riding up to one of the gates, he found it locked. The king hailed a man who happened to be close by to open the gate, but the fellow was too lazy or too stupid to go out of his way to oblige a stranger. 'Come, come,' said the king, 'open the gate, my man!' 'Nae, ye maun gang aboot,' was the reply. 'Gang aboot, indeed!' said His Majesty. 'Open the gate at once; I'm the king!' 'Why, may be,' said the chap, 'ye may be the king, but ye maun gang aboot for all that.' And sure enough His Majesty was obliged to ride round nearly the whole enclosure of Osterley Park. In the afternoon Mr. Robinson, who had been away in London, returned home, and heard of the king's disappointment. He at once ordered his carriage, and drove over post haste to Kew to offer his apologies. He was admitted without ceremony, as usual, and the king, in answer to his apologies, merely replied, 'Ah! I wish I had such fine honest fellows in my pay as your old "gang aboot." Tell him from me that I like his honesty, and shall be glad to see him here some day.' Mr. Robinson was at once put at his ease; and as for the man, he soon found out a more direct way than ali round Osterley Park to Kew, where he was kindly received by the good-natured king. It is said that His Majesty never saw Robinson afterwards without making tender inquiries after 'Old Gang Aboot.'" Among the former residents of Brentford was Mr. Pitt, the grandfather of the first Earl of Chatham. He is said to have been the son of a tradesman in a small way here, and his son's name is handed down to us by Pope in connection with what was known as the "Pitt diamond." Pope is supposed to allude, in a well-known passage in the third epistle on his "Moral Essays," to this diamond, a gem brought to this country by Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras, about 1700. Mr. Pitt purchased this celebrated diamond, which goes by his name, for £20,400, and sold it to the King of France for more than five times that sum. It was then reckoned the largest jewel in Europe, and weighed 127 carats. When polished it was ¡ as big as a pullet's egg; the cuttings amounted in value to eight or ten thousand pounds. It was placed among the crown jewels of France, and afterwards adorned the sword of state of Napoleon. The report that Mr. Pitt had obtained this diamond by dishonourable means was very general; and he was at last induced to publish a narrative of the circumstances connected with its purchase. The affair of the Pitt diamond may have suggested the incident of the stolen gem to Pope; but the whole episode appears fanciful, and the history of Sir Balaam and his family is highly improbable. The “riffeling” here mentioned is synonymous with "raffling." The hocking occurs almost every year till 1640, when it appears to have dropped. It was collected at Whitsuntide. 1618 Gained with hocking at Whitsuntide £16 12 3 Other curious entries in the account books, evidently bearing upon the public sports and pastimes of Brentford, are as follows:1620 Paid for 6 boules At Brentford lived for many years Mrs. Trimmer, so well known by her writings for young persons in the time of our parents and grandparents. She helped largely the thread of education here. This lady was the daughter of a Mr. Joshua Kirby, of Ipswich, and was born in 1741. Her father was a clever draughtsman, and held for some time the appointment of "tutor in perspective' to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. Miss Kirby was married at the age of twenty-one 1621 to Mr. Trimmer. Her literary labours commenced about the year 1780, the first of her published works being a small volume entitled "An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature." She died in 1810, very suddenly, in the arm-chair which she used generally to occupy in her study in the house in Windmill Lane, where she had resided for many years. The parish rates of Brentford, it is said, in former times, were mainly supported by the profits of public sports and diversions, especially at Whitsuntide. If this story be true, the good people of Brentford, in spite of the dull situation of their town, must have been a jolly set of good fellows. Among the sports here referred to were such amusements as "hocking" and "pigeon-holes." These are constantly mentioned among the entries in the "chapel-wardens'" account books of the seven.eenth century. At a vestry meeting held here in 1621, several articles were agreed upon with regard to the management of the "parish stock" by the chapel-wardens. The preamble, which is quoted by Lysons, states that "the inhabitants had for many years been accustomed to have meetings at Whitsuntide, in their churchhouse and other places there, in friendly manner, to eat and drink together, and liberally to spend their monies, to the end neighbourly society might be maintained; and also a common stock raised for the repairs of the church, maintaining of orphins, placing poor children in service, and for 6 tynn tokens for a pair of pigeon-holes Lo O 8 996 to Goodwife Ansell for the pigeon-holes o 1623 Received for the maypole 1629 for 2 heads for the drumbe of the said K. B. for a silver bar 1643 Paid to Thomas Powell for pigeon-holes I I O I 4 O 0 16 O 2 8 Heston.] OSTERLEY PARK. 41 CHAPTER IV. HESTON, ISLEWORTH, AND SION HOUSE. Osterley Park-Sir Thomas Gresham visited by Queen Elizabeth-Lord Desmond-The Manor of Heston-Heston Church-The Soil-Sir Joseph Banks and Anthony Collins residents here-Isleworth-Its Etymology-The River Cran-Sion House-Vicissitudes of the Nuns of St. Bridget-The Rule of the Order of St. Bridget-Early History of the Monastery-The Wardrobes of the Nuns-The Duties of the Abbess, Cellaress, &c.-Dissolution of the Monastery-Touching History of the Sisterhood-Remains of the Monastery-Katherine Howard a Prisoner here-Funeral of Henry VIII.-Building of Sion House-The Family of Percy, Dukes of Northumberland-The Princess of Denmark at Sion House-Description of the Building-The Gardens and Grounds-The Parish of Isleworth-Descent of the Manor-The Parish ChurchCharitable Institutions-Church of St. John the Baptist-Brentford Union-Gumley House-Kendal House-Lacy House-Royal Naval Female School-Silver Hall-Gordon House--Sir Clipesby Crewe-Worton Hall-Syon Hill-Honnor's Home-London International College-Spring Grove. in the night sent for workmen to London, who so speedily and so silently performed their task, that before morning the wall was finished, to the great surprise of the queen and her courtiers, one of whom, however, observed that it was no wonder that he who could build a Change should so soon change a building; whilst others (reflecting on some known differences in this knight's family) affirmed that any house is easier divided than united.” A LITTLE to the north-west of Brentford, in the parish of Heston, lies Osterley Park. The estate, which now belongs to the Earl of Jersey, was formerly the property of Sir Thomas Gresham, the great merchant of Elizabeth's reign, and founder of the Royal Exchange. He began to re-build the manor-house about the year 1570, when the estate was granted to him by the Crown. Norden, who published his "Survey of Middlesex" in 1596, says, in the quaint language of the period :-" Osterley, From certain minutes in the Privy Council books the house nowe of the Lady Gresham, a faire and of the period, it appears that some of Gresham's stately building of bricke, erected by Sir Thomas park-paling at Osterley was burned while the queen Gresham, knight, citizen, and marchant adventurer was there; that Her Majesty being very much of London, and finished about anno 1577. It offended, commanded that the offenders should be standeth in a parke by him also impaled, well searched out and punished; and that shortly after wooded, and garnished with manie faire ponds, which four individuals were committed to the Marshalsea affordeth not only fish and fowle, as swanes and prison, charged with the offence. The same indusother water-fowle, but also a great rise for milles, as trious investigator has further discovered that paper milles, oyle milles, and corn milles, all which Gresham's great enclosure at Osterley was very unare now decayed, a corn mille only excepted. In popular, and that complaints were laid against him the same parke was a faire heronrie, for the increase by sundry poor men for having enclosed certain and preservation whereof sundry allurements were common ground, to the prejudice of the poor. devised and set up, fallen all to ruin." Gresham had no fewer than four or five stately mansions in Norfolk; but of these his favourite and chief residence was Intwood House, or, as he always called it, his "poor house at Intwood." Besides these, he had in his latter years this estate of Osterley, a magnificent old place (Mayfield) in Sussex, and apparently one or two houses in other parts of the kingdom, in which he occasionally resided. In 1578 Queen Elizabeth visited Sir Thomas Gresham at Osterley Park, and was there entertained in a very sumptuous manner. "The Devises of Warre, and a Play at Awsterley, her Highness being at Sir Thomas Gresham's," is the title of a pamphlet mentioned by Lysons as having been published by Churchyard; Lysons adding that it is "not known to be now (1795) extant." Fuller tells the following story of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Osterley:"Her Majesty having given it as her opinion that the court before the house would look better divided with a wall, Sir Thomas Gresham in The author of the "Life of Sir Thomas Gresham," Knight's "Weekly Volumes for all Readers," observes that "it is not wealth that always makes the best temple for the household gods, and neither wealth nor caution could keep sorrow and sickness and fears out of this splendid mansion. In the year 1570 one of Gresham's servants fell sick of the plague in Osterley House, upon which the knight and his family fled in great dismay into Sussex." In most of his places Gresham would seem to have sought, with more success than most persons, how to unite his profit and his pleasure. At Osterley he had within the circuit of his park both oil-mills and corn-mills, and also a paper-mill-the latter, it is said, being his own device of the first mill of that kind set up in this country. And besides this, he made himself useful to his royal mistress in a variety of ways, acting occasionally as one of Her Majesty's gaolers, or keepers of State prisoners; for as money was saved by such an arrangement, it became a common practice with Elizabeth thus to quarter her State prisoners, or those whom she wished to keep under her own control, upon her nobles and the richer gentry, making them personally answerable in case of their cagebirds escaping. Thus it appears that the Lady Mary Grey, the sister of Lady Jane, was for some time an inmate of Osterley Park. Upon one occasion, the knight and his wife would fain know what they are to do with my Lady Mary, "trusting that now Her Majesty would be so good as to remove her"—that is, send her to some other gentleman. But all was in vain; the queen seems to have thought that her captive could not be in safer or better keeping, and-sometimes in the London As herself in her captivity and grief with reading. some of her books were French, and one or two Italian, it may be presumed that she knew those languages, and that, like her eldest sister, the Lady Jane Grey, she was an accomplished person. Sir Thomas Gresham died in the following year (1579), and on the decease of his wife, to whom it had been left, the property was inherited by Sir William Read, her son by a former marriage. Soon after Lady Gresham's death, Lord Chief Justice Coke (then Attorney-General) appears to have been a resident at Osterley. One of his children was christened in the chapel there on the 3rd of January, 1597. George, Earl of Desmond, and his Countess house, and sometimes at Osterley Park-the Lady Mary continued to reside with the Greshams from the month of June, 1569, to the end of 1572. It should be explained that, alarmed at her sister's sufferings for having contracted a match with one of the highest nobles in the land, the Lady Mary had privately married a plebeian youth, named Keys; and that for this offence, and for this only, the unfortunate lady was detained in custody by the jealous queen, who apparently would allow of no marriages, whether high or low, among her kinsfolk and acquaintance. The poor woman died in 1578, in the parish of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, having outlived her husband only seven years. In Osterley she enjoyed a splendid residence, at once a palace and a prison; but she finished her days in poverty, leaving little behind her, except a few trinkets and a score or two of books. She appears to have been very fond of her books, and to have solaced (who was one of the co-heirs to the estate) resided at Osterley for several years. Lysons, in his "Environs of London," tells a very remarkable story of this couple, on the authority of the "Straf ford Letters: "-" Young Desmond (says Mr. Garrard, writing to Lord Wentworth), who married one of the co-heirs of Sir Michael Stanhope, came one morning to York House, where his wife had long lived with the duchess during his two years' absence beyond the seas, and hurried her away, half-undressed, much against her will, into a coach, and so carried her away into Leicestershire. At Brickhill he lodged, where she, in the night, put herself into milkmaid's clothes, and had likely to make her escape, but was discovered. Madam Christian, whom your lordship knows, said that my Lord of Desmond was the first that ever she heard of that ran away with his own wife. Modern times, however, have furnished a parallel. Lady Desmond's |