Hounslow.]

THE CAMP ON HOUNSLOW HEATH.

Brentford, Twickenham, Feltham, Harlington, Cranford, Harmondsworth, Stanwell, Bedfont, Hampton, and Teddington. According to a survey made in 1546, it contained at that time four thousand two hundred and ninety-two acres; but other accounts made its area much greater, Rocque's map setting it down as six thousand six hundred and fifty-eight acres. It was estimated by Messrs. Britton and Brayley, in 1810, to comprise about five thousand acres. The soil was then thought very improvable," and accordingly, since then,

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once it has been the rendezvous of the principal military force of this kingdom.

In 1267 the Earl of Gloucester, leading the Londoners against King Henry III., assembled them on Hounslow Heath in order to give battle to the king. The army of Charles I. is said to have been entrenched here the day after the battle of Brentford, in 1642; and in November of the same year the army under the command of the Earl of Essex was mustered here. Five years later the heath witnessed a general rendezvous of the

been brought into profitable cultivation under several Acts of Parliament, which have been passed for enclosing different parts, but it still remains one of the most unproductive parts of the county of Middlesex.

much of it has | Parliamentary forces under General Sir Thomas Fairfax, when there appeared 20,000 foot and horse, with a great train of artillery. The Perfect Diurnal, August, 1647, gives the following account of this rendezvous :-"There were present the Earls of Northumberland, Salisbury, and Kent, Lord Grey of Wark, Lords Howard of Escrick, Wharton, Say and Sele, Mulgrave, and others, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and above 100 of the members. The whole army was drawn up in battalions, near a mile and a half in length. The general, accompanied with the said lords and commons, rode along the army from regiment to regiment, and were received with great acclamation. Having viewed the army, they took leave of the general, and some went to the Earl of Northumberland's at Sion, and others to the Lord Say and Sele's at Stanwell. Soon after the Palgrave came into the field, who, with the general and many gentlemen, viewed the army." The encampment was attended by Algernon Sidney and several other members, and the leader was everywhere hailed with great enthusiasm.

Cobbett, in his "Rural Rides," writes as follows with regard to the general aspect of the land in this locality:-"A much more ugly county than that between Egham and Kensington would with difficulty be found in England. Flat as a pancake, until you come to Hammersmith, the soil is a nasty, stony dirt upon a bed of gravel. Hounslow Heath, which is only a little worse than the general run, is a sample of all that is bad in soil and villanous in look. Yet all this is now enclosed, and what they call 'cultivated.'"

As above stated, Hounslow has long enjoyed a celebrity, in its way, in the annals of England. Vestiges of camps-either British or Roman-were visible on its surface down to a comparatively recent date. It has been the scene of military and other assemblies at different periods, and more than

In 1678 the army of Charles II. was encamped on the Heath, a fact which is thus duly recorded by John Evelyn, in his "Diary," under date June 29th of that year:-"Returned with my son by

used as a temporary chapel of ease, for the use of the outlying portion of the inhabitants of his then wide and scattered parish.

"

Hounslow Heath, where we saw the newly-rais'd Fields-this wooden structure was subsequently army encamp'd, design'd against France, in pretence at least, but which gave umbrage to the Parliament. His Majesty and a world of company were in the field, and the whole army in battalia: a very glorious sight. Now were brought into service a new sort of soldiers called Granadiers, who were dextrous in flinging hand granados, every one having a pouch-full; they had furr'd caps with coped crowns, like Janizanis, which made them look very fierce, and some had long hoods hanging down behind, as we picture fools: their clothing being likewise pybald yellow and red."

In 1686 James II., resolving not to yield in his struggle with his subjects, formed a camp of some thirteen thousand men on Hounslow Heath. The Londoners looked on it with terror, which, however, was soon diminished by familiarity. The camp was visited, as was only natural, by the beaux and belles of the West End, who flocked to it in such overwhelming crowds that, to use Macaulay's words, "a visit to Hounslow became their favourite ainusement on holydays, and the camp presented the appearance of a vast fair. In truth," he adds, "the place was merely a gay suburb of the capital." The king had hoped that his army-or rather, the sight of it-would overawe London; but the result was quite different, for the army instead took its cue from London. Various tracts and pamphlets sprang up out of the camp, and a hot controversy ensued, which helped to bring about the events of 1688.

Every reader of English history, even Macaulay's 'schoolboy," is aware that James II. was with his army here when the news of the acquittal of the seven bishops was signalled from London. "Nowhere," writes Macaulay, "had the acquittal been received with more clamorous delight than at Hounslow Heath. In truth, the great force which the king had assembled for the purpose of overawing his mutinous capital had become more mutinous than the capital itself, and was more dreaded by the Court than by the citizens. Early in August. therefore, the camp was broken up, and the troops were sent to quarters in different parts of the country."

In the library of the Corporation of London, at Guildhall, may be seen three different views of the camp of James II. One is a woodcut, entitled "An exact Prospect of the King's Forces encamped on Hounslow Heath, 1686;" another woodcut is of the same date, but has a letterpress inscription; the third is a copper-plate, engraved by Harris, of about the same date. the first volume of "Poems on Affairs of State," about the same date, is a very severe attack on King James in connection with this camp and heath; but this is not mentioned by Mr. Wilkes in his poem above on "Hounslow Heath."

In

Three years later, namely, in 1690, Queen Mary reviewed her troops here in the presence of the Duke of Marlborough. On the alarm of a French Under date of June 2, 1686, Evelyn again invasion in aid of the Stuart cause, the whole mentions the camp being located at Hounslow, nation was stirred with a martial spirit, and, acbut being "forced to retire to quarters from sick-cording to Macaulay, "two and twenty troops of ness and other inconveniences of the weather." cavalry, furnished by Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Four days later he writes:-"The camp was now and Buckinghamshire, were reviewed by Mary at againe pitch'd at Hounslow, the commanders pro- Hounslow, and were complimented by Marlborough fusely vying in the expence and magnificence of on their martial appearance." tents."

During the time of the encampment in 1687, there was in use here a curious tabernacle, or chapel on wheels, which had been built by command of King James, to accompany him in his royal "progresses," in order that mass might be celebrated in his presence by his chaplain. As soon as the abdication of the king was known to be a fact, this chapel was brought by road up to London, and placed upon the site long occupied by its successor, Trinity Chapel, on the south side of Conduit Street, Regent Street. At the request of Dr. Tenison-afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, but at that time Rector of St. Martin's-in-the

King George III. more than once held reviews here, the troops inspected being furnished from the ranks of both the regulars and volunteers.

The camp here seems to have been conducted very much as our summer volunteer camp at Wimbledon, the crowds of visitors including many ladies of quality, and the hospitality of the officers being so profuse as to add very seriously to their expenses. It was constantly visited by royaity; and in 1740 the list of distinguished personages here included the "Butcher" Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Marlborough, the Earl of Dunmore, and several other officers of the highest rank. The Duke of Cumberland stayed

Hounslow.]

KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD.

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here a week on this occasion, and gave more than bills at the gates of many known rich men in one grand entertainment under canvas.

The camp at Hounslow Heath was always popular with the Londoners; and, in 1744 (as we learn from the Daily Advertiser of March 13) it formed the subject of a popular exhibition, at the bottom of Hay Hill, Dover Street. It was patronised by the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the admission was a shilling. The following is a copy of the bill: "To be seen, the whole Prospect of the (late) Camp at Hounslow, representing in proper order, both Horse and Foot, every officer in his proper post, with the nicest distinction of both their liveries and colours; in proportion and magnitude representing life nearer than anything of the kind hitherto invented. The train of Artillery in its proper decorum."

Hounslow Heath is the chief rival to Finchley Common in the "Lives of the Highwaymen," and is one of the "happy hunting-grounds" of the "Newgate Calendar." It was in the seventeenth century that the locality acquired its celebrity as the haunt of highwaymen. The reason will be obvious to readers of Macaulay, who writes in his "History of England":"The peace (1698) had all over Europe, and nowhere more than in England, turned soldiers into marauders. Hounslow Heath a company of horsemen, with masks on their faces . . succeeded in stopping thirty or forty coaches (of the nobility), and rode off with a great booty in guineas, watches, and jewellery."

London, forbidding any one of them, on pain of
death, to travel from home without a watch, or
with less than ten guineas of money.* Private
carriages and public conveyances were alike the
objects of attack. Thus, Mr. Nuthall, the
solicitor and friend of Lord Chatham, returning
from Bath in his carriage.
was stopped
and fired at near Hounslow, and died of the
fright. . . . These outrages appear to have in-
creased in frequency towards the close of the
American War.
It is strange," he adds,
"that so highly civilised a people should have en-
dured these highway robberies so long . . but
stranger still, perhaps, to find some of the best
writers of the last century treat them as subjects of
jest, and almost of praise. From such productions
as the 'Tom Clinch' of Swift or the 'Beggar's
Opera' of Gay we may collect that it was the tone
in certain circles to depict the highwaymen as
daring and generous spirits, who 'took to the road,'
as it was termed, under some momentary diffi-
culties: the gentlefolk, as it were, of the profession,
and far above the common run of thieves."

Mr. John Mellish, M.P. for Great Grimsby, was shot by highwaymen on Hounslow Heath On as he was returning from hunting with the king's hounds, in April, 1798. His daughter lived down to 1880.

Here General Fairfax was robbed by "Moll Cut-purse," the noted highway-woman, who was committed to Newgate for the offence, but managed to escape from the gallows.

Here, in 1774, on his way to Cranford, Lord Berkeley shot a footpad who wanted his money, and who would have shot his lordship if he had not been anticipated. An amusing, though possibly somewhat poetical, account of the affair will be found in Mr. Grantley Berkeley's "Life and Recollections," and in the seventieth chapter of Lord Mahon's (Stanhope's) "History of England." His lordship, in relating it, adds some remarks which tend to show the audacity of highwaymen, and the terror which they inspired as late as the reigns of our Hanoverian line. He writes in 1836" Much less than a century ago the great thoroughfares near London, and above all, the open heaths, as Bagshot and Hounslow, were infested by robbers on horseback, who bore the name of highwaymen. Booty these men were determined by some means or other to obtain. In the reign of George the First they stuck up hand

Charles Knight, in the commencement of his " Passages of a Working Life,"† tells us that he well remembered as a child the murder of Mr. Mellish by a footpad near the "Magpies," and the hanging of these knights of the road on the common, the scene of their misdeeds. "Between the two roads, near a clump of firs, was a gibbet, on which two bodies hung in chains. The chains rattled; the iron plates scarcely held the gibbet together; the rags of the highwaymen displayed their horrible skeletons within."

Hounslow Heath was still a favourite haunt of highwaymen even so late as the present century. A Mr. Steele was murdered here in 1806. This murder is remembered from the fact that at the execution of the assassin thirty persons were crushed to death in the crowd before the gallows.

Cyrus Redding writes thus of this spot in the above-mentioned year :— "It was a cold night when I crossed Hounslow Heath, about midnight, after eighteen hours' travelling. All the coaches had guards, and our's prepared his pistols and blunderbuses soon after we left Reading: a paradoxical

* "Lettres d'un Français en Angleterre," 1745, Vol. III., p. 211. + Vol. I., p. 40.

vulgar footpads resorting at times to Hounslow Heath. It is gravely related, for example, that Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, playing the highwayman there in 1752, was shot through the body, and died from the wound at a friend's house, his death being announced as from inflammation of the bowels." This story is related on the authority of the Hon. Grantley Berkeley, who tells it in his "Life and Recollections."

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No less a writer than De Quincey has endeavoured not merely to whitewash, but to throw a couleur de rose over the ideal highwayman. He followed "a liberal profession, one which required more accomplishments than either the bar or the pulpit, since from the beginning it presumed a most bountiful endowment of qualifications-strength, health, agility, and excellent horsemanship, intrepidity of the first order, presence of mind, courtesy, and a general The readers of the "Beggar's Opera" will learn ambidexterity of powers for facing all accidents,

from Captain Macheath how rapidly the informa- | and for turning to a good account all unlooked-for tion was circulated as to the wealth of intending travellers along the great western road. That the highwayman could at times be the "very essence of politeness" is not to be wondered at if they were made of such gentlemanly stuff. Claud Duval, as Macaulay tells us, "took to the road, and became captain of a formidable gang;" he adds that "it is related how, at the head of his troop, he stopped a lady's coach, in which there was a booty of four hundred pounds; how he took only one hundred, and suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing a coranto with him on the heath." This celebrated exploit has been made the subject of a painting by Mr. Frith, and has been engraved.

contingencies." He considers that, beyond a doubt, the finest men in England, physically speaking, throughout the last century, the very noblest specimens of man, considered as an animal, were the mounted robbers, who cultivated their profession on the great leading roads. For the forger, and such as he, De Quincey has no sympathy; but he maintains that the special talents which led to distinction on the road had often no other career open to them. When every traveller carried fire-arms, the mounted robber lived in an element of danger and adventurous gallantry, so that admiration for the thief sometimes was extorted from the person robbed. "If to courage, address, promptitude of