36 Nistress Jane Lane. 
Rex; as having once your temple, and court too, under that sacred 
oak, which you consecrated with your presence, and we celebrate, 
with just acknowledgment to God for your preservation.” 
Sylva, 5th ed,, Fifty years afterwards, in his fifth edition, he 
1729. speaks of this tree as having been hacked to pieces 
and killed. 
The Rev. George Plaxton wrote in 1707 a paper on the parishes 
Philosophical of Kinnardsey and Donington, in the latter of 
a Baie, 9433, which the oak stood. He says the poor remains 
vol. xxv., No. 319. of the Royal Oak are now fenced in by a handsome 
brick wall (circa 1677). 
Cider Poems by In a poem called Cider—edited by Mr. Charles 
dedicated 1791, | Dunster—written by John Phillips, and dedicated 
to the Hon. Edward Foley, of Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, the oak 
is spoken of as having been cut down and carried off soon after the 
King had used it as a hiding-place, and the one now shown is said 
to be from an acorn of the parent oak. 
Boscobel, by Rev. | The Rev. Henry G. de Bunsen, Rector of Don- 
ei MAL, ington, in a pamphlet published in 1878, gives 
1878. a good deal of evidence for and against the present 
oak being the original tree. The Earl of Bradford appears to me 
to cling to family tradition too much, and rejects the idea that the 
first oak was destroyed. I think a good tradition may be accepted 
as such, but I have proved many to be unreliable, and am quite 
satisfied in my own mind that the present tree is not the one into 
which His Majesty climbed. 
Of its descendants, one used to grow on the site of Marlborough 
House, near St. James’s, London, and one in the Botanic Gardens, - 
Chelsea. The old tree, covered with ivy, and protected by an iron 
fence, which stands, or lately stood, near the Powder Magazine in 
Hyde Park, is said to have been planted from an acorn of the original 
Boscobel Oak by King Charles II. One near Donington Church 
Letter, Rev. W. was a good specimen, and there is a notice about it 
ee Deseo in the parish register. It was planted by the 
Rectory. Rector, Dean Woodhouse, but it is feared that it 
has been inadvertently cut down. Other trees from the present—or 
