134 COACHING DAYS AND COACHING WAYS 



Eleanor of Brittany, sister of Prince Arthur ; Mary, sixth 

 daughter of Edward I., with thirteen ladies to keep her 

 company. This was in 1285. In 1292 Eleanor, Queen of 

 Henry III., died here, and Katharine of Aragon stayed 

 for a while here on her first arrival in England in 1501. 



Shortly after this came the dissolution, when a some- 

 what similar fate befell the old abbey as that which 

 turned the castle at Marlborough into a posting inn 

 and a public school. In point of fact, the abbey of Ames- 

 bury became Amesbury Abbey, and passed from the Earl 

 of Somerset, to whom it was granted by Henry VIII. , into 

 the respective hands of the Aylesburys,Boylcs,and Queens- 

 bcrrys, till, after the death of the fourth Duke of Queens- 

 berry, the estate was bought by Sir Edmund Antrobus, 

 in the possession of which family it still remains. 



Under the hospitable roof of the Duke and Duchess 

 of Queensberry, when they were in possession at the 

 abbey, the genial Gay passed the latter years of his 

 epicurean life, " was lapped in cotton," as Thackeray 

 has it, and " had his plate of chicken and saucer of cream, 

 and frisked, and barked, and wheezed, and grew fat, and 

 died." It was here that he wrote the Beggar s Opera 

 (inspired by how many personal recollections of high- 

 waymen, I wonder, gleaned on journeys between 

 Amesbury and the capital ?), and in the garden there 

 is shown, or used to be, a curious stone-room, built in a 

 bank and overlooking the Avon (here famous for its 

 trout), which is said to have been the poet's study. But I 

 dare say that this is an allegory. The dining room would 

 have been a more likely place for it I should have said. 



The Exeter road after leaving Amesbury mounts 

 straightway on to Salisbury Plain again, and two 

 miles from the town passes on the right Stonehenge, 

 which I shall not write about, because everybody 

 has written about it, and most people have read 

 what has been written. If anybody however who 

 has not seen it, should chance to be in the 

 neighbourhood I would advise them (without troub- 



