96 AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 



time have the distinction for a season of being 

 the abode of a Saxon king. There is good reason 

 for believing that Monmouth, on his escape from 

 Sedgmoor, was making, by way of the New Forest, 

 for Lymington, the mayor of which place was 

 preparing to receive him having raised a troop 

 of men for his support and assistance. From 

 Ringwood the fugitive wrote his memorable 

 letters to the King, the Dowager Queen, and the 

 Lord Treasurer, craving for the preservation of 

 his life. Possibly he might have thought he 

 could successfully, for a time, elude his pursuers 

 by secreting himself in the forest. Gilpin, writing 

 just a hundred years after the event, says, re- 

 ferring to the incident in connexion with Eing- 

 wood, ' It was thought that he intended to have 

 secured himself in the woods of New Forest, with 

 which he was well acquainted from having fre- 

 quently hunted in them.' Gilpin adds, ' I have 

 heard a tradition, that his body after his execution 

 was sent down into the forest and buried privately 

 in Boldre churchyard ; but I cannot find any 

 ground for the surmise. The register of the year 

 is yet extant, in which no notice is taken of any 



