38 THE BATH BO AD 



their son to have been an attorney. The cottage was 

 deserted, and the royal gift of the land partly for- 

 gotten, so that the Lord Chancellor of that period 

 was granted a lease of the ground and began to build 

 a mansion on it. Allen's son had to the full that 

 shrewdness which has made the name of " attorney " 

 so generally detested that those " gentlemen by Act 

 of Parliament " prefer nowadays to call themselves 

 " solicitors." He waited until ray Lord Chancellor 

 had nearly completed his house, and then put forward 

 his claim, finally obtaining £450 per annum as 

 ground rent. He subsequently sold the land out- 

 right, and so Lord Chancellor Henry Bathurst, Baron 

 Apsley, and Earl Bathurst, became the freeholder, 

 and named his residence " Apsley House." The 

 mansion was purchased by the nation for the great 

 Duke of Wellington in 1820. It was, from its situa- 

 tion, long known as " No. 1, London." 



vn 



Let us see what kind of entrance to London this 

 was in olden times. \\\ Queen Mary's day the idea 

 of a road leading so far as Bath seems to have been 

 considered too fantastic for common use, and this was 

 accordingly known as the " waye to Reading." In 

 that reign, which was so reactionary that many were 

 discontented with it, and roused up armed rebellions, 

 the rebel Sir Thomas Wyatt brought his men thus 

 far, having crossed the Thames at Kingston and 

 struo-o-led through the awful sloughs between that 



