i8o THE BATH ROAD 



elderly charmer, wliom by some means Wild Will had 

 seduced from her husband, and whose letters, still 

 preserved, to her " deare Dorrell " are not so improving 

 as the recipient's other reading. One learns from 

 these choice communications that Lady Anne had 

 been accused of murder, adultery, and trjdng to 

 poison her husband ; and, under the circumstances, it 

 seems quite likely that all these charges were well- 

 founded, even though she says that " Inker and gaine 

 makes many dissembling and hollow hearts " (which 

 sounds like one of the admirable copy-book maxims 

 of our youth), and that she anticipates being cleared 

 from suspicion of these " vill and abomynabell prac- 

 tiscis." Add to these hot-blooded intrio-ues the 

 extravao-ances which, too'ether with his litigious dis- 

 position, served to ruin his estate and to bring him 

 into disfavour with his neighbours, and we obtain the 

 genesis of all the ill-favoured legends of this pictu- 

 resque figure of the Elizabethan era. 



XXX 



LiTTLECOTE had not done with stirring scenes when 

 Darell was dead and the Pophams took possession. 

 The Great Hall, hung round with pikes, leather 

 jerkins, helmets, and cuirasses of Cromwellian times, 

 serves to tell, in its warlike array, of how the place 

 became a rendezvous of the Roundheads of this 

 vicinity. These relics are the arms and accoutre- 

 ments of the Popham Horse, raised by Colonel 

 Alexander Popham, whose own suit of armour is 



