KING JOHN AT KINGSCLERE 255 



as with a mantle, as the chalk on the surface gives 

 place to clay, on which the wood grows.' The 

 same writer bewails the fact that an ' ancient royal 

 estate and hunting seat of the early Plantagenet 

 Kings passed,' in the process of parcelling out the 

 sequestered lands, 'into the hands of the Regicide 

 Bradshaw.' It was Lord Cottington, the royalist, 

 who was dispossessed. Having given offence to 

 the parliamentary party, his estates, including ' all 

 the parks or lands enclosed, called or known by the 

 name of Freemantle Park,' were confiscated. At 

 the Restoration, Lord Cottington's nephew, Francis, 

 succeeded in recovering possession of his estates. 

 If Bradshaw had shared with Old Noll a sports- 

 man's appreciation of a thoroughbred — for the Lord 

 Protector loved a good race-horse — we might have 

 found some trace of it to-day at Kingsclere. But 

 Bradshaw does not appear to have possessed a 

 single redeeming foible. As it is, we only hear of 

 him as a sordid usurper. 



In recalling royal association with the Kingsclere 

 Downs one feels that but scant justice has been done 

 to a monarch who was a frequent visitor to 

 Kingsclere, and whose name survives in that of 

 King John's Hill. In his ' Notes on King John's 

 Hunting Lodge at Kingsclere' Mr. W. Money 

 throws some curious light on an interesting subject. 

 The king stayed longer here, when on his sporting 

 expeditions, than at any other of his numerous 

 quarters. Local tradition had assigned the position 

 of this chdtelet-de-chasse to Cottington's Hill, and 



