CHARLES I. AT KINGSCLERE 259 



omits to mention his authority — ' on the adjoining 

 Cannon Heath it is said that Eclipse was trained.' 

 Even as Mr. Shore has found in the quaint place- 

 name Nothing Hill a modification of the Saxon 

 Mo-thing or Mote-thing Hill, so does he trace the 

 Canons of Rouen, who were lords of the manor of 

 Kingsclere until the time of Edward III., in Cannon 

 Park, Cannon Park Farm, and Cannon Heath. It 

 is not easy to resist the temptation to write both 

 minutely and at large of the romance of history 

 which impregnates these noble Downs. To treat 

 the theme right worthily — well, would require the pen 

 of a Charles Reade. How the author of ' The 

 Cloister and the Hearth ' would have beaten out and 

 fashioned the pure gold of imperishable fiction from 

 such nuggets of fact as these : ' Kingsclere,' says 

 Mr. Money, ' being on the high road between the 

 royal garrisons of Oxford and Basing House, felt no 

 trifling portion of the military tempests that swept 

 over this part of England during the Civil War 

 between Charles I. and his Parliament. The king- 

 marched along these Downs with his army, on his 

 way to the West from Oxford, shortly before the 

 second battle of Newbury in 1644. On the night 

 of October 21 Charles slept in the house of Mr. 

 Towers at Frobury, about a mile from Kingsclere. 

 Part of the old mansion is now occupied as a farm- 

 house, on the south side of which are the remains 

 of an ancient domestic chapel. A portion of the 

 stone pulpit was in the building within the last 



