26o THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book XI. 



ing his extreme poverty, his good humour is astonish- 

 ing. I beheve there never was a prince at the same 

 time so pleasant and so poor/' 



AUDLEY End (frequently alluded to in connection with 

 the royal visits to Newmarket) in the hundred of Uttlesford 

 and county of Essex, is situated in a narrow valley at the 

 western extremity of the parish of Saffron VValden, and distant 

 'one mile from the town bearing that name. It is 46 J miles 

 by rail and 41 by road from London, 14J from Cambridge, 

 12 from Royston, and 22 from Newmarket. Audley End 

 was built by Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, Lord High 

 Treasurer of England in the reigns of Elizabeth and James L 

 The house has always been supposed to have been commenced 

 in 1603, and to have occupied thirteen years before it was 

 entirely finished. This mansion was designed for and intended 

 to surpass in size and magnificence all the private residences 

 in the kingdom. James L frequently visited this palatial 

 seat ; and it was probably on one of these occasions that he 

 made the remark so often quoted, that the house was too 

 large for a king, though it might do for a lord treasurer : an 

 observation which, as applied to a person who had the control 

 of the public purse at a period when the expenditure was not 

 strictly watched, might contain more justice than even the 

 monarch himself imagined. The expense incurred in the 

 building has been variously stated, and must, in the absence 

 of all authentic data, in some measure remain matter of con- 

 jecture. Phillip, Earl of Pembroke, indeed, has recorded in a 

 manuscript note preserved in a copy of Jones's " Stonehenge," 

 that he heard Lord Treasurer Suffolk tell King James that, 

 first and last, inside and outside, with furniture, it cost 

 him ;£"200,ooo : an enormous sum in those times. 



The earliest references to the negotiation which ended in 

 a deed of purchase by which Audley End was nominally 

 acquired by Charles H., will be found in reference to the 

 spring meeting at Newmarket in 1666. On the loth of March 

 the king, with the Duke of York, attended with several persons 



