28o THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book XI. 



waters. This place, as well as Epping, belongs to the bishop- 

 ric of London, to which it was given by the same prince. 

 They stopped at the principal inn in the place, and found there 

 everything necessary for the accommodation of the court ; it 

 being abundantly provided, as indeed are all the other inns in 

 England, with everything that can be wanted ; the more so, 

 as the landlady boasts of her relationship by blood to the 

 Protector Cromwell. His highness retired, and supped as 

 usual. 



" On the 7th, having heard mass privately, his highness set 

 off, and pursued his journey on horseback, through all that 

 tract of country which lies betwixt Bishop's Stortford and 

 Audley End, the celebrated seat of my Lord James Howard, 

 Earl of Suffolk. The road, for the most part, was an uneven 

 plain, which near the villa rises into a gentle eminence, whence 

 is discovered the palace of Audley End, situated at no great 

 distance from the castle of Ansgar, in the bosom of a beautiful 

 valley, watered by several rivulets ; these uniting, form a lake 

 abounding with trout, over which is a bridge of stone." . . . 



The writer there gives a long description of Audley End, 

 and three illustrations of that palatial seat. Resuming his 

 narrative he says — " Having passed the borders and reached 

 the territory of Cambridge, the country was not very different 

 in point of fertility, from that which we had already passed 

 over ; but not so as to the salubrity of the air, which is less 

 healthy on account of the fens ; these, exhaling perpetual 

 vapours, render the atmosphere dense, and extremely un- 

 wholesome. His highness, before evening, reached New- 

 market (where, at an inn called the Maidens, almost opposite to 

 the king's house, quarters had been prepared by his highness's 

 courier) at the precise time that his majesty, with the duke 

 and Prince Rupert, had arrived the preceding day. They 

 had returned from seeing the city of Ely, which is situated not 

 far off, in a tract of land the most marshy of any in the 

 country, called by the peasants the Isle of Ely. . . . 



" As soon as his highness alighted from his carriage, he 

 went to the king's house, which compared with other seats 

 of the English nobility, does not deserve the name of a royal 



