INTRODUCTION. 281 



A fine old apartment in the Manor-hall had 

 served many purposes. If walls were biographers, 

 curious and eventful would have been the memoirs 

 recorded there. Masses to propitiate success, and 

 Te Deums for victories gained, had been celebrated 

 within it. During the wars of the Roses, often in- 

 to that room, at the sound of the festal gong, had 

 the dancing minstrels chaunting the " Caput api*i 

 defero!" ushered in the boar's head "garnished 

 with rosemary," and the steaming haunch, to re- 

 gale the turbulent partizans of the house of Tudor ! 

 And in after- times, the noisy Cavaliers made it re- 

 sound with laughter at the expense of their puri- 

 tanical opponents ! It was a large, dusky, oak- 

 wainscoted room, wherein but little of sun-light 

 entered, the large Gothic windows being stained 

 with heraldic devices. It was furnished with a 

 variety of antiquarian relics, to which pertained 

 divers superstitious legends coined in Catholic 

 times for the deception of Protestant posterity, 

 rusty armour, broken lances, housings, bridle-bits 

 and spurs that in the days of chivalry glittered 

 in the tournament, Saxon long bows, arrowless 

 quivers, cross-bows, falchions, an tiers, hunting horns, 

 and fire-arms of every description, from the match- 

 lock of the reign of Hal of Agincourt, down to the 

 well-finished fowling-piece of the successors of Joe 

 Manton. It was furnislied as a library also, and the 

 literary contents were as diversified as the warlike. 



