FULHAM PALACE 



taken cold, *' and so ended his life, but I thank God there is none 

 sickness in my house." 



" Gardens," in the language of Fuller, " began to creep out of 

 Holland into England in the reign of Henry VIII." In that of 

 Elizabeth, the revived interest in horticulture was stimulated by 

 patronage in high quarters, and these influences made them- 

 selves particularly felt at Fulham. The reason for this is not far 

 to seek. John Gerarde, whose "Herbal," published in 1597, and 

 described by him as 4 'the first fruit of these mine own labours, "- 

 was for twenty years head-gardener, or superintendent, to Cecil 

 Lord Burleigh, whose celebrated gardens at Theobalds, in Hert- 

 fordshire, were supposed to have partly inspired Bacon's famous 

 essay " On Gardens." Cecil was the friend of Grindal, and he and 

 his head-gardener probably assisted the bishop with advice con- 

 cerning the cultivation of the grounds attached to his residence. 

 One can easily conceive of a pleasant rivalry in this respect between 

 the master of Fulham and the owner of Theobalds. That Elizabeth 

 herself, when she visited the palace, was interested in the improve- 

 ment and growing beauty of the gardens, is pretty well established 

 by an episode in the life of the next Bishop of London, an episode 

 to which I am coming. 



How Grindal, when Archbishop of Canterbury, fell under the 

 Queen's displeasure, and was never visited by her after he was 

 translated to Lambeth, and how and wherefore he was suspended 

 from the performance of his archiepiscopal duties and not restored 

 until 1582, and how towards the end of his life he became prema- 

 turely old, feeble, and blind, is well known, and belongs not so much 

 to the story of Fulham as to that of Lambeth. 



Bishop Aylmer, or Elmer, his successor in the See of London, 

 does not seem to have shared Grindal's taste for horticulture ; 

 he appears to have somewhat neglected the gardens, and is said to 

 have destroyed several trees. But Strype, in his biography, says, 

 " he only cut down two or three decayed ones." It is not clear 

 whether Faulkner refers to this when, speaking of the bishop, he 

 tells us that " one of the greatest troubles he ever had was an 

 information lodged against him for cutting down the wood belong- 

 ing to his See at Fulham, which he was restrained from doing by 

 the Queen's Order, after the matter had been investigated by the 

 Council." " Wood," in this connection, may have meant a grove, 



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