GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



only to their sovereign's life and throne, but to the security of the 

 Protestant religion. 



On a certain day mentioned by Lysons, two-and-eight pence 

 was paid " for the Queen's Majestic being at Putney for vyttels 

 for the ringers," and, as the beautiful bells of Fulham church rang 

 their merriest over and over again on similar occasions between 

 the years 1579 and 1603, the parish of Fulham must have been 

 heavily mulcted as the result of the royal favour, for during that 

 time Queen Elizabeth paid many visits to a certain commoner 

 named Lacy, who dwelt in a house near the waterside at Putney, 

 in full view probably, of the windows of the bishop's house on 

 the opposite bank of the Thames. We will let Lysons tell his 

 own story in his own words : ' ' It appears by several subsequent 

 entries that the Queen's visits were to Mr. Lacy, of whom I have 

 not been able to find any account than that he was a citizen of 

 London, and of the Cloth workers Company. Her Majesty no 

 doubt derived either convenience or amusement from his ac- 

 quaintance, for she seems to have honoured him with her company 

 more frequently than any other of her subjects, and sometimes 

 stayed at Putney for two or three nights." There are the bell- 

 ringing records of these visits long prior to Bishop Fletcher's ap- 

 pointment, so that to this friendship, if we may call it such, she 

 was curiously constant, and one cannot help wondering wherein 

 lay the attraction, when one learns that she dined at Mr. Lacy's 

 three times during 1596, and stayed there three days in March 

 of the same year. She was there again one night in 1597, two 

 nights in 1601, and dined there on January the 21st, 1602, shortly 

 before her death. It would seem that on all these occasions the 

 bells of Fulham Church were rung, although the Queen's barge 

 must have landed her at Putney, on the Surrey side of the river. 

 That this mysterious Mr. Lacy, for nearly a quarter of a century, 

 enjoyed the favour of Elizabeth showed that she could be as 

 steady in her attachments, as unforgiving in her displeasure, when 

 such an one as the unlucky Bishop Fletcher had incurred it. 



Richard Bancroft, Chaplain to Elizabeth, who was raised to 

 the See of London in 1597, was honoured with visits at Fulham 

 both from Elizabeth and James, and was chief overseer of the latest 

 translation of the Bible. At a conference at Hampton Court he 

 acquitted himself with so ; much prudence that James, in 1604, 



78 



