64 THE EXETER ROAD 



flows by the park with glittering golden ripples. 

 The Daughters of Sion, whose relig-ious retreat this 

 was, belonged to the Order of St. Bridget. Their 

 abbey, with its lands and great revenues, was sup- 

 pressed and confiscated by Henry the Eighth in 1532. 

 Nine years later his Queen, Katherine Howard, was 

 imprisoned within the desecrated walls before being 

 handed over to the headsman, and in another seven 

 years the body of the King himself lay here a night 

 on its journey to Windsor. There is a horrid story 

 that tells how the unwieldy corpse of the bloated 

 royal monster burst, and how the dogs drank his 

 blood. 



In the reign of his daughter. Queen Mary, Sion 

 enjoyed a few years' restitution of its rights and 

 property, but when Elizabeth ascended the throne, 

 the ' Daughters ' were finally dispossessed. They 

 wandered to Flanders, and thence, by devious ways, 

 and w^ith many hardships, eventually to Lisbon. 

 The Abbey of Sion yet exists there, and the sisters 

 are still solely Englishwomen. It is on record that 

 they still cherish the hope of returning to their lost 

 home by the banks of the Thames, and have to this 

 day the keys of that abbey. Seventy years or so 

 since, the then Duke of Northumberland, travelling 

 in Portugal, called upon them, and was told of this 

 fond belief. They even showed him the keys. But 

 he was equal to the occasion, and cynically remarked 

 that the locks had been altered since those days I 



