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 Majestie 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 certdin 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 Clothworkers 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, 
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