THE OAK. 



83 



Botanic Garden, Chelsea. The former has been 

 long since felled ; and of the latter even the recol- 

 lection seems now almost lost. 



Through the kindness of the Rev. J. Bale, 

 Curate of Donington, the parish in which the 

 Boscobel Oak stands, I am enabled to lay before 

 my readers a full and authentic account of a tree, 

 which, from its connexion with one of the most 

 important events in English History, will always 

 be remembered with interest. 



On a single printed leaf which is pasted in at 

 the end of one of the Parish Registers of Doning- 

 ton, is the following note, in the handvvTiting of 

 the late Rector, Dr. Woodhouse : Extracts 

 from the Philosophical Transactions^ vol, 5, part 

 2nd, chap. 3, written hy the Rev, George Plaxton, 

 Rector of Donington {and Kinyiardsey) from 1690 

 to 1703." Then follows the type. " The Royal 

 Oak was a fair spreading tree ; the boughs of it all 

 lined and covered with ivy. Here, in the thick of 

 these boughs, the King sat in the day-time, with 

 Colonel Carlos, and in the night lodged in Bosco- 

 bel House ; so that they are strangely mistaken 

 who judged it an old hollow Oak, whereas it was 

 a gay and flourishing tree surrounded with a great 

 many more, and, as I remember in Mr. Evelyn's 

 History of Medals, you have one of King James 

 L or Charles I. where there is a fine spread Oak 

 with this epigraph, ^ Seris nepotibus umbra,' 

 which I leave to your thoughts. * * * The poor 

 remains of the Royal Oak are now fenced in by a 

 handsome brick wall, at the charge of Basil Fitz- 

 herbert, Esq., with this inscription over the gate, 

 upon a blue stone in letters of gold : 



