THE OAK. 



85 



by the present proprietor after the pattern of 

 those which existed in the time of Charles II. 

 Of the tree itself very few, and these imperfect, 

 records remain. Old Plaxton speaks of it as a 

 fair spreading tree, the boughs of it all lined and 

 covered with ivy," and that in the thick of it the 

 King and Carlos sat. This agrees well with the 

 description of it which the King himself gives in 

 his narrative, A great Oak that had been lopped 

 some three or four years before, and, being growTi 

 out again very bushy and thick, could not be seen 

 through ; and here we staid all the day." This 

 would be an excellent hiding-place ; for, says Mr. 

 Dale, I have frequently observed that an old 

 Pollard Oak, standing on a bank and overhanging 

 the road between the Churches of Albrighton and 

 Donington, about one hundred yards from each, 

 would afford a secure retreat for two or three per- 

 sons from the observation of all passers by." 



It will be seen by the extract from Evelyn's 

 Sylva, that in 1662 it had ceased to be a living 

 monmnent of the event to which it owes its cele- 

 brity. Not many years after, its poor remains 

 were fenced in by a handsome brick wall ; " but 

 all in vain. Every vestige of the original tree has 

 disappeared from the spot for more than a cen- 

 tury. Mr. Dale thinks, from inquiries made in 

 the vicinity from persons whose age, if they were 

 now alive, would exceed a hundred, that the last 

 remnants w^ere taken away about the year 1734. 



The handsome brick w^all above alluded to 

 stood until the year 1817, having been repaired 

 in 1787 by Basil and Eliza Fitzherbert, who also 

 attached a new inscription. Mr. Dale has been 

 unable to discover any written account of the 



