246 THE MORASTEEN CHAP. Place; afterwards in 1854, to the open space where it now stands opposite the Court-house; on the very spot, they say, where there was once an Anglo-Saxon palace. The railing which surrounds it has been described as "of Saxon-like design," and perhaps that should suffice. On the pedestal which bears up the Stone are the names of the kings who were crowned on it: Edward the Elder, Ethelstan, Edmund, Edred, Edwig, Edward the Martyr, and Ethelred the Unready. What is the Kings' Stone? A morasteen, the archeologists tell you; one of a circle of stones, on which the chief sat in council with his great men; the predecessors of the Anglo-Saxon chiefs would have been Arch-Druids, perhaps, or pontiff kings, acclaimed by ancient Britons centuries before the Romans set foot in Kent. Kingston church, if its architecture is confused and much of it modern, has an imposing solemnity about it, and it contains some strange memorials. One is a stone fragment, on which the grateful survivor of an accident and a ruin has painted the words "Life Preserved." She was Hester Hammerton, daughter of Abram Hammerton, sexton of the church, and in 1729 she XXII THROWING OVER THE CHURCH 247 was helping her father to dig a grave in the churchyard near the Saxon chapel of St. Mary. They dug too near the chapel foundations, and the chapel fell in upon them. The sexton was killed, almost on the spot; his daughter was saved through the jamming of a piece of stone, and survived him as sexton for fifteen years. Another memorial is a brass kept in the vestry; a long screed begins dismally enough-"Ten children in one grave a dreadful sight"; but the verse is unequal to the opportunity. Another brass shows Robert Skern and his wife Joan; she, according to Manning and Bray, was a daughter of Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward III. A fourth monument, said to be in the chancel (but I did not find it), praises Mrs. Mary Morton, daughter of the wife of Robert Honeywood, of Charinge, Kent; she was "the Wonder of her Sex and this Age, for she liv'd to see near 400 issued from her Loynes." So Aubrey describes it, and so, with variations, the local historian. Mrs. Mary Morton died in 1620. Aubrey has another record of the giants of those days. He had heard of one Wiltshire of the Feathers Inn at Kingston, who was a great thrower. He would stand in the churchyard and throw a stone over the weathercock; "he would also throw a stone over the Thames (by the bridge) and struck the pales on the town side, which (I think) was not so difficult as the other throw. He was then of middle stature, and about thirty years of age." But if he had grown to greater stature? The weathercock of those days is no more, or we might measure the throw. Kingston has other history besides its coronation stone and its monuments. The Parish Registers have added pictures of its past. Here is one of two poor women allowed to beg at the church : February 1571. 24. Sonday was here ij wemen the mother and dowghter owte of Ireland she called Elynor Salve to gather upon the deathe of her howsbande a genllman slayne amongst the wylde Iryshe being Captain of Gally glasses and gathered xviijd. Here is a record of a Thames flood, October 9, 1570: Thursday at nyght rose a great winde and rayne that the Temps rosse so hye that they myght row wt botts owte of the Temps a gret waye in to the market place and upon a sodayne. In the year 1572 Kingston got a new cucking stool; the Kingston scolds had become past bearing. It cost £1 35. 4d., 248 PARISH DOG WHIPPERS CHAP. and as soon as it was finished there was a very shrewish woman ducked in it. 1572 August. On Tewsday being the xix daye of this monthe of August- -Downing wyfe to- -Downinge gravemaker of this paryshe she was sett on a new cukking stolle made of a grett hythe and so browght a bowte the markett place to Temes brydge and ther had iij Duckinges over hed and eres becowse she was a common scolde and fyghter. Here are extracts from the burial registers June 4. 1593. John Akerleye wentte too bathe hymsellfe and was drownde & buryede. August 25. 1598. William Hall was bered being shott by thefes when he was Constabl at Coblers Hol. September 28. 1623. slayne. Richard Ratlive a Londenner which was 17 January 162 Wm Foster son of Wm a goer about. This is hardly a burial: July 11. 1629. A Bird called a Cormorant light on the top of the steeple and Aaron Evans shot, but mist it. Here are items from the churchwarden's accounts. The parish dog whipper had become an institution : 1561. To fawcon for di yere (half a year) whyppyng of doggs oute of the churche. viijd 1578. To wrighte for beating the dogges out of the churche, for half a yeare. vjd. But the morris dance-it was the dances that Kingston would spend money upon. There were two kinds of games which brought gifts to the church, May-games and the Kyngham. What sort of a game the Kyngham was nobody knows, but it brought the churchwardens most of their money: four or five pounds was a good collection. But the expenses could be heavy; there were shoes for the morris dancers, six pairs at 8d. a pair; there was silver paper for the dance, 8d. ; and there were for the feast, besides other drinking, a quarter of malt, 4s.; 5 goce (geese), 15d.; eggs, 6d. ; lamb, 18d.; sugar, cloves, and mace, 11d.; small raisins, 3d.; saffern, 2d. ; vinegar and salt, 3d. ; 2 cocks, 18d.; 2 calves, 5s. 8d.; sheep, 12d.; lamb, 16d. ; quarter of veal, 8d. ; quarter of mutton, 6d. ; leg of veal and a neck, 4d. The morris dancers did well, with silver paper and new shoes; but the church kept a feast, XXII LORD FRANCIS VILLIERS'S FIGHT 249 Kingston has the credit of the first and the last battles in the Parliamentary wars, but the claim is a little shaky. There was an affair of outposts between Rupert's cavalry and some Parliamentarian troops between Oatlands and Kingston bridge in the year 1642-after Edgehill-but it was not a battle. The real battle of Kingston came six years later, and ended all the warfare that Surrey saw. That was the battle which crushed Lord Holland's scheme of raising London for the King. We shall meet Lord Holland at Reigate; but the fighting belongs to Kingston. Holland, who had planned a rising on Banstead Downs, and had hoped to capture and hold Reigate Castle, was in full retreat. At Reigate he had feared to hold the position he had taken up; he retreated on Dorking, and from Dorking, pursued by Major Audley of Livesey's Horse, he fled north. On Kingston Common, a little south-east of where Surbiton to-day takes train for London, his horse turned on their enemy; his infantry fell back. From each side a few spurred out, "playing valiantly," Audley writes. But the Royalists were beaten. Lord Francis Villiers, younger brother to the Duke of Buckingham, a boy of great personal beauty, fought alone in their rear. His horse was shot under him; he backed towards an elm, and fought with six of them. They came up behind him, pushed off his helmet and cut him to the ground. Report came to London that he was wounded, and orders were sent out to care for him. But he was found dead, and his pockets were rifled. The evening was the end of the war in Surrey. Surbiton trains.-Thames Ditton.-Parks for trotting ponies.--A forlorn garden. The Dandies' Fête.-Graveyard poetry. The Pleasance of a Ferry. Giggs Hill cricket.-Ditton Tulips.-Hampton Bridge.-A dreary road. Walton.-The Scold's Bridle.-John Selwyn and the Stag.-Terror at an elephant.—William Lilly, astrologer. SURBITON is a growth of seventy years, and was born when the railway came. Once it was called a suburb of Kingston; now it has suburbs of its own. Tramways join it to London; the railway empties Surbiton into London every morning and pours London back again in the evening. Nearly seventy trains a day stop at Surbiton on their way down from Waterloo; nearly eighty stop on their way up. It must be quite inspiriting to lose your train, and to know that you have only three minutes to wait; or to catch the train before your train, or to choose which you will have of two trains. Until you realise these figures, it is difficult to understand why so many |