ILLUSTRATIONS. HAMPDEN MANOR, THE SEAT OF THE PATRIOT HAMPDEN.-(Title Page.) Lutterworth (Wiclif's) Church... Chair in which the Reformer died Lutterworth Bridge-the Stream into which his Bones were Whitehall, as it existed in 1746 86 Hampden Church-with the Funeral Procession of John 135 Hampden House-Residence of John Hampden 141 Kimbolton, Hunts-Rectory of Philip Nye 145 Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster-Scene of the Assembly of PAGE Baxter's ancient Pulpit, Kidderminster 232 Old Savoy-Scene of the "Savoy Conference" 244 Gateway of Lancaster Castle-Prison-house of early Quakers.... 270 Lancaster Castle-Place of Confinement of George Fox.... 273 The solitary Prison-island in the Frith of Forth 324 Bass Rock-the Cage of the Covenanters 326 Thumbscrews-Instruments of Torture 330 Church at Elstow, Bedfordshire-where Bunyan was born..... 331 Old Foundry, City-road, London-Scene of Wesley's first Labours 368 The Drawings are by ANELAY (principally from Sketches by the Author), engraved by DICKES. CHAPTER I. THE LIGHT OF A DARK AGE. "Fame's lasting register Shall leave his name enrolled as great as those Lines to the Memory of A. Marvell, 1678. No part of England is more rich in historical associations than its midland counties. Though neither statues nor obelisks mark the spots where our ancestors struggled for freedom or for truth, the scenes are sacred; and Bucking B hamshire, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, and Leicestershire offer points not less memorable than were Platæa, Marathon, and Thermopylæ in Grecian story. Our first journey with the reader shall be taken to the last of the counties we have named, and to the secluded, yet not altogether inconsiderable, town of Lutterworth. The traveller is here in the centre of England. Not far distant is Leicester, where Richard III. buckled on his armour for the battle of Bosworth,-a conflict which delivered the country from a cruel tyrant and a disputed succession; and which, ending the wars of the Roses, introduced a new era. In the same town Wolsey breathed out his troubled spirit when protestantism, headed by Anne Boleyn, became for the moment triumphant, and the cardinal began to stand in the way of his master. There, too, John Bunyan's life was spared, when an accidental circumstance substituted a comrade in his place; and so saved the future saint from death, that he might devote a rich genius to the cause of religion and of truth. Not far from Lutterworth, in the village of Thurcaston, Hugh Latimer was born. And on another side of the town, stand the height and village of Naseby, memorable for that great conflict which displayed the military prowess of Cromwell, changed the fortunes of a great empire, and proved the ruin of a despotic tyrant and a perjured prince. The scenery about Lutterworth is not of the highest order. But the country, though flat, is fertile; consisting of rich, level, grazing land, interspersed with good trees. If, in visiting the town, the traveller shall expect many memorials of the past, he will be disappointed; few antiquarian curiosities remain. Five centuries are, in truth, a huge period in the history of man, and most human structures crumble down before it: "The lines where beauty lingers" are altogether swept away, so far as the town itself is concerned; and for the characteristic buildings of the period most in his mind-for the sharp gables with over |