was his custom to write for some hours in private for the foreign mail, which gave him the chance to escape unperceived.
For the rest, Hampton Court saw no more of the alarums and excursions of the time till 1648, when a skirmish occurred just outside its bounds, in which "the beautiful Francis Villiers," second son to my Lord Duke of Buckingham, King Charles's and King James's dead friend, met his death. In the months that followed the execution of Charles, orders were given for the valuation of all the property at Hampton Court, surveys were made of the boundaries of the Honour, inventories taken of the contents of the Palace. The collection of pictures, which had been Charles's choicest treasure, was sold. Some of the pictures, notably the cartoons of Raffaelle and the "Triumph" of Mantegna, were preserved. The house itself remained, it would seem, uninhabited, till, when Cromwell was made Protector, it was given for his use. He had already refused it when the House of Commons in September 1653 had instructed Anthony Ashley Cooper—
"The loudest bagpipe in the squeaking train"—
to offer it him in exchange for New Hall, Essex (the residence in old days of the Colts, from whom came Sir Thomas More's first wife), which he had bought when the Duke of Buckingham's property was sequestrated. Now, as a State residence,he entered gladly upon its possession, and between it and White-
