142
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. AUG. 23, 1902.
tions and descriptions of the various houses
and hiding-places which had sheltered the
king immediately after the battle of Wor-
cester, and many other places and articles of
interest, portraits, &c., connected therewith.
In fact, it may be said to be the complement
or an up-to-date edition of Mr. Hughes 's book.
In this work Mr. Fea refers to my Dorset
pamphlet. To me the Dorset portion of his
work was particularly interesting, in that it
showed one of the houses which I had been
unable to locate that " lonely house, situated
about a mile and a half from Oharmouth,
among the hills to the north," at which Capt.
Ellesdon (the author of the ' Letter to Lord
Clarendon ' which appears in the thirteenth
book of the ' History of the Rebellion ') met
the fugitive king on his way down from
Trent into Charmouth "an old thatched
building known to this day as Elsdon's Farm,"
at Monkton Wyld, an ecclesiastical parish
carved out of Whitechurch Canonicorum.*
General public interest having by Mr. Fea's volume and by another kindred work, by Dr. Osmund Airy, which I have not yet had an opportunity of seeing been aroused in what the then Bishop of Llandaff (in a letter to Mr. Hughes in 1827) termed " by far the most romantic piece of English history we possess," it was only to be expected that local interest in the subject would be quickened.
And so about a year ago (May, 1901) appeared in the Dorset County Chronicle an interesting letter from a correspondent sign- ing himself " Lee Lane " (the pseudonym being taken from the name of a lane about half a mile from Bridport, on the Dorchester road, down which the king is alleged to have turned on his way to Broad Windsor on 23 September, 1651), calling attention to the fact that within a few months would occur the 250th anniversary of King Charles's visit to the county, and advocating the erection of a memorial at the corner of the above lane to mark the occasion, a monumental design for which was sketched in detail. The pro-
- How narrowly Mr. Fea's book escaped having
any illustration or detailed description of this " lonely house," and what happy accident it was that put its author on the right track to discover it on the eve of the publication of his book, is plea- santly told by Mr. Fea in a letter to the Dorset County Chronicle in July of last year. He says : "Mr. Udal told me of his disappointment in not being able to locate this solitary house amongst the hills. This acted as a stimulant, and I explored those beautiful hills minutely over and over again, with maps, compass, and ancient records, but to no purpose." Alas for the influence of the tropics on one's memory ! I have quite forgotten this inci- dent, and, still worse, the fact of my ever having met Mr. Fea.
posal for a memorial I myself supported from
the distant West Indies, and at the same
time suggested that, in addition to any monu-
ment at Lee Lane, commemorative tablets
might be affixed by the Dorset Field Club, as
the premier antiquarian society in the county,
to those four houses in Dorset which had
been indicated in my paper and in Mr. Fea's
book as having actually sheltered the king.
For some reason or other, whilst certain subscriptions were promised, neither of these suggestions was taken up by the Dorset Field Club or by any other local responsible body ; and eventually '* Lee Lane,"* who had offered a generous donation in support of his proposal, signified his intention of himself erecting, anonymously and at his own expense, the proposed memorial at the corner of Lee Lane, though in a somewhat less elaborate form than he had at first suggested.
On 23 September last, then, the 250th an- niversary of the king's escape, the memorial was unveiled. Its design had been well carried out by Mr. Milverton, marble mason of Bridport, and consisted of a large plinth of Portland stone supporting a very tine slab of Bothenhampton stone, rising to the height of 10ft. from the ground. It stood, covered with the Union Jack, under a weather-beaten old oak tree at the head of the lane, bearing the following inscription :
King Charles II,
Escaped Capture through this Lane September xxiii., MDCLI.
When midst your fiercest foes on every side,
For your escape God did a Lane provide.
(Thomas Fuller's ' Worthies.') Erected September xxiii., MDCCCCI.
It was unveiled by Mr. James Penderel-Brod- hurst, the well-known writer and journalist, and a descendant of the Penderels of Boscobel, in the presence of a fairly represen- tative company. Mr. Broadley was present and took a leading part in the ceremony, whilst Miss Lane Brown, a descendant of the Lanes of Bentley, co. Stafford, placed a crown of oak-leaves upon the monument.
At the conclusion Mr. Lomas, one of the Magdalen College, Oxford, glee singers, sang Sir Walter Scott's ballad ' Here 's a health to King Charles.' Thus was brought to a happy issue an interesting historic ceremony, of
' It subsequently transpired that "Lee Lane
was the pseudonym of Mr. A. M. Broadley, who
will be remembered as having some years ago been
the leading counsel for the notorious Arabi the
Egyptian, and as the author of ' Tunis ' and other
works, and who had some time previously taken
up his residence in the neighbouring parish of
Bradpole, of which his father had for many years
jeen vicar.
