and at the golden gates of palaces. Two thousand guests in 1483 were entertained at Christmas, by Edward IV., whose daughter Bridget, who afterwards assumed the coif and wimple among the nuns of Dartford, was born here.
A more memorable personage, Philippa of Clarence, was cradled here; she married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March; and in her children centered the title to the crown of England.
In this palace, unhappy Henry VI., unconscious of his critical position, forsook his studies to hunt and follow field sports, under the watchful eye of his keeper, the Earl of March, while his wife and son, for whom he had restored the palace, were sheltering in Harlech Castle.
Henry VII. at intervals retired to Eltham, and Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth would spend a few days in the almost forsaken palace, and King James I. has been known to pass a morning visit here; but Greenwich and Theobald’s appeared to be more inviting to kings and queens, and the hall was left to the keeping of Sir John Gates, till his head fell on the scaffold; to Sir Christopher Hatton, “the dancing Chancellor;” and last of all, to Sir Robert, Earl of Essex, the noted general of the Parliament, who died here, 1646. The manor was afterwards bestowed on loyal Sir John Shaw, who befriended Charles II., when in exile at Brussels and Antwerp.
There is little to attract attention in the quiet rural village of Eltham, whose name of Eald-ham, the old home, takes us back to the memory of a time long since past. Its street is now no more rendered lively by the cheerful bugle and the rattling wheels of the coaches to Folkstone and Maidstone; but its inn-gardens, with games of Mississippi and bowls, attract still the holiday makers of Woolwich and Charlton, on bright sunny afternoons, in summer and autumn. The training and breeding stables of Messrs. Blenkiron, often filled with as many as 500 horses, many of them of great value, and the passage of artillery on the march, may be reckoned among the chief objects of interest and enlivenment in the little village. Its church of St. John Baptist boasts a shingled spire, and a few architectural remains, in the north aisle, comparatively ancient, by contrast to the ugly brickwork and modern windows, which constitute the large portion of the structure. The interior will not repay inspection, but there are some graves and monuments that deserve a mention. Here lies memorable John Dogget, co-manager with Wilks of Drury Lane theatre, for whom Congreve wrote stage-parts, and whose name is still preserved by the badge and coat which he offered as an annual prize for watermen, in loyal commemoration of the accession of George I. Sir W. James, of Severndroog fame; and Bishop George Horne, well known for his Commentary on the Psalms, are both buried here.
There have been well-known names connected with Eltham: here lived John Lilburne, who exchanged a captain’s buff doublet and morion for a