"That even in the present time the custom's not forgot;
But few there are who know the tale connected with the spot,
Though to each baby in the land the nursery-rhymes are told
About the lady robed in white and Banbury Cross of old."
Broughton Castle is a fine castellated mansion a short distance
south-west of Banbury. It dates from the Elizabethan era, and its owner,
Viscount Saye and Sele, in Charles I.'s reign, thinking that his
services were not sufficiently rewarded, took the side of Parliament, in
which his son represented Banbury. When the king dissolved Parliament,
it assembled clandestinely in Broughton Castle. Here the Parliamentary
leaders met in a room with thick walls, so that no sounds could escape.
Here also were raised the earliest troops for the Parliament, and the
"Blue-coats" of the Sayes were conspicuous at the battle of Edgehill,
which was fought only a few miles away. Immediately afterwards King
Charles besieged Broughton Castle, captured and plundered it. This
famous old building witnessed in this way the earliest steps that led to
the English Revolution, and it is kept in quite good preservation.
Subsequently, when Oliver Cromwell became the leader of the
Parliamentary party, he held his Parliament in Banbury at the Roebuck
Inn, a fine piece of architecture, with a great window that lights up
one of the best rooms in England of the earlier days of the Elizabethan
era. A low door leads from the courtyard to this noted council-chamber
where Cromwell held his Parliament, and it remains in much the same
condition as then.
[Illustration: BERKS AND WILTS CANAL.]
Through Oxfordshire is laid out one of those picturesque water-ways of
the olden time--the Berks and Wilts Canal--which, though almost
superseded by the omnipresent railway, still exists to furnish pretty
scenery with its shady towing-paths and rustic swing-bridges. Almost the
only traffic that remains to this canal, which comes out upon the Thames
near Oxford, is carrying timber. The growth of English timber is slow,
but some is still produced by the process of thinning the woods so as to
make shapely trees, for otherwise the tall trunks would force themselves
up almost without spreading branches.