heralds and genealogists-were descended from one Otho, who came over with the Conqueror, and obtained a grant of Carew Castle, in Pembrokeshire, and they bore for their arms, " Or, three lions passant in pale sable." The Carews can boast that they produced some distinguished sons, among whom was Giraldus Cambrensis, the celebrated historian. Sir Nicholas Carew, the first actual owner of Beddington who bore that name, was a man of note in the reign of the third Edward, under whom he served as a Knight of the Shire and Keeper of the Privy Seal, and of whose will he became executor. The manor of Beddington remained vested in the hands of the Carews till the reign of Henry VIII., when its holder, another Sir Nicholas, the "Lieutenant of Calais, Master of the Horse, and a Knight of the Garter," having incurred the displeasure of that arbitrary monarch, was attainted and executed on Tower Hill, his broad lands being seized by the King, who took up his residence at Beddington, and

held a Council there. He even went a step further, and granted the manor to the proud D'Arcyes of Chiche, to whom Sir Francis Carew was glad to pay a round sum of money, in order " to make assurance doubly sure," upon obtaining restitution of Beddington from Queen Mary, in whose service he had risen to favour and influence. It was this Sir Francis who rebuilt the mansion of Beddington Park, the great hall of which now alone remains standing, according to Mr. Smee, who adds that the great door of its hall has a curious and ancient lock, very richly wrought, the key-hole of which is concealed by a shield bearing the arms of England in the Tudor times. Queen Elizabeth honoured Sir Francis with her presence at Beddington in August, 1599, when she spent three days at his mansion and held her Court; and again in the August of the following year.

The following quaint account, which Mr. Smee quotes from Sir Hugh Platt's "Garden of Eden," is strictly in keeping with the plan of his book, and it serves, moreover, to show what pains were taken to keep back cherries, the favourite fruit of Queen Elizabeth, for the table of that Queen :

Here I will conclude with a conceit of that delicate knight, Sir Francis Carew,

who, for the better accomplishment of his royal entertainment of our late Queen of happy memory at his house at Beddington, led Her Majesty to a cherry-tree, whose fruit he had of purpose kept back from ripening at the least one month after all other cherries had taken their farewell of England. This secret he performed by straining a tent or cover of canvas over the whole tree, and wetting the same

now and then with a scoop or horn, as the heat of the weather required; and so, by withholding the sun-beams from reflecting upon the berries, they both grew great, and were very long before they had gotten their cherry colour; and, when he was assured of Her Majesty's coming, he removed the tent, when a few sunny days brought them to their full maturity.

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH BANK ACROSS THE LAKE.

It is almost needless to add that this Sir Francis appears to have been not only a clever and cunning courtier, but also an excellent horticulturist, and to have forestalled at Beddington much of the work which Mr. Smee has carried out two centuries later in his garden at Wallington; and it is interesting to be reminded by our author that it was he to whom we owe the first introduction into this country and cultivation of orange-trees, which are supposed to have been brought to England at his suggestion by Sir Walter Raleigh, who was married to the niece of the Beddington squire. If this be really so, we ought all to feel very grateful to Sir Francis Carew, and none of us more so than the orange merchants of Covent-garden, large and small.

To show that Mr. Smee is not speaking at random when he praises the horticultural skill of Sir Francis Carew, let us here put on

record the following account of the orangery at Beddington, taken by him from the twelfth volume of his "Archæologia."

Beddington Gardens, at present (1796) in the hands of the Duke of Norfolk, but belonging to the family of Carew, has in it the best orangery in England. The orange and lemon-trees there grow in the ground, and have done so for nearly a hundred years, as the gardener, an aged man, said that he believed. There are a great number of them, the house wherein they are being above two hundred feet long; they are most of them thirteen feet high, and very full of fruit, the gardener not having taken off them so many flowers this year (1796) as usually do others. He said that he gathered off them at least ten thousand oranges this last year. The heir of the family being now but about five years of age, the trustees take care of the orangery, and this year they built a new house over them. There are some myrtles growing among them, but they look not well for want of trimming. The rest of the garden is all out of order, the orangery being the gardener's chief care, but it is capable of being made one of the best gardens in England, the soil being very agreeable, and a clear silver stream running through it.

Mr. Smee, we think, might fairly claim even greater credit for his work at Wallington, for there he had to contend with a soil which at first was anything but "very agreeable," so that his results, great and

small, have been accomplished in the face of difficulties with which the lords of Beddington never had to contend.

For the remaining history of the Carew family and of their mansion

at Beddington, we are largely indebted to Mr. Smee's researches. He tells us that Sir Francis, that "grand old gardener" and courtier in one, died a bachelor in May, 1611, at the venerable age of eighty-one, leaving his estates to his nephew, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who

BEDDINGTON CHURCH, FROM MR. SMEE'S GARDEN.

took the name and arms of Carew on inheriting Beddington. It was in the time of this Sir Nicholas that Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded, and it was to him that Sir Walter's widow, his sister, addressed a request to the effect that he might be buried in Beddington Church. It does not appear from history, nor does Mr. Smee inform us, whether this request was refused or subsequently withdrawn by Sir Walter's widow; but, at all events, Sir Walter Raleigh was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, while his head, after being cut off by the axe of the executioner, was sent to his son at West Horseley, in Surrey, where it was interred. The letter itself, as given by Mr. Smee, is well worth preserving, and accordingly we reproduce it here:

To my best B[rother], Sirr Nicholes Carew, at Beddington.-I desair, good brother, that you will be pleased to let me berri the worthi boddi of my nobell hosbar, Sirr Walter Ralegh, in your chorche at Beddington-wher I desair to be berred. The lordes have given me his ded boddi, though they denyed me his life. This nit hee shall be brought you with two or three of my men. Let me her (hear) presently. E. R. God holde me in my wites.

The lands at Beddington remained in the hands of the Carews till the year 1791, when Sir Nicholas H. Carew, Bart. (whose father had been raised to that title in 1715) left them to his only daughter for life, and then, at her death, to the eldest son of Dr. John Fountain, Dean of York; and if he had no son (which in the event proved to be the case), then he entailed them, by his will, on the eldest son of Richard Gee, Esq., of Orpington, in Kent, who took the name and arms of Carew by Royal license, his grandmother having been born a Carew. On his dying a bachelor in 1816, he bequeathed Beddington to the widow of his brother William, Mrs. Anne Paston Gee, and she again, at her death, in 1828, devised the estate to Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell, who thereon took the name of Carew. His son, Captain Carew, some twenty years ago, sold the estate, with its mansion, orangeries, park, and deer. The rest of the story may be briefly told. The proud Hall of Beddington, where Queen Elizabeth and her Court were once entertained, is now a public institution; and the old stock of the Carews, in spite of having been bolstered up by entails and adoptions of the name by descendants in the female line, passed away last year, when the last bearer of the name died, homeless and landless, in one of the lesser streets of London. Such are, indeed, the "vicissitudes of families."

We must leave Mr. Smee to tell our readers the history of Beddington parish church, its tower, nave, and aisles, its mortuary chapel, its brasses and other monuments, and its recent restoration under the