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[Illustration: AT HAMPTON COURT]




  THE THAMES


  DESCRIBED BY G. E. MITTON
  PICTURED BY E. W. HASLEHUST


  BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
  LONDON AND GLASGOW




Beautiful England

  BATH AND WELLS
  CANTERBURY
  DARTMOOR
  DICKENS-LAND
  EXETER
  FOLKESTONE AND DOVER
  HAMPTON COURT
  HASTINGS AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
  NORWICH AND THE BROADS
  OXFORD
  THE PEAK DISTRICT
  RIPON AND HARROGATE
  SHAKESPEARE-LAND
  THE THAMES
  WINCHESTER
  YORK

London

  THE HEART OF LONDON
  THROUGH LONDON'S HIGHWAYS
  IN LONDON'S BY-WAYS
  RAMBLES IN GREATER LONDON


Beautiful Scotland

  EDINBURGH
  THE SCOTT COUNTRY
  LOCH LOMOND, LOCH KATRINE, AND THE TROSSACHS


Beautiful Switzerland

  CHAMONIX
  LAUSANNE
  VILLARS AND CHAMPERY


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


  Facing Page

  At Hampton Court      _Frontispiece_

  Windsor                            5

  Richmond                          12

  Marlow Lock                       16

  Maidenhead Bridge                 21

  Cookham Church                    28

  Henley                            33

  Sonning                           37

  Pangbourne                        44

  Folly Bridge, Oxford              48

  Streatley Hills                   51

  Wallingford                       54




[Illustration: WINDSOR]




THE THAMES


When the American wondered what all the fuss was about, and "guessed" that
any one of his home rivers could swallow the Thames and never know it, the
Englishman replied, he "guessed" it depended at which end the process
began; if at the mouth, the American river would probably get no farther
than the "greatest city the world has ever known" before succumbing to
indigestion!

With rivers as with men, size is not an element in greatness, and for no
other reason than that it carries London on its banks the Thames would be
the most famous river in the world. It has other claims too, claims which
are here set forth with pen and pencil; for at present we are not dealing
with London at all, but with that river of pleasure of which Spenser
wrote:--

  Along the shores of silver-streaming Themmes;
  Whose rutty bank, the which his river hemmes,
  Was paynted all with variable flowers,
  And all the meades adorned with dainty gemmes,
  Fit to deck mayden bowres and crowne their paramoures,
  Against the brydale day which is not long,
  Sweet Thames! runne softly till I end my song.

Oddly enough, this is one of the comparatively few allusions to the Thames
in literature, and there is no single striking ode in its honour. It is
perhaps too much to expect the present Poet Laureate to fill the gap, but
certainly the poet of the Thames has yet to arise.

Besides Spenser, Drayton makes allusion to the Thames in his _Polyolbion_,
using as an allegory the wedding of Thame and Isis, from which union is
born the Thames; and in this he is correct, for where Thame and Isis unite
at Dorchester there begins the Thames, and all that is usually counted
Thames, up to Oxford and beyond, is, as Oxford men correctly say, the
Isis. Yet by custom now the river which flows past Oxford is treated as
the Thames, and when we speak of our national river we count its source as
being in the Cotswold Hills.

Other poets who refer to the Thames are Denham, Cowley, Milton, and Pope.
In modern times Matthew Arnold's tender descriptions of the river about
and below Oxford have been many times quoted. Gray wrote an _Ode on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College_, in which he refers to the "hoary
Thames", but the lines apostrophizing the "little victims" at play are
more often quoted than those regarding the river.

The influence of the Thames on the countless sons of England who have
passed through Eton and Oxford must be incalculable. It is impossible to
mention Eton without thinking of Windsor, the one royal castle which
really impresses foreigners in England. Buckingham Palace is a palace in
name only, its ugly, stiff, stuccoed walls might belong to a gigantic box,
but Windsor, with its massive towers and its splendid situation, is castle
and palace both. Well may the German Emperor envy it! It carries in it
something of the character of that other William, the first of the Norman
Kings of England, who saw the possibilities of the situation, though
little of the castle as we see it is due to him. The mass of it is of the
time of Edward III, and much of it was altered in that worst era of taste,
the reign of George IV. Windsor has come scatheless out of the ordeal; the
fine masses of masonry already existing have carried off the alterations
in their own grandeur, and the result is harmonious.

Many and many a tale might be quoted of Windsor, but these are amply told
in _Windsor Castle_ by Edward Thomas, the volume which follows this in
the same series. Here we must be content with quoting only four lines from
_The Kingis Quhair_, the great poem of King James I of Scotland, who spent
part of his long captivity at Windsor. By reason of this poem James I
ranks as high among poets as among kings; in it he speaks of the Thames
as--

            A river pleasant to behold,
  Embroidered all with fresh flowers gay,
  Where, through the gravel, bright as any gold,
  The crystal water ran so clear and cold.

Windsor is the only royal palace, still used as such, which remains out of
the seven once standing on the banks of the Thames. Few people indeed
would be able to recite offhand the names of the others. They are all
below Windsor. The nearest to it is Hampton Court, chiefly associated with
William III, though it was originally founded by the tactless Wolsey, who
dared so to adorn it that it attracted the unenviable notice of Henry
VIII. Little was it to be wondered at, since the Court was described by
Skelton as--

  With turrettes and with toures,
  With halls and with boures,
  Stretching to the starres,
  With glass windows and barres;
  Hanginge about their walles,
  Clothes of gold and palles
  Fresh as floures in May.

Skelton also wrote a satire beginning:--

  Why come ye not to court?
        To whyche court?
  To the Kynge's Court
  Or Hampton Court?
  The Kynge's Court
  Should have the excellence,
  But Hampton Court
  Hath the pre-eminence
  And Yorkes Place,

which was like pouring vitriol into the mind of such a man as Henry. When
Wolsey entertained the French ambassadors at Hampton, "every chamber had a
bason and a ewer of silver, some gilt and some parcel gilt, and some two
great pots of silver, in like manner, and one pot at the least with wine
or beer, a bowl or goblet, and a silver pot to drink beer in; a silver
candlestick or two, with both white lights and yellow lights of three
sizes of wax; and a staff torch; a fine manchet, and a cheat loaf of
bread". No wonder the King's cupidity was aroused. It was not long before
the great Cardinal was forced to make a "voluntary" gift of his beloved
toy, as he had also to do with another noble mansion which he "made" by
Thames side--Whitehall, formerly known as York Place, because held by the
Archbishops of York. When Wolsey was told the King required this, he said
with truth: "I know that the King of his own nature is of a royal
stomach!"

On leaving Hampton the great prelate was allowed to go to the palace at
Richmond. One wonders if he rode from Hampton to Richmond, only a mile or
two by the river bank, on that "mule trapped altogether in crimson velvet
and gilt stirrups". Of the thousands who use that popular towpath does one
ever give a thought to the Cardinal thus setting his first step on his
tremendous downward descent?

It was while he was at Hampton that the news was brought to Henry of the
death of his old favourite at Leicester Abbey. Henry, standing in a
"nightgown of russet velvet furred with sables", heard the news callously,
and only demanded an account of some money paid to the cardinal before his
death; not a qualm disturbed his self-satisfaction. Such is the most
picturesque reminiscence of Hampton, and others must stand aside with a
mere reference; such events as the birth of Edward VI, which occurred
here; the "honeymoon" of bitter, loveless Mary and her Spanish husband;
the imprisonment of Charles I for three months. Melancholy ghosts these;
but they do not haunt the main part of the palace, for that was built
later by Wren, acting under orders from William III, to imitate
Versailles. This incongruity of style must have sorely puzzled the
much-tried architect, who has, however, succeeded admirably