wever, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE,"
ROCHESTER]

[Illustration: "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]

James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
"furnished like a great Prince's"--indeed, the same furniture
remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
which wish was readily accorded him.

CHAPTER X

JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
HOUSE"

Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
miles away, also close to the river Thames, _another_ Ham
House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
of the one house have attached themselves to the other.

In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom