m, and, burdened with debt, he was
compelled to shut up Stowe and go abroad. In 1845 his successor received
Queen Victoria at Stowe at enormous cost, and in 1848 there was a
financial crisis in the family. The sumptuous contents of the palace
were sold to pay the debts, and realized $375,000. A splendid avenue of
elms leads up from the town of Buckingham to Stowe, a distance of two
miles.

Not far away from Buckingham is Whaddon Hall, formerly a seat of the
Dukes of Buckingham, but best known as the residence of Browne Willis,
an eccentric antiquary, whose person and dress were so singular that he
was often mistaken for a beggar, and who is said "to have written the
very worst hand of any man in England." He wore one pair of boots for
forty years, having them patched when they were worn out, and keeping
them till they had got all in wrinkles, so that he was known as "Old
Wrinkle-boots." He was great for building churches and quarrelling with
the clergy, and left behind him valuable collections of coins and
manuscripts, which he bequeathed to Oxford University. Great Hampden,
the home of the patriot, John Hampden, is also in Buckinghamshire. The
original house remains, much disfigured by stucco and whitewash, and
standing in a secluded spot in the Chiltern Hills; it is still the
property of his descendants in the seventh generation.

CRESLOW HOUSE.

The manor of Creslow in Buckinghamshire, owned by Lord Clifford of
Chudleigh, is a pasture-farm of eight hundred and fifty acres, and is
said to raise some of the finest cattle in England; it was the home of
the regicide Holland. The mansion is an ancient one, spacious and
handsome, much of it, including the crypt and tower, coming down from
the time of Edward III., with enlargements in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. It is a picturesque yet venerable building, with
many gables and curious chimneys, and surmounted by a square tower and
loopholed turret. But its chief interest attaches to the two ancient
cellars known as the crypt and the dungeon: the crypt is about twelve
feet square, excavated in the limestone rock, and having a Gothic
vaulted ceiling, with a single small window; the dungeon is eighteen
feet long, half as wide, and six feet high, without any windows, and
with a roof formed of massive stones. This is the "haunted chamber of
Creslow"--haunted by a lady, Rosamond Clifford, the "Fair Rosamond" of
Woodstock, often heard, but seldom seen, by those who