I need not tell one so intimately acquainted with English History as yourself, that all the other characters here introduced, with one or two exceptions amongst the inferior personages, are historical; and I have endeavoured, to the best of my power, to represent them such as they really were. Having said thus much, I shall add no more; for, in submitting the work to you, though I know I shall have an acute judge, yet I shall have a kind one; and trusting that you will, at all events, derive some amusement from these pages, I will only further beg you to believe me, My dear Sir, Your most faithful servant, G. P. R. JAMES. _The Oaks, near Walmer, Kent_, 1_st December_, 1843. ARABELLA STUART. CHAPTER I. There was a small, old-fashioned, red brick house, situated just upon the verge of Cambridgeshire, not in the least peculiar in its aspect, and yet deserving a description. The reader shall know why, before we have done. As you came along the road from London you descended a gentle hill, not very long, and yet long enough to form, with an opposite rise, one of those sweet, calm valleys which are peculiarly characteristic of the greater part of this country. When you were at the top of the hill, in looking down over some hedge-rows and green fields, the first thing your eye lighted upon in the bottom of the dale was a quick-running stream, which seemed to have a peculiar art of catching the sunshine wherever it was to be found. Its course, though almost as rapid as if it had come down from a mountain,--having had, it is true, a pretty sharp descent about a mile to the westward,--was nevertheless, at this spot, directed through soft green meadows, and between flat and even banks. The water was of some depth also, not less in general than from five to six feet, though not in most places above four or five yards in width. Where it crossed the road, however, there being no bridge, and the highway somewhat raised, it spread itself out into a good broad shallow stream, which, in the deepest part, only washed your horse's feet a little above the pastern. Having carried it thus far, reader, we will leave it, without pursuing its course on towards the sea, which it reached somehow, and somewhere, by ways and through channels with which we have nothing to do.