The Household Books at Althorp show that for many years the Washingtons were frequent guests. The hospitality of this seat has been renowned. The Queen of James the First and Prince Henry, on their way to London in 1603, were welcomed there in an entertainment, memorable for a Masque from the vigorous muse of Ben Jonson.[46] Charles the First was at Althorp in 1647, when he received the first intelligence of those approaching pursuers from whom he never escaped except by the scaffold. In 1695, King William was there for a week, and, according to Evelyn, “mightily entertained.”[47] At least one of the family was famous for hospitality of a different character. Evelyn records that he used to dine with the Countess of Sunderland,--the title then borne by the Spencers,--when she invited _fire-eaters_,[48] stone-eaters, and opera-singers, after the fashion of the day.[49] The family was early and constantly associated with literature. Spenser, the poet, belonged to it, and dedicated to one of its members, Alice Spencer, “the Ladie Strange,” afterwards Countess of Derby, his “Tears of the Muses.” For the same Alice Spencer Milton wrote his “Arcades,” while Sir John Harrington celebrated her memory by an epigram. The Sacharissa of Waller was the Lady Dorothy Sydney, wife of the first Earl of Sunderland, third Lord Spencer, who perished fighting for King Charles the First at Newbury. I do not dwell on other associations of a later day, as my object is simply to indicate those which existed in the time of the Washingtons. “The nobility of the Spencers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort them to consider the ‘Fairy Queen’ as the most precious jewel of their coronet.” Thus wrote Gibbon in his Memoirs,[50] and all must feel the beauty of the exhortation. This nobility may claim another illustration from ties of friendship and neighborhood with the Washingtons. Perhaps hereafter our countrymen will turn aside from their travels to visit the parish church of Brington, in reverence for a spot so closely associated with American history. * * * * * I trust that this little sketch, suggested by what I saw at Althorp during a brief visit last autumn, will not seem irrelevant. Besides my own personal impressions and the volumes quoted, I have relied upon Dibdin’s “Ædes Althorpianæ,” so interesting to all bibliographical students, and especially upon Baker’s “History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton,”--one of those magnificent local works which illustrate English history,--to which you refer in your Appendix.