He was so disguised that he was only known by a single servant, on whose fidelity he could rely. Before daybreak he retired to a subterranean recess, of which this servant retained the key, and here he remained several months in safe concealment. The king confiscated the estate, however, and dispersed the household, so that the voluntary prisoner perished from hunger. During the last century, when this stately house was pulled down, the vault was discovered, with Lord Lovel seated in a chair as he had died. So completely had rubbish excluded the air that his dress, which was described as superb, and a prayer-book lying before him on the table, were entire, but soon after the admission of the air the body is said to have fallen into dust. BICESTER AND EYNSHAM. [Illustration: BICESTER PRIORY.] [Illustration: BICESTER MARKET.] [Illustration: CROSS AT EYNSHAM.] A pleasant and old-fashioned town, not far away from Oxford, is Bicester, whereof one part is known as the King's End and the other as the Market End. Here is the famous Bicester Priory, founded in the twelfth century through the influence of Thomas a Becket. It was intended for a prior and eleven canons, in imitation of Christ and his eleven disciples. The priory buildings remained for some time after the dissolution of the religious houses, but they gradually disappeared, and all that now exists is a small farm-house about forty feet long which formed part of the boundary-wall of the priory, and is supposed to have been a lodge for the accommodation of travellers. In the garden was a well of never-failing water held in high repute by pilgrims, and which now supplies a fish-pond. The priory and its estates have passed in regular succession through females from its founder, Gilbert Basset, to the Stanleys, and it is now one of the possessions of the Earl of Derby. Bicester is an excellent specimen of an ancient English market-town, and its curious block of market-buildings, occupied by at least twenty-five tenements, stands alone and clear in the marketplace. There are antique gables, one of the most youthful of which bears the date of 1698. On the top is a promenade used by the occupants in summer weather. In the neighboring village of Eynsham is said to be the stone coffin that once held Fair Rosamond's remains, but it has another occupant, one Alderman Fletcher having also been buried in it in 1826. Eynsham once had an abbey, of which still survives the shaft of a stone cross quaintly carved with the figures of saints. It is a relic probably of the thirteenth century, but nothing remains of the abbey beyond a few stones that may have belonged to it. It was near Eynsham, not very long ago, that a strange dark-green water-plant first made its appearance in the Thames, and spread so rapidly that it soon quite choked the navigation of the river, and from there soon extended almost all over the kingdom. The meadows and the rivers became practically all alike, a