How did the Abbey come to such a state of dilapidation? Largely as a result of the Civil War. The Abbey was dissolved in 1539, and the Abbot actually hung, drawn, and quartered, because of his defiance. The royal tombs, where were buried Henry I., the Empress Maud, and others, were destroyed and the bones scattered; and from that time onwards things went from bad to worse. Henry VII. converted parts of it into a palace for himself and used it for a time, but in Elizabethan days it had got into such a very bad state that the Queen, who stayed there half-a-dozen times, gave permission for the rotting timbers and many cartloads of stone to be removed. But it remained a dwelling till the eventual destruction during the Rebellion. During the war which proved so disastrous for the great Abbey, Reading was decidedly Royalist, but the fortunes of war brought several changes for it. It withstood for some time during 1643 a severe siege by the Earl of Essex, and, just as relief was at hand, it surrendered. Then Royalists and Parliamentarians in turn held the town; and naturally with these changes and the fighting involved the place suffered greatly, especially the outstanding building, the Abbey. St. Giles’ Church, which escaped destruction, still bears the marks of the bombardment. But the town refused to die with the Abbey. The Abbey had done much to establish and vitalize the town. In its encouragement of the agriculture of the districts it had created the necessity for a central market-town, and Reading had grown and flourished accordingly. Thus, when the Abbey came to an end, the town was so firmly established that it was enabled to live on and prosper exceedingly. Now Reading passes its days independent, almost unconscious, of the past, with its glory and its tragedy. Nor does the River any more enter into its calculations. To Reading has come the railway; and the railway has made the modern town what it is—an increasingly important manufacturing town and railway junction, and a ready centre for the rich agricultural land round about it; a hive of industry, with foundries, workshops, big commercial buildings, and a University College; with churches, chapels, picture-palaces, and fast-moving electric-tramcars, clanging their way along streets thronged with busy, hurrying people—in short, a typical, clean, modern industrial town, with nothing very attractive about it, but on the other hand nothing to repel or disgust. Reading’s most famous industries are biscuit-making and seed-growing. Messrs. Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits, in the making of which four or five thousand people are employed, are known the world over; and so are Messrs. Sutton’s seeds, grown in, and advertised by, many acres of beautiful gardens.