It was proposed that this should essentially be a riding party, and the chief aim and object of our excursions was devoted to showing their Royal Highnesses the sylvan beauties of Sherwood. Accordingly, one morning after breakfast, we repaired, in a carriage and four, equipped for riding, to a wayside inn, on the precincts of the forest, and mounting our horses, took our way through the beautiful glades, where Robin Hood disported himself of old. My especial cavalier on that occasion was the Prince de Condé, a youth of rare promise, of intellectual gifts and gentle courtesy, whom I dubbed my _preux chevalier_, and whose untimely death we were all ere long called upon to mourn. The Duke and Duchess rode chiefly with our host, while Lord Stanley[101] and the Bishop joined first one and then the other group of our cavalcade. We halted at the door of Earl Manvers, and did ample justice to the mid-day banquet, which he and his amiable Countess had prepared for the visitors from Ossington. Then remounting, we prosecuted our pilgrimage through the forest to all the haunts (according to legendary law) of the noble outlaw; during the whole of our ride, having galloped over a wide expanse of turf, we had scarcely heard the sound of our horses hoofs, as the dear Speaker proudly remarked to us, till we once more reached the inn and re-entered our carriage. Footnote 101: The fifteenth Earl of Derby. Will the Duc d’Aumale, if ever he honours these pages with a perusal, accept this lowly acknowledgment of one, on whose memory the delights of his conversation and the graciousness of his manner are indelibly impressed; and who recalls with gratitude the time of waiting at that wayside inn, which was whiled away by pleasant narratives from the lips of the good Duchess. ------- ASHRIDGE Ashridge is one of the finest parks in England, rich in magnificent timber trees, more especially tall and stately beech, which are the glory of the surrounding country. The estate originally belonged to the Duke of Bridgwater, and was brought into the possession of the Cust family by the paternal grandmother of the present owner, the daughter and heiress of Sir Abraham Home. It was nearly passing out of the family some years ago, when a complicated lawsuit took place, and would almost inevitably have done so, had it not been for the untiring zeal, clear head and sound judgment of the young Earl’s mother,[102] who supplied all the leading lawyers of the day with the requisite information in a most puzzling and entangled case. Footnote 102: Lady Marian Alford, eldest daughter of the second Marquis of Northampton.