The next day was taken up with church and a long drive to Stanway over the Cotswold Hills, which I was eager to show him, and so he saw Campden, Broadway and some of the picturesque neighbouring villages with their old seventeenth-century houses dating from a time before the grazing country was broken up during the Napoleonic wars, owing to the boom in wheat—a time when every man was a flock-master and every good-wife span. When the plough came, the old houses, so full of architectural charm, were divided up to furnish labourers’ cottages. The King was very much pleased with this view of a part of his dominions that was new to him, and he was loud in his admiration of Inigo Jones’s beautiful work at Stanway, where Lord and Lady Elcho gave him tea. But my triumph as a gardener was complete when on the Monday the King put off his return to London till midday so that he might once more walk up the hill, which, at first, he had declared to be _tabu_. The King’s visit was not only a great honour for us, but it gave immense pleasure to a great many of his loyal subjects to whom, living as they do in a rather out-of-the-way part of the country, kings and queens had, up to that time, been like the gods of Olympus, mystic beings, venerated but unseen. The last king that had been seen in Moreton-in-Marsh was Charles the First. The room in which the Martyr King slept is still shown at the White Hart. Later in the same year, 1905, the King sent for me and told me that he was about to send the Garter to the Emperor of Japan, that Prince Arthur of Connaught was to take it, and that it was his Majesty’s wish that I should go with the Mission. Of course I was only too glad to obey. We started in January, 1906, on what turned out to be a most delightful expedition, a success in every way. The voyage out with halts at Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, and Hong Kong was full of interest. The Prince played his part admirably and the return journey through Canada gave me an impression of that richly blest country which can never be forgotten. I have already published an account of “the Garter Mission to Japan,” so I need say no more about it here. Before we left for Japan the King did me the honour of conferring upon me the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, and when I came home I was given the K.C.B. 1908-9