At Barrington Court and White Lackington manor-house, both near Ilminster, Monmouth was entertained in princely state during his progress through the western counties to win popularity. The latter is a plain gabled house (a portion only of the original) which has suffered by the insertion of sash windows. It seems to bear out its name, for it is very white and staring. But Barrington is one of the most perfect Elizabethan houses in Somersetshire, that is to say exteriorly, for the inside has long since been stripped and modernised. The myriad of pinnacles upon its gable ends, and its general appearance, recall the stately Sussex mansion Wakehurst: the situation, however, is vastly different, for it stands bare of trees on a wide extensive flat. The Spekes of White Lackington and the Strodes of Barrington, it goes without saying, were notorious Whigs; and though the duke's hosts favoured his cause, they both managed to save their necks when the terrible Jeffreys came down upon his memorable Progress. But the name of Speke was enough for the judge, and the youngest son of White Lackington, whose sins did not extend beyond shaking hands with his father's illustrious guest, was swung up on a tree at Ilminster. In the lovely fields around the manor-house it is difficult to imagine a throng of twenty thousand who accompanied the popular duke. The giant Spanish chestnut tree beneath which Monmouth dined in public, and which had braved the tempests of many centuries, fell, alas! a victim to the storm of March, 2, 1897, and with the destruction of "Monmouth's tree" a link with 1680 has departed never to return. Barrington, we understand, has recently been taken under the protecting wing of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, for which all those interested in domestic architecture as well as buildings of historic association must feel grateful. [Illustration: HINTON ST. GEORGE.]