After a few short weeks had passed, another stranger wended his way to the Abbey of Reading, armed with a warrant from King Henry VIII. to take the abbot a prisoner, and lodge him in the Tower. It was with a heavy heart that the abbot journeyed to London. His prison fare was very plain, and consisted of bread and water, and provided in small quantities, so that he not only suffered in mind, but also from the want of food. He often wondered what he had done to displease the king, but could not obtain any information on the subject. A change at last came over the scene. A fine sirloin of beef was placed on his table, and he was bidden to feast to his heart's content. He did not need any pressing to do justice to the joint, for he was almost famished, and dined more like a glutton than a man with a weak stomach. The king watched with amusement, from a secret place, the abbot enjoying his dinner, and, when he had nearly completed it, stepped forth from his hiding place, and demanded one hundred pounds for curing the poor abbot of his indigestion, and reminded him of their former meeting at the Abbey of Reading. The patient gladly paid his physician the stipulated fee, and, with a light purse and a merry heart, bent his steps homeward. The Services and Customs of Royal Oak Day. Writing in his diary, on May 29th, 1665, John Evelyn says: "This was the first anniversary appointed by Act of Parliament to be observed as a day of General Thanksgiving for the miraculous restoration of his Majesty: our vicar preaching on Psalm cxviii. 24, requiring us to be thankful and rejoice, as indeed we had cause." A special form of prayer in commemoration of the Restoration of Charles II. was included in the Book of Common Prayer until 1859, when it was removed by Act of Parliament. On this day, the Chaplain of the House of Commons used to preach before the House, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. The service has been discontinued since 1858. It attracted little attention, and the congregation usually consisted of the Speaker, the Sergeant-at-arms, the clerks and other officers, and about half a dozen members. It was, in bygone times, in many parts of England, the practice, on this day, to fasten boughs of oak to the pinnacles of church steeples. The display of oak is in memory of the king's escape after the Battle of Worcester, in 1651, and of his successfully hiding himself in an oak tree at Boscobel. Tennyson, in his "Talking Oak," refers to the subject: "Thy famous brother oak, Wherein the younger Charles abode, Till all the paths grew dim, While far below the Roundheads rode, And humm'd a surly hymn."