Henley is an old town--indeed, Plot claims for it the distinction of being the oldest town in Oxfordshire--but it makes little figure in history. A conflict between the royal and the parliamentary troops in the "Great Rebellion" is almost the only stirring incident which it has witnessed. Moreover, it has retained fewer relics of ancient days than many places of more modern date. Even its church, which is well situated in the neighbourhood of the river, is not a building of unusual antiquity. The greater part of the fabric is in the Perpendicular style. The tower is even younger, and is said to have been erected by Cardinal Wolsey, so that it belongs to the latest period of Tudor work. Several of the windows have been filled with modern stained-glass, and the interior has been carefully restored, so that the church is not unworthy of its position. Some of the monuments have a certain interest, though no great historical personages have found a grave here. One commemorates Richard Jennings, "Master Builder of St. Paul's Cathedral"; another, Jack Ogle, an almost forgotten humorist of the days of the Restoration; a third, the widow of Sir Godfrey Kneller; and a fourth, General Dumouriez, who ended an eventful life at Turville Park, in this neighbourhood. He was one of those unlucky men who have the misfortune to be too rational for the age in which they were born. A distinguished soldier even in his youth--for by the time he was four-and-twenty he had been wounded almost as many times--he fell under Court displeasure for his liberal opinions. These the Bastille did not eradicate, so that he afterwards became a member of the Jacobin Club. But though he had striven and suffered for freedom, though he had headed the troops of the Directory in a successful campaign in Belgium, he was too moderate in his views to satisfy the fanatics of the Revolution, and, to save his own life, was obliged to put himself into the hands of the Austrians. At last he came to England, where he lived for nearly twenty years the unobtrusive life of a man of letters.