But we must not linger in the shadow of the "three tall spires" of Coventry, nor make more than a brief allusion to the legend of Godiva, the lady who rode naked through the town to save the people from a burdensome tax. It was an old story in Shakespeare's time, if, indeed, it had not been dramatized, like other chapters in the mythic annals of the venerable city. It has been proved to be without historical foundation, being mentioned by no writer before the fourteenth century, though the Earl who figures in the tale lived in the latter part of the eleventh century. The Benedictine Priory in Coventry, of which some fragments still remain, is said to have been founded by him in 1043. He died in 1057, and both he and his lady were buried in the porch of the monastery. The effigy of "Peeping Tom" is still to be seen in the upper part of a house at the corner of Hertford Street in Coventry. Shakespeare makes no reference to this story of Lady Godiva, though it was probably well known to him. CHARLECOTE HALL. Returning to Warwick, and travelling eight miles on the other side of the town, we come to Stratford. By one of the two roads we may take we pass Charlecote Hall and Park, associated with the tradition of Shakespeare's deer-poaching--a fine old mansion, seen across a breadth of fields dotted with tall elms. [Illustration: CHARLECOTE HALL] The winding Avon skirts the enclosure to the west. The house, which has been in the possession of the Lucy family ever since the days of Shakespeare, stands at the water's edge. It has been enlarged in recent times, but the original structure has undergone no material change. It was begun in 1558, the year when Elizabeth came to the throne, and was probably finished in 1559. It took the place of a much older mansion of which no trace remains, the ancestors of Sir Thomas Lucy having then held the estate for more than five centuries. The ground plan of the house is in the form of a capital letter E, being so arranged as a compliment to the Virgin Queen; and only one out of many such tributes paid her by noble builders of the time. Over the main door are the royal arms, with the letters E. R., together with the initials of the owner, T. L. Within there is little to remind one of the olden time, but some of the furniture of the library,--chairs, couch, and cabinet of coromandel-wood inlaid with ivory,--is said to have been presented by Elizabeth to Leicester in 1575, and to have been brought from Kenilworth in the seventeenth century. There is a modern bust of Shakespeare in the hall.