I stopped to look at, and admire the view; even in the subdued light of a grey winter's day it was enchantingly beautiful. The little cottages of Homer clustered in a circle at my feet, whilst round them nestled orchards of apple trees and damsons, which last would soon be out in a mist of white blossom, like a maze of stars on a frosty night. Far away I saw Harley church, the woods of Belswardine, the smoke of Shrewsbury lying like a mantle of vapour on the distant plain, and to the west rose the great hills of Carodoc and the Long Mynde, whilst immediately before me stretched the ill-fated spot known as Banister's Coppice. It was here, according to old tradition, that the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham, in Richard III.'s reign, was betrayed by his faithless steward at his house at Shinewood. The story ran that the duke's cause did not prosper, and that his Welsh allies melted away, so that he, finding himself hard pressed by the royal forces, and not able to collect fresh troops, hurriedly disbanded his followers and fled to the house of his servant Banister, or Banaistre, as he was called by some of the old chroniclers. Buckingham thought, having conferred great benefits on his servant, that he could count upon his loyalty; but Banister was tempted by the great reward, £1000, offered by the king for his master's apprehension, and told "Master Mytton," then sheriff, where he was concealed. The duke, according to the old story, lay in a ditch near the house, on the outskirts of the coppice, disguised, it is said, in the smock of a countryman, and was arrested at night by John Mytton, who came over from the old hall at Shipton, with a force of armed men. When Buckingham knew that his arrest was due to the treachery of his servant, he broke forth and cursed his faithless steward in the most awful, and terrible manner. He cursed his goings in, and goings out, the air he breathed, the liquor he drank, and the very bread he ate, and with the same curse, he cursed all his family. According to tradition, they all ended miserably. An old writer declares, "Shortly after Banister had betrayed his master, his son and heir waxed mad, and died in a boar's stye; his eldest daughter, of excellent beauty, was suddenly stricken of a foul leprosy; his second son became very marvellously deformed in his limbs, whilst his youngest son was drowned 'and strangled' in a very small puddle of water. And Banister himself, when he became of extreme old age, was found guilty of a murder, and was only saved by the intervention of the clergy, to whom he had paid large sums. As for the £1000, the king," says the same old writer, "gave him not one farthing, saying 'that a servant who had been so untrue to so good a master, would be false to all other.'"