I am reminded that Pepys in his Diary records that he and Lady Bill (a well-bred but crooked woman) stood sponsors for a friend’s child. Meanwhile Mr. Bill has been busy with his estate, and has surrounded twenty-five acres of it with a brick wall. In 1661 occurred the strange outbreak[199] of the Fifth Monarchy men, who, being driven out from St. John’s and Hornsey Woods, took refuge in Cane Wood (as it was then written). Here flew their banner, with its wild motto, ‘The King Jesus, with their heads on the gate!’—that gate, as someone writes, that from reign to reign ‘resembled a butchery with the heads and quarters of men.’ Here Venner, preacher and cooper, with his scanty handful of followers, for three days in mid-winter, when Mr. Pepys’ pew was gay with rosemary and bays, kept their woody stronghold, and prayed and starved, till Raresby, ‘who wanted a little action,’ rode out with a band of soldiers and surrounded them. Even then Venner, who fought desperately, would not suffer himself to be taken till he was badly wounded, and most of his party cut down or prisoners. In 1673, much to his wife’s (Lady Pelham) satisfaction, we may be sure, the name of John Bill, Esq., appears in the list of Middlesex gentry, an honour he survived for seven years, dying at Caen Wood in 1680. He was buried in Hampstead Church. Their only daughter—and, I believe, their only child, for in his will he desired that the estate might be sold at the death of his wife—had in the meantime married Captain Francis D’Arcy Savage, and died, his widow, May 23, 1726. She ‘lies buried,’ Park tells us, ‘against the north wall in Barnes churchyard.’ Nine years after the death of Mr. Bill, the estate of Caen Wood was the residence of a Mr. Withers; and some time prior to 1698 Mr. William Bridges, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, resided here.