The exterior, as we have intimated, has been considerably impaired by fire; and sufficient care does not appear to have been taken with its subsequent restoration. Notwithstanding, it continues to “display in its parts the architectural taste of the earliest as well as of the latest period of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, possessing the irregularity of design peculiar to the era.” The bay-windows are profusely embellished with shields of the family of Cromwell, the arms of Queen Elizabeth, and “a variety of heraldic cognizances denoting the honours of the Tudor line,--the falcon, the portcullis, a ton with a branch, and roses of different forms, which are upon the upper cornice of each window.” The interior has been almost entirely modernized; but the “furnishing” is in good taste, and is made to harmonize as nearly as possible with the era in which the fame of the venerable structure was achieved. The walls are covered with family portraits--principally the “living likenesses” of Lely. The library is of oak--richly and elaborately carved by the hand of some great old master. [Illustration: J. Holland, Delᵗ. on Stone, by W. Walton. M. & N. Hanhart, Lithogʳˢ. CHARLTON HOUSE, KENT] CHARLTON HOUSE, KENT. [Illustration: C]HARLTON--according to Philipott, “anciently written Ceorleton, that is the town inhabited with honest, good, stout, and usefull men, for tillage and countrye businesse,” the name being derived from the Saxon word Ceorle, a husbandman, “from which radix ‘Churle’ cometh,” and so Churleston, whence Charlton--is a village in Kent distant seven miles from London, and standing on the summit of a hill, which commands an extensive view of the Thames, and the opposite shores of Essex county.[39] In the reign of Edward the Confessor, the Manor was held by two brothers, Godwin and Alward; the Conqueror bestowed it upon his half brother Odo, Bishop of Baieux; subsequently, it came into the possession of Robert Bloett, Bishop of Lincoln, who gave it, about the year 1093, to the Prior and Monks of Bermondsey. After the suppression of that Monastery, it passed into the hands, severally, of Sir Thomas White, Anne Lady Parry, and Thomas Fortescue. In 1604, it was granted by James the First to John Earl of Mar, by whom it was sold immediately afterwards to Sir James Erskine, who re-sold it, in 1607, to Sir Adam Newton; his son, Sir Henry Newton, (who had taken the name of Puckering,) “a great royalist who suffered much by sequestration,”[40] alienated it in 1659, to Sir William Ducie,[41] afterwards Viscount Downe, by whose representatives it was disposed of to Sir William Langhorne, an East India merchant; from him, failing male issue, inherited “his kinswoman,” Mrs. Margaret Maryon, widow, whose son John bequeathed it to his niece, whose daughter Jane inheriting, conveyed it by marriage to Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, Bart., whose grandson, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, Bart., now possesses the estate.