There is, perhaps, no more delightful picture along the whole course of the Bath Road than the view from Maidenhead Bridge up river, where the house-boats, gay with flowers and Japanese lanterns, are gathered beside the trim lawns of the riverside villas, with the gaily dressed crowds by Boulter's Lock beyond, and the wooded heights of Clieveden closing in the distance. Maidenhead shows the river at its most fashionable part. It was at the "Greyhound" Inn, Maidenhead, that the unhappy Charles the First bade farewell to his children, July 16, 1647. He was in charge of his Roundhead captors at Caversham, and had been allowed to come over for two days. The Prince of Wales was abroad, but the Duke of York, then fifteen years of age; the Princess Elizabeth, two years younger; and the seven-year-old Duke of Gloucester, were brought to him. The affecting scene is said to have drawn tears even from Cromwell. Maidenhead Bridge--the wooden one which preceeded the present structure--might have been the scene of a desperate encounter, but happened instead to have witnessed an equally desperate and farcical devil-take-the-hindmost flight on the part of the Irish soldiers of James the Second, who were posted here to dispute the passage of the Thames with the advancing forces of William of Orange. The November night had shrouded the river and the country side, when the sound of drums beating a Dutch march was heard. The soldiers, who had no heart in their work, did not remain to defend that strategic point, and bolted. They would have discovered, if they had kept their posts, that the martial music which lent them such agility was produced by the townsfolk of Maidenhead, who, in spite of that national crisis, appear to have been merry blades. XXII The "Bear" was the principal inn at Maidenhead in the coaching era, and owed much of its prosperity to the unwillingness of travellers who carried considerable sums of money with them to cross Maidenhead Thicket at night. They slept peacefully at the "Bear," and resumed the roads in the morning, when the highwaymen were in hiding. [Sidenote: _MAIDENHEAD THICKET_]