The domain passed to the crown, and was bestowed by Henry III., who died Nov. 16, 1272, on Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. When he was defeated and killed, his adherents held it for six months, but at length made favorable terms of capitulation. Edward II., who was murdered Sept. 21, 1327, was a prisoner in it for some time. It next fell into the hands of Edward III., who died June 21, 1377. Then it fell to John of Gaunt, who died twenty-two years afterwards, when it passed to his son, Henry Bolingbroke (Henry IV.); and on his accession to the throne, Sept. 30, 1399, it became again vested in the crown, and so remained until Queen Elizabeth bestowed it on her favorite Dudley, Earl of Leicester. She visited it three times, the last visit being so graphically described by Sir Walter. It was dismantled and unroofed in the time of Cromwell, and has never been repaired. At the Restoration it fell to the Clarenden family, and is now the property of the family of Eardley-Wilmot. The ruin is more stately than most others, and was built on a grander scale. There is no particle of wood about it; all is enduring masonry. The floors are like its lawns, overgrown with beautiful grass, interspersed with wild flowers. Birds build their nests in the crevices; ivy hangs over it like a careless mantle. The residence of kings and queens, of the bluest blood of the land, and for a period of four hundred years,--could the old walls speak, what tales would they tell! Intrigues, amours, sorrows, intenser than the peasant ever dreamed of. The rise and fall of dynasties, the advancing and receding of the waves of national life, were felt most definitely here, and full four centuries were employed in the record. A home, a prison, the Elizabethan house of love,--it is to-day a marvellous curiosity-shop for the civilized world. Where young royalty prattled and crept, the speckled reptile, with "a precious jewel in its head," leaps and the snail crawls. The curtain of two centuries drops its thick folds between our age and Kenilworth's royal activity. COVENTRY. We arrived here at 2.45 P. M. May 28, after a short ride from Kenilworth. Few places in England are better known in history than this quaint old town. It is situated on the River Sherbourne, and has a population of 39,470. The town derives its name from a Benedictine Priory, founded in 1044 by Leofric, Lord of Mercia, and his Lady Godiva. The cellar of the old institution still exists, 115 feet long and 15 feet wide. No place affords a better example of an old English town than Coventry. In one section little if any change has been made, and here are timber-and-plaster houses, in streets so narrow that the projecting upper stories are but a few feet apart.