Grantham owes its name to the river on which it stands, now the Witham, but once called the Granta, and its ancient prosperity to its position on the road to the North. To this circumstance is due also its long reputation as a town of many and excellent inns, from those early times when the Church was the earliest inn-keeper, to those others when the coaches were at their best and “entertainment for man and beast” a merely secular business. The “Angel” and the “George” at Grantham have a long history. The “Angel” still survives as a mediæval building, and, like the equally famous “George” at Glastonbury, contrives to please alike the antiquary and the guest whose desire for modern creature comforts takes no account of Gothic architecture. Anciently a wayside house of the Knights Templar, the existing building belongs to the mid-fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. On either side of its great archway now appear the carved stone heads of Edward the Third and the heroic Queen Philippa, and at the crown of the arch, serving the purpose of a supporting corbel to the beautiful oriel window above, is an angel, supporting a shield of arms; not the old sign, indeed, but an architectural adornment merely. This, and all the numerous “Angels” and the several “Salutations” on the road, derived from the religious picture-sign of the Annunciation, of which the saluting angel in the “Hail Mary” group in course of time alone remained. [Picture: The “Angel,” Grantham] Before coaches or carriages were, kings and courtiers on their way north or south made the “Angel” their headquarters, coming to it, of necessity, on horseback. Thus, John held his Court here in the February of 1213, in the building which preceded even this old one, and Richard the Third signed Buckingham’s death-warrant in 1483 in the great room, now divided into three, and that once extended the whole length of the frontage on the first floor. Perhaps it was in the bay of this oriel window that he “off’d with his head!” in the familiar phrase mouthed by many generations of gory tragedians and aspiring amateurs; and exclaiming “So much for Buckingham!” turned on his heel, in the attitude of triumphant villainy we know so well. But, unhappily for the truth of this and similar striking situations, it is to be feared that Richard, unappreciative of the situation—the “situation,” that is to say, in the theatrical sense—signed the warrant in a businesslike way, and neither mouthed nor struck attitudes. He left that scene to be exploited by Shakespeare or Colley Cibber as authors, and by Charles Kean and many another as actors. Between them, _they_ could have shown him how to play the part.