The most celebrated house here was Campden House, completely rebuilt fifty years ago, and entirely demolished within the last two years. Old Campden House was called after Sir Baptist Hicks, created Viscount Campden. It is said that he won the land on which it stands from Sir Walter Cope at a game, and thereupon built the house. This is the generally accepted version of the affair, but it is probable that there was some sort of a house standing here already. Bowack says: "Two houses, called Holland and Campden Houses, were built ... by Mr. Cope ... erected before the death of Queen Elizabeth." And, again (quoting from the Rev. C. Seward), "The second seat called Campden House was purchased or won at some sort of game of Sir Walter Cope by Sir Baptist Hicks." He adds that it was a "very noble Pile and finished with all the art the Architects of that time were capable of." The mere fact of such a prize being won at a game of chance was likely enough in the days when gaming ran high. Lysons, on the other hand, distinctly says that the house "was built about 1612 by Sir Baptist Hicks, whose arms with that date and those of his sons-in-law, Edward, Lord Noel, and Sir Charles Morrison, are in a large bay-window in the front." It is most probable that Sir Baptist, on taking over the estate and the house then existing, so restored it as to amount to an almost complete rebuilding. He was created Viscount Campden in 1628, with remainder to Lord Noel, who succeeded him. Lord Noel's son, Baptist, the third Viscount, had Royalist tendencies, for which he was mulcted in the sum of L9,000 during the Rebellion. He married for his fourth wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Lindsey, and the Earl himself died at Campden House. The title went to Viscount Campden's eldest son Edward, who was created Earl of Gainsborough, and in default of male issue it afterwards reverted to his younger brother. The house itself had been settled on another son, Henry, who died before his father, leaving a daughter, who married Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington. Previous to this Queen (then Princess) Anne had taken the house for five years on account of her only surviving child, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester. There are few stories in history more pathetic than that of this poor little Prince, the only one of Anne's seventeen children who survived infancy. With his unnaturally large head and rickety legs, he would in these days have been kept from all intellectual effort, and been obliged to lie down the greater part of his time. But in that age drastic treatment was in favour, and the already precocious child was crammed with knowledge, while his sickly little frame was compelled to undergo rigorous discipline. He was a boy of no small degree of character, and with martial tastes touching in one so feeble. He died at the age of eleven of small-pox, not at Kensington, and perhaps it was as well for him