One of the events of the London season of 1853 was the establishment of an experimental military camp at Chobham for the purpose of practising sham-fighting. The camp took the place in the season of ’53, that had been held by the Great Exhibition in ’51, and young men of rank who were braving the perils of mimic warfare on the Sussex ridges were the idols of the hour. On [Illustration: FIRE IN THE PRINCE OF WALES’S TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE. (_See_ p. 567.)] the 21st of June serious operations began in the presence of the Queen. She rode to the ground on a superb black charger, accompanied by Prince Albert, the King of Hanover, and the Duke of Coburg, the scene as she passed along the lines being most impressive. The moving incidents of the field, the noise of the firing, the shifting panorama of colour, delighted the fashionable crowds who followed her Majesty to what Mr. Disraeli would have called an arena “bright with flashing valour.” On the 14th of July the camp was broken up, and other contingents took the places of the regiments which had formed it. They, however, attempted a movement of real difficulty in endeavouring to effect the passage of the Thames at Runnymede, where the river is deep and the current rapid. Artillery on Cooper’s Hill played on the pontoon bridge murderously, in spite of which, however, it is stated in newspaper records of the day, that several regiments contrived to pass over safely. But the horses that dragged the second gun taken across, took fright, and one of them pulled the rest, with gun and gunners, into the water. The men were saved. The four leading horses, however, met with a strange death. They rose to the surface, and, with eyes and nostrils dilated with terror, beat the water in vain, for the gun, of course, held them [Illustration: THE QUEEN AT THE CAMP AT CHOBHAM.] with the wheelers in the river. Yet such was the strength which terror imparted to them, that they dragged not only the gun but the wheelers also, close to the bank before they succumbed. On the 28th of June Prince Albert, who had been “roughing it” with the Guards in camp, returned to town complaining of a slight cold. The Prince of Wales had measles at the time, and, to the surprise of everybody, Prince Albert, the Queen, all the Royal children except the two youngest, the Crown Prince of Hanover, the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, were smitten,[128] Prince Albert suffering more severely than any of the others. This illness prevented the Queen and her husband from visiting the camp till the 6th of August. On the 28th it broke up. [Illustration: RUNNYMEDE.]