A tragical little story belongs to the humble old “Nag’s Head” inn at Thame, formerly the “King’s Head.” The old sign of it was used as a gallows for a Parliamentary rebel who had deserted his side and joined the King, and was so unlucky as to be captured. Those Puritans had a grim humour. One of the condemned man’s executioners, before turning him off, turned his face, bound with a handkerchief, to the sign, with the words: “Nay, sir, you must speak one word with the King before you go. You are blindfold, and he cannot see, and by and by you shall both come down together.” And then he was hoisted up. There is another historic house at Thame, for it was into the yard of the “Greyhound” in that town that John Hampden came, lying mortally wounded upon the neck of his horse, from the skirmish of Chalgrove Field, on June 18th, 1643. He had unwillingly taken arms against oppression and iniquitous taxation, and was thus at the outset killed. No enemy’s bullet laid him low: it was his own pistol, overloaded by a careless servant, that, exploding, shattered his hand. He died, on the 24th, of lockjaw. The front of the house has been rebuilt, and the yard somewhat altered, since the patriot rode in at that tragical time; but the house is in essentials the inn of his day. Long since ceased to be an inn, it is now occupied as a furnishing ironmonger’s shop and warehouse. [Illustration: THE “NAG’S HEAD,” THAME.] The “Crown and Treaty House” inn at Uxbridge, long known to would-be beery rustics by the affectionately wistful name of the “Crown and Treat Ye,” is a genuinely historic house. It stands away beyond the tramway terminus, facing the road at the very extremity of Uxbridge town, as you cross canal and river and so leave Middlesex for Buckinghamshire; and although very much of its real antiquity is disguised by modern paint and plaster, it is in fact the surviving portion of the great mansion built in 1575 by one of the Bennet family, and, at the opening of the war between King and Parliament, in the occupation of one “Mr. Carr.” The meeting here of leading spirits on either side of the contending forces was well meant. It began January 20th, 1645, and was convened for the purpose of “taking into consideration the grievances of which each party complained, and to propose those remedies which might be mutually agreeable.” Unfortunately, little sincerity attended the actual meeting. The King’s party were unyielding, and the military successes of the Parliament rendered the leaders of that side ill-disposed to give away in talk that which they had won in the field. Moreover, like most conferences in which religious as well as political questions were the subjects of discussion, those debates only further inflamed mutual hatreds and further sundered the already wide points of disagreement. [Illustration: YARD OF THE “GREYHOUND,” THAME.]