the principal church, and near the extremity of the headland, above the steepest crags, stood the keep and bastions of the castle. The church remains, but of the rest, as a glance shows, little is left to recall the Nottingham of the days of the Plantagenets. [Illustration: NOTTINGHAM, FROM THE CASTLE.] A better site for a town could not readily have been found in the days when the "good old rule" in regard to taking and keeping prevailed. Thus there was a settlement on the headland at an early epoch, though the exact date of the foundation of Nottingham and its more ancient history are equally obscure. As this is not the place for an antiquarian discussion of the value of legends, we will pass over them in silence. As the Trent appears to have been bridged opposite to the town so long since as the tenth century, it is probable that even then a settlement of some importance was already in existence. Its subsequent history was for a time not altogether peaceful or prosperous. It was sorely harried by the Danes; it was taken and spoiled by the troops of Robert Earl of Gloucester in the days of King Stephen, when numbers of the townspeople were slain and no small part of the town was burnt; it was again besieged and captured by Duke Henry, afterwards the second king of that name. Since this time, though more than once the noise of war has been heard in its gates, the town has been, on the whole, much more fortunate. On two occasions only it occupies a prominent place in the history of England. At Nottingham Castle the young King Edward III. was residing with his mother Isabella and her notorious favourite, Roger Mortimer, when what would now be called a _coup d'état_ was planned and successfully carried out. The insolence of this man had stirred the anger of the English nobles, and they rallied to the aid of the young king. He was lodged outside the castle; within its walls his so-called guardians appeared to be in safety. But one night Edward and his friends were admitted through a long underground passage, which is still shown under the name of "Mortimer's Hole," into the very interior of the castle; the Queen and Mortimer were arrested in their chambers, and the latter was hurried off to London, where the Parliament pronounced his doom, and he was instantly put to an ignominious death, meeting with a fate worse than that of Haman. This great act of justice done, the king, as Froissart says, "took new counsellors, the wisest and best beloved by his people."