On the death of Queen Elizabeth James I. gave Nonsuch Palace to his consort, Queen Anne, and later Charles I. and Henrietta Maria were often there, but its days of glory were already over. It was confiscated by Parliament after the death of the king, but restored to the Crown on the accession of Charles II., who, when his widowed mother had passed away, gave it and the park in which it stood to his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, whom a little later he made Duchess of Cleveland. She, alas, valued not at all the memories of the historic building, but as soon as it was legally secured to her, she had it pulled down, let out much of the park in plots for building, and sold the deer that used to wander about in it. Thus suddenly ended the brief career of Henry VIII's dream palace, that is but poorly represented by its successor, a building erected in the early nineteenth century after the designs of the then popular architect, Sir Jeffrey Wyattville. Part of the once beautiful park is now occupied by the suburb of Worcester, but the grounds immediately surrounding the new residence, through which there is a public footpath to Cheam and Ewell, still retain much of their original charm, and some of the older trees may possibly have been amongst those beneath which Queen Elizabeth delighted to walk. [Sidenote: Epsom] Although it can scarcely, strictly speaking, be said to form a part of outlying London, the town of Epsom is so intimately associated with the {164} metropolis, to which it has from first to last owed its prosperity, that an account of it may well be included in a book dealing as much with the memories of the past as with the attractions of the present. Its history can be traced back to the seventh century, when it is said to have been the residence of the holy abbess, St. Ebba, after whom it is named, the daughter of King Ethelred the Avenger, and sister of Kings Oswald and Oswy, whose story is very variously told, certain chroniclers declaring that she suffered martyrdom at the hands of the Danes after disfiguring herself to escape a worse fate; others that she died peacefully at a great age, surrounded by her devoted nuns. However that may be, no trace now remains of the home of St. Ebba at Epsom, though some are of opinion that its site is occupied by the farm now known as the Court, replacing the manor-house that is referred to in the Doomsday Survey as an appanage of Chertsey Abbey, which also owned in the same district the manor of Horton, the homestead of which is now represented by an eighteenth-century mansion called Horton Place, two churches and two mills, with many acres of land. To these a park, now known as that of Woodcote, with 'right of free chase and free warren,' was added in the twelfth century, the whole property remaining in the hands of the abbot of Chertsey until 1538, when it was bought from him by Henry VIII., who, strange to say, actually paid for it. A few months afterwards it