The river at Barnes, that here makes a sudden bend to the north, is spanned by several bridges, and its banks are lined with good houses, some of which are associated with famous names. In one of those on the Terrace, for instance, resided the French political refugees the Count and Countess d'Antraigues, who were assassinated in 1812 by an Italian in their service; and in the mansion known as St. Anne's lived the famous eighteenth-century beauty Lady Archer. In an old house overlooking the common Henry Fielding wrote some of his novels, Monk Lewis composed his _Crazy Jane_ in a cottage not far off that cannot now be identified; and amongst the rectors of the parish were the Latin scholar Dr. Hare, the eloquent preacher Henry Melvill, and the well-known hymn-writer, the Rev. John Ellerton. At Barnes, too, in a house now destroyed, lived and died the brother-in-law of Sir Francis Walsingham, Robert Beale, who was perhaps introduced to Queen Elizabeth at Barn Elms, and who was chosen by her for the painful mission of taking to Mary, Queen of Scots, the warrant for her execution, and in the same river-side village the zealous anabaptist Abrezer Coppe took refuge on his release from Newgate in 1651, where he had been imprisoned for a year for issuing his extraordinary pamphlet _The Fiery Flying Roll_. Disguised as a doctor, and calling himself Hiam, {196} he divided his time between preaching and prescribing for patients, and managed to escape further persecution, dying a natural death in 1692, when he was buried under his assumed name in Barnes churchyard. {197} CHAPTER IX WIMBLEDON, MERTON, MITCHAM, AND THEIR MEMORIES [Sidenote: Wimbledon]