Brentford has more than once figured conspicuously in the history of England. Near to it, for instance, King Edmund Ironsides defeated the Danes in 1016, and in it a few days after the victory the gallant Saxon king was treacherously murdered. More than six hundred years later the town, then at the zenith of its prosperity, was besieged by Prince Rupert, and the parliamentary garrison driven out with great loss; but all too soon, in the opinion of the inhabitants, who were staunch partisans of the king, the tide turned again. Reinforcements {276} arrived from London and encamped on the then open space of Turnham Green; Charles, who had started from Kingston to join Prince Rupert, was compelled to draw back, and presently Oliver Cromwell himself, fresh from victory, marched through Brentford in triumph. After the Restoration Charles II. was several times in Brentford. Nell Gwynn is said to have lived there for some little time, as did also George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a member of the infamous Cabal Ministry, who was the first to celebrate in literature the two kings of Brentford, whom he introduced in his comedy of the _Rehearsal_, a parody on one of Dryden's tragedies written in 1671. Who these kings were when they lived, or even if they ever existed, neither tradition nor history has attempted to prove, but in the _Rehearsal_ they figure as close friends, who appear on the stage hand in hand, and reign amicably together till they are deposed by two equally united usurpers. Brentford owns two important churches, one dedicated to St. George, founded in 1770, with nothing very distinctive about it but containing a painting of the Last Supper by Zoffany, presented by the artist; the other, named after St. Lawrence, built in the eighteenth century on to the tower of a much earlier place of worship. Chancellor Noy, whose house was close by, is buried in it, and it is associated with the memory of John Horne Tooke, who was curate of it from 1760 to 1773, before his meeting with John Wilkes led to his abandonment of the clerical profession. {277}