Two miles south-east of Greenwich is the popular suburb of Eltham, the name of which is a contraction of the Anglo-Saxon Ealdham, signifying the ancient homestead, that was in olden times an important town with a royal palace, of which the banqueting-hall alone remains. Given with {119} Charlton and many another valuable property in southern England to Bishop Odo of Bayeux by William the Conqueror, the manor of Eltham passed through many vicissitudes, reverting again and again to the Crown, and becoming after the Restoration the property of Sir John Shaw. The date of the erection of the palace, the ruins of which are situated near to the picturesque mansion known as Eltham Court, is unknown, but it is referred to as a royal residence in the supplement to the thirteenth-century _Historia Major_ of the famous Latin chronicler Matthew Paris, that is supposed to have been added by William Rishanger, a monk of St. Albans Abbey. In any case it seems certain that Henry III. spent Christmas of 1270 in it, though it was probably not then completed, and Edward II. and his wife Queen Isabella were very fond of it. It was in it that their son John, familiarly called John of Eltham, was born, and there his elder brother Edward III. took his young bride, Philippa of Hainault, in 1328. The first parliament of his reign was held in it, and he was residing there just before he broke free from the pernicious influence of his mother, whom he banished to Rising Castle. It was at Eltham that the famous banquet was given to the captive king John of France by Edward III. and the Black Prince in 1363, at which probably the princess royal, who was to become the wife of the prisoner, was present; and there the English monarch presided, the year before the death of his beloved son, over the parliament that met after the {120} conclusion of the long war with France. Richard II., who was made Prince of Wales at Eltham in 1375, spent a good deal of time there during his minority, and went there after his marriage in 1382 to his first wife Anne of Bohemia, who shared his affection for the palace. The royal couple kept Christmas at Eltham in 1384, 1385, and 1386, receiving on the last occasion Leo, King of Bohemia, who had come to England to plead for aid against the Turks, and also a less welcome deputation of the faithful Commons who had sought an audience to remonstrate with the young king on his extravagance.