The house itself is also of red brick with stone dressings, and in the ground plan is very much of the shape of the letter E. The mansion, which is in a beautiful state of preservation throughout, contains the great Hall, a very handsome chamber with a fine bay window, in which are the family arms blazoned in the upper part, and a large number of family portraits by noted artists of different periods, including, amongst others, some fine examples of the work of Cornelis Janssens, Dahl Kneller, De Manara, and Lely. The dining–room, which has a fine panelled plaster ceiling of Elizabethan design, also contains some admirable pictures, and from its windows are charming views of the Avon and the Wellesbourne Brook, and the famous and stately avenue of lime trees. Charlecote has witnessed several historic scenes, the chief of which are the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Sir Thomas Lucy when on her way from Warwick to Compton Wynyates, August 24, 1572, and the presence in the park of the Scottish Army on its way northward from Hereford on September 9, 1745. Just two hundred years before which date John Fox, the noted martyrologist, came as a guest to Charlecote and remained there for some considerable period. In this house one has an almost unique example of the higher type of purely domestic architecture of the Elizabethan age, preserved with a success which makes it possible for those who visit it to realise in a measure the needs and ambitions of those spacious days when Elizabeth honoured so many of her noble or distinguished subjects with visits. Index Æthelflæd, 9, 11, 44, 104 Æthelred, 11, 44 Alfred the Great and Warwickshire, 11 Ancient manor–houses, 174–201 Aragon, Catherine of, 98 Arden, Mary (Shakespeare’s mother), 212 “Arden, The Black Dog of”, 71 Forest of, 6, 203, 251 Armada, Warwickshire and the, 25 Asbies, 212, 214–15 Aston Cantlow, 212, 242 Augustinians, the, in Warwickshire, 18, 127 Bacon, Francis, 213 Baddesley Clinton, 174–9 Hall, illust., p. _128_, 179 Barnet, battle of, 97 Barons’ War, 16–17 Baskerville, John, printer, 167 Beacons, 199–200 Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, illust., p. _57_ Beauchamp, Guy de, 71 Richard, 60, 63, 68; tomb, 63 Thomas, the first Earl of Warwick, 60 Thomas, the second Earl of Warwick, effigies of, 59 Berington, Joseph, 167 Bermingham, De, 156 Bidford, 245–7 Bridge, illust., p. _224_ Billesley, 244 Birmingham, 38–40, 154–71 ancient buildings, 168