[Illustration: CANUTE AND HIS COURTIERS.] "Canute, of whom you spoke, was the king who ordered his throne to be placed on the margin of the sea," said Wyllys to Master Lewis, "and then commanded the sea to rise no farther." "But the sea rose," said Master Lewis, "and the king refused to wear again his golden crown for ever, resolving to serve only that King who rules the sea. "The history of Oxford covers a period of a thousand years," continued Master Lewis. "Here Queen Matilda, or the Empress Maud, as she was called, because she had been the wife of the German Emperor, was besieged by King Stephen, who had usurped the throne, and thence she fled from him one snowy day, herself and attendants dressed in white that they might not be discovered; here the people closed the gates against William the Conqueror; here Richard I. was born, and here Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer were burned. The early history of nearly all great English scholars for many centuries is associated with the colleges in this place." [Illustration: FLIGHT OF EMPRESS MAUD.] "How green are the English meadows with their hedgerows and trees!" said Wyllys. "And how bright are the streams that run among them! An English landscape is more rich and varied than an American." "I never would tell of it," said Tommy. "Grass is grass, and we have just as good grass at home as anywhere." "We have no buildings at home that are quite equal to Warwick Castle," said Frank. "It is better to admit excellences frankly wherever one is," said Master Lewis, "and never let any prejudice color an opinion. When one is travelling it is well never to make a comparison." Few scenes are more charming, especially on a long sunny summer afternoon, than the college buildings of Oxford, separated by gardens, meadows, and rows of venerable trees, the latter as old as the roofs and spires that rise above them. [Illustration: DEATH OF LATIMER AND RIDLEY.] While at Oxford the boys were taken to Woodstock, a distance of some eight miles. The old ballad of "Fair Rosamond" so haunted the mind of Ernest Wynn, at Oxford, that he induced Master Lewis to make an excursion to Woodstock, the scene of the fancied tragedy. "I have seen Kenilworth, the scene of one of Walter Scott's romances," said Ernest; "have been among the associations of 'Ivanhoe,' and 'Peveril of the Peak,' and I shall always be glad to have seen the place of the novelist's other English fiction." The town of Woodstock once constituted a part of the royal demesnes. Here Ethelred held a council, and Alfred the Great translated the "Consolations of Boethius." The history of the old palace of Woodstock is associated with dark romances, splendid cavalcades, and crumbled kings and queens. Not a vestige of the palace now remains; its site is merely marked by two sycamore trees.