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vided two knotty points could be got over - namely, the force of circumstances and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. In the African canons - which are believed by some to be still of universal obligation - it is expressly ordered that the Bishop should live close to his cathedral - " ut Episcopus non longe ab Ecclesia hospitiolum habent."

Hartlebury Castle has been frequently honoured by Royalty. Princess (afterwards Queen) Mary and suite were here in 1525. Queen Elizabeth rested here for a night, but a local legend declares that her Majesty slept at the Dog Inn, and left one of her royal slippers as a memento of the occasion. And George III paid a visit to Bishop Hurd, at Hartlebury. The Royal Family exhibited themselves on the garden terraces, which are separated from the park only by a sunk fence, to the admiring gaze of a great concourse of country people. It is said that on the occasion of King George's visit, one Robert Sleath, a toll-keeper, resolutely resisted the passing of any of the King's retinue without payment of toll, and was always afterwards known as "The man who stopped the King." He died at Birmingham in 1805, when his death occasioned the following impromptu:

"On Wednesday last old Robert Sleath

Passed through the turnpike-gate of death;

To him death would no toll abate

Who stopp'd the King at Wor'ster gate."

George III, it is known, in 1803, when the Buonapartean invasion was threatened, contemplated the removal of himself and the Royal Family to the friendly shelter of Hartlebury Castle.

At one time the park afforded good sport. Bishop Whitgift hunted here, and from time immemorial a supply of venison was sent from hence to the Dean and Chapter's audits at Worcester, until the late Bishop Pepys gave up the keeping of deer and made a present of the entire herd to the Queen.

The church of Hartlebury is chiefly a modern building,