asserting that he was sure the family would return there some day.  Most of the windows were bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion used as a farm-house.  All honour to the old man’s memory, the faithful servant, who thus saved his master’s noble house from destruction, the pride of the Midlands.  Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,[34] thus describes its appearance:—­

“On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where formerly it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court.  It is indeed a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of small red bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional chequers of blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the whole building has an indescribable charm.  The architecture, too, is all irregular; towers here and there, gables of different heights, any straight line embattled, few windows placed exactly over others, and the whole fitly surmounted by the elaborate brick chimneys of different designs, some fluted, others zigzagged, others spiral, or combined spiral and fluted.”

  [34] Memorials of Old Warwickshire, edited by Miss Alice Dryden.

An illustration is given of one of these chimneys which form such an attractive feature of the house.

[Illustration:  Chimney at Compton Wynyates]

It is unnecessary to record the history of Compton Wynyates.  The present owner, the Marquis of Northampton, has written an admirable monograph on the annals of the house of his ancestors.  Its builder was Sir William Compton,[35] who by his valour in arms and his courtly ways gained the favour of Henry VIII, and was promoted to high honour at the Court.  Dugdale states that in 1520 he obtained licence to impark two thousand acres at Overcompton and Nethercompton, alias Compton Vyneyats, where he built a “fair mannour house,” and where he was visited by the King, “for over the gateway are the arms of France and England, under a crown, supported by the greyhound and griffin, and sided by the rose and the crown, probably in memory of Henry VIII’s visit here."[36] The Comptons ever basked in the smiles of royalty.  Henry Compton, created baron, was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and his son William succeeded in marrying the daughter of Sir John Spencer, richest of City merchants.  All the world knows of his ingenious craft in carrying off the lady in a baker’s basket, of his wife’s disinheritance by the irate father, and of the subsequent reconciliation through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth at the baptism of the son of this marriage.  The Comptons