Note 3 — PREFACE.

Since the publication of the first edition of the work, Mr. Manning has pointed out an error which shall be rectified in his own words. The mistake is, perhaps, not important in a work of fiction, but it is desirable that the precise route taken by the royal fugitive should be ascertained, and Mr. Manning's description is very interesting as well as accurate. "You have kept strictly to the line of route pursued by the King and Jane Lane from Bentley House, except as regards their arrival at Stratford-on-Avon. They must have come across country until they touched the high road from Birmingham. When within a mile of Stratford they retraced their course, and, according to Mr. Wise's account, turned to the village of Wootton Wawen, seeking the higher ground, and getting to Stratford by a lane, now called the King's Lane. Henley is some miles to the right. One field from the lane just mentioned stood an oak belonging to a friend of mine called the King's Oak. On descending from this point, they would come to the bridge at Stratford, on the outskirts of the town; but we do not exactly know where they passed the river. At dry seasons the Avon could be forded about a mile above the bridge, but the water is generally deep in this part."

Suum cuique. It is right to mention that the striking description of the seventh Earl of Derby (cited in Chap. xxii. Book I.) is from the pen of the late William Robert Whatton, Esq., F.S.A., who contributed the able Historical and Biographical Memoirs of illustrious Natives of Lancashire to Baines's History of the County. Mr. Whatton's masterly portraiture has been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Baines.