"Fairfax and Cromwell delivered speeches to the officers, who nearly filled the church. Captain Reynolds, one of the agitators, made a violent scene with Cromwell, and the conference came to nothing."

It is somewhat strange to find so well-stocked a museum

in a country town as the one at Saffron Walden; the natural history section is especially well arranged.

Not far from Saffron Walden is the mansion of Audley End, one of the finest specimens of Jacobean architecture in the whole of England. Built in 1538 by Lord Audley, it was

of course visited by Queen Elizabeth-that almost goes without saying! It was rebuilt in 1616 in a style described by Evelyn as "a mixt fabric, twixt antiq and modern, and one of the statliest palaces in the kingdom." His fellow diarist, Pepys, was also a frequent visitor; who seems to have been much struck with the cellars, where, he tells us, we drank most admirable drink, a health to the King. Here I played on my fflageolette, there being a most excellent echo," and again some years later he speaks of a second visit. "We went down to the cellars," he says, "and drank of much good liquors, and here my wife and I did sing to my great content."

Charles II took a fancy to this house and "bought " it. but forgot" to pay for it. On one occasion Queen Catherine of Braganza and other ladies of the Court visited Walden fair in the disguise of country wenches, or, as an old chronicle puts it: "Did have a frolic to disguise themselves in red petticoats and waistcoats, and so goe to see a faire." However, they rather overdid the "disguise which, with their "foreign gibberish" soon discovered them to the people, and the courtly masqueraders were nearly mobed before they could escape through the gates of Audley End.

The house has been altered and repaired a good deal since those days, but it still warrants its description as "the statliest house in all ye countre of Essex."

It is interesting to note that here lived the Lord Braybrooke, who first transcribed the shorthand notes of Pepys (in which form he left his diary). It was a notable feat and involved much labour; but it was a task that might have been saved,

for Pepys's own key was then lying in the Magdalene College Library at Cambridge, where it still remains.

The following note about the cultivation of Saffron is interesting. It is taken from Thomas Wright's History and Topography of the County of Essex.

This plant, which, though now but little used in medicine, was formerly supposed to possess extraordinary medicinal