famous old Elizabethan mansion of the London Alderman Lancelot
Bathurst, who died in 1594.

All this valley, as I have said, was used and cultivated by the
Romans, whose work we find not only at Darenth but also here at
Horton. At Fawkham, however, on the higher ground to the east I found
something more germane to the pilgrimage. For in the old church of
Our Lady there, over the western door, is a window in which we may see
one William de Fawkham clothed as a pilgrim with a book in his hand,
and on one side a figure of Our Lord, on the other the Blessed Virgin.

But the goal of my journey from the highway was reached at Eynsford.
Here indeed I found my justification for leaving the road while on
pilgrimage to Canterbury. For not only is Eynsford a beautiful place
in itself, beautifully situated, but it was the quarrel which William
de Eynesford had with St Thomas Becket, when the great archbishop was
in residence at Otford Castle, that led to the murder in Canterbury
Cathedral and the great pilgrimage which has brought even us at this
late day on our way.

Becket's quarrel with the king and the civil power was, as we know,
concerning the liberty of the Church, and more particularly here a
dispute as to the presentation to the church of St Martin in Eynsford,
which still retains many features of that time. After the martyrdom,
William de Eynesford, though he does not appear to have been directly
concerned in the murder, was excommunicated, and Eynsford Castle was
left without inhabitants, for no one would enter it. It fell into
decay, and was never after used or restored or rebuilt, only Henry
VIII. venturing to use it as a stable; but his work has been cleared
away, and what we see is a ruin of the time of St Thomas, and indeed