iege lasting sixty days, when Henry III.
personally conducted the operations, being attended by the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the chief peers of the realm: this was in 1224, and the
most ingenious engines of war were used to batter down the castle-walls,
which till then had been regarded as impregnable. The stronghold was
ultimately captured, chiefly through the agency of a lofty wooden castle
higher than the walls, which gave an opportunity of seeing all that
passed within. The governor of the castle, twenty-four knights, and
eighty soldiers, making most of the garrison, were hanged. King Henry
then dismantled it and filled up the ditches, so as to "uproot this
nursery of sedition." The ruins lasted some time afterward, but now only
the site is known, located alongside the river Ouse, which runs through
the city of Bedford. This town is of great interest, though, as Camden
wrote two centuries ago, it is more eminent for its "pleasant situation
and antiquity than for anything of beauty and stateliness." Its
neighborhood has been a noted mine for antiquities, disclosing remains
of ancient races of men and of almost pre-historic animals of the Bronze
and Iron Ages. The town lies rather low on the river, with a handsome
bridge connecting the two parts, and pretty gardens fringing each shore.
This bridge is a modern structure, having succeeded the "old bridge,"
which stood there several centuries with a gate-house at either end, in
the larger of which was the old jail, that had for its most
distinguished occupant that sturdy townsman of Bedford, John Bunyan. The
castle-mound, which is all that is left, and on which once stood the
keep, is on the river-shore just below the bridge, and is now used for a
bowling-green in the garden of the chief hotel. The memorials of the
author of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, first a prisoner and then a minister
of the gospel in Bedford, are probably the most prized remains of
ancient days that Bedford has, though they are now becoming scarce.

JOHN BUNYAN.

[Illustration: ELSTOW, BEDFORD.]

[Illustration: ELSTOW CHURCH.]

Elstow, a village about one mile south of Bedford, was Bunyan's
birthplace. The house is still pointed out, though a new front has been
put into it, and it is a very small building, suitable to the tinker's
humble estate. The village-green where he played is near by, alongside
the churchyard wall; the church, which has been little changed, stands
on the farther side o