oad to Effingham, is a large, grey,
castellated building; its entrances might be fortifications. The park
holds some superb beeches. But the grey coldness of Horsley Towers is a
little exotic among these stretches of southern English parkland. Good
Jacobean or Georgian red-brick much better suits oaks and beeches than
the chateau-like towers of a Scottish castle.

Effingham, although so small a village, has a name that will last with
the history of the English Navy. It gave his title to the first Lord
Howard of Effingham, the illustrious father of a still more illustrious
son. The first Lord of Effingham was William Howard, son of the second
Duke of Norfolk, and one of the great men of the reigns of Mary and
Elizabeth. He was with Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; he
was Lord High Admiral; at Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion he shut Ludgate
in Wyatt's face, and more than any Englishman he helped Elizabeth to her
throne. But his son is an even greater figure. Like his father, he was
Lord High Admiral, but the father never had the son's opportunity. For
the second Lord Howard of Effingham commanded the English Navy against
the Spanish Armada, and as the victor of that tremendous fleet and the
captor of Cadiz he was made Earl of Nottingham, and held the office of
Lord High Admiral until the green old age of eighty-three, when "he
retired," we are told, "from public life, and the rest of his life was
peace and prayer." He lies with his father at Reigate, which with the
churches of Lingfield and Great Bookham holds the dust of many
generations of the Surrey Howards. Fourteen Howards have been buried at
Reigate, twelve at Lingfield, and thirty at Great Bookham; but so far as
I can find, none, curiously enough, at Effingham itself.

Scarcely half a mile separates the churches of Effingham and Little
Bookham, the latter a tiny building considerably altered by various
restorations, but containing some interesting remains of Norman work.
Almost touching the church stands, and has stood since days before
Domesday book was written, a great yew, dark and shining, with another
thousand years' life in it, if its vigorous branches tell the truth. The
village itself is not much more than a cottage or two, but Little
Bookham must always be a place of interest, at all events for those who
read and write newspapers, for the Manor House is the home of one of the
doyens of English journalism, Mr. Meredith Townsend, for forty-four
ye