Doubtless the nuns made their own comments when in later years a gruesome story came from England to them in their new home across the sea. The coffin of Henry VIII., on its journey towards Windsor, was laid for a night within the convent walls; there the bloated corpse within burst, and the blood dropped on the pavement, so that it was licked up by the dogs, as that of the King of Israel in the streets of Samaria. A few months later the convent was granted to the Lord Protector Somerset, who began the building of the present mansion, and when he fell on the scaffold, it was given to Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. There was a curse upon it. Lord Guildford Dudley had it for his home, and from its door he led the Lady Jane, his wife, to the Tower, to claim the throne of England, and receive at last the stroke of the headsman's axe. Elizabeth granted it to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, but he was no exception to the ill-luck of his house, for he was afterwards convicted of being an accomplice in the Gunpowder Plot, disgraced, heavily fined, and imprisoned in the Tower. His son, the tenth earl, repaired the house, and from beneath its roof the children of the ill-fated King Charles were conducted to St. James's Palace to bid their father a last farewell. One of them--Charles II.--held his court here during the Great Plague, and royalty has more than once in later times been a guest within the walls of Sion House. The mansion retains the general outline of the Lord Protector's building, though it has been modernised, and probably made uglier. It is a bleak-looking structure, faced with grey stone, quadrangular in plan, as we note in passing, with embattled square towers at the corner. The principal façade is relieved by an arched terrace, and over the central bay now stands the lion with outstretched tail, once so conspicuous on Northumberland House in the Strand. The gardens and grounds, laid out in the style of the last century, are fine, the plant-houses being especially noted--in fact, they "may be said to be no mean rivals to Kew."
But to these we must return, for the open meads of the Old Deer Park have now been replaced by the groves of Kew. First come the wilder portion of the royal gardens, devoted more especially to forest trees, scenes of sylvan beauty and quiet solitude, as few of the visitors find their way hither, but remain in the more highly cultivated portion, among the plant-houses and the gay parterres, in the neighbourhood of the Richmond road. Yet a more delightful spot for a ramble cannot easily be found; the great trees, feathering down to the sward, cast cool shadows in the summer heat; the long pool here glitters in the light, here lies still and dark beneath overhanging foliage. In due season many a flowering shrub adds a new and more striking diversity to the varied tints of verdure, and the water-lilies expand their cups of gold and silver among their broad floating leaves; the fowl float idly by; the birds twitter among the branches; among the scents of springing grass and of opening flowers, amid the flickering lights and shadows, and the peace of the forest, the roar of London streets dies away from the wearied ears, and the smoke of the town is forgotten in the savour of the pure air.