Not far away is Southwell, where there is the historic inn the
"Saracen's Head." Here Charles I stayed, and you can see the very room
where he lodged on the left of the entrance-gate. Here it was on May
5th, 1646, that he gave himself up to the Scotch Commissioners, who
wrote to the Parliament from Southwell "that it made them feel like
men in a dream." The "Martyr-King" entered this inn as a sovereign; he
left it a prisoner under the guard of his Lothian escort. Here he
slept his last night of liberty, and as he passed under the archway of
the "Saracen's Head" he started on that fatal journey that terminated
on the scaffold at Whitehall. You can see on the front of the inn over
the gateway a stone lozenge with the royal arms engraved on it with
the date 1693, commemorating this royal melancholy visit. In later
times Lord Byron was a frequent visitor.
On the high, wind-swept road between Ashbourne and Buxton there is an
inn which can defy the attacks of the reformers. It is called the
Newhaven Inn and was built by a Duke of Devonshire for the
accommodation of visitors to Buxton. King George IV was so pleased
with it that he gave the Duke a perpetual licence, with which no
Brewster Sessions can interfere. Near Buxton is the second highest inn
in England, the "Cat and Fiddle," and "The Traveller's Rest" at Flash
Bar, on the Leek road, ranks as third, the highest being the Tan Hill
Inn, near Brough, on the Yorkshire moors.
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