190 IZAAK WALTON'S ASSOCIATION WITH THE RIVER LEA.
" At the sign of the Three Trouts in St. Paul's Churchyard on
the north side, you may be fitted with all sorts of the best fishing
tackle by John Margrave."
In order to trace the nature of Izaak Walton's association with
the River Lea, we have to look a little closely into the plan of his
book, but as there must be few who have not read it, it will be
unnecessary to do more than recall the fact that in the latest edition
issued in the author's lifetime it takes the form of a conversation
between an angler, a huntsman, and a falconer (Piscator, Venator,
and Auceps), each of whom in turn discourses on his particular
recreation, and give his reasons for maintaining its superiority to the
others.
Piscator, while ascending Tottenham Hill on a fishing excursion,
overtakes Venator and Auceps, and after an exchange of compli-
ments, expresses a hope that they were going towards Ware.
Venator replies that he is going to the "Thatched House" at
Hoddesdon, where he has an appointment with some friends ; and
Auceps says he will accompany them as far as Theobalds, where he
must turn off to see a friend who mews a hawk for him.
Discoursing by the way, they reach Tottenham High Cross.
This is generally assumed to be an "Eleanor Cross," that is, one of
the crosses erected by Edward I. in memory of his Queen Eleanor,
to mark the route of her funeral cortège between Grantham, where
she died (in November, 1291), and Westminster, where she was
buried. But Tottenham was not one of the places where the corpse
of Queen Eleanor rested, and the Cross was probably only one of the
wayside crosses which were once common in England, as they still
are in many parts of the continent. It could not have been a
market-cross, for there is no mention to be found of any market
there. About 1580 it was merely a column of wood capped with a
square sheet of lead to shoot the water off every way. Ten years
later Norden described it as a wooden cross lately raised on a little
mound of earth. But both cross and name were of much more
remote date. About 1600, the cross being decayed, Dean Wood,
who lived in a house to the east of it, had it taken down, and erected
in its place one of brick, octagonal at the base, square above, with a
sundial on one of the faces, and crowned with a crocketed terminal
weathercock. This was the Tottenham High Cross to which Walton
bade his companions welcome.
It lasted for over two centuries, when, falling out of repair, the