IF the district of East Kent is interesting to us, from its representing the scene of our earliest recorded history, and bringing back to us the memories and traditions of that proud isolation which our county once enjoyed, as the most ancient of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy—if the country of North Kent claims our interest, on the ground of the close and early connection in which it places us with the Metropolis, and from the manner in which it fills up the intermediate portion of our history, and that of the eminent families who were connected with its feudal period—that important division, in the country, which we traverse during our Tenterden Congress, has the distinctive advantage of 

introducing us to the most stirring and eventful period in the annals of our country; a period from which the domestic and social history of England may be said to begin. This period is as marked in its architectural features, as it is in the spiritual and ecclesiastical changes it witnessed; and is covered by the reigns of the only family of our kings which has a native name and an English origin. The records of the Tudor dynasty, which, unlike any previous one, was English, not only in its origin but in its many and varied alliances, bring before us almost a romance
^* A Paper read at Tenterden, on July 28, 1880.