CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 924 088 940 139 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2000 ^- vjl^l.'il, p '"'>> Qfotttell UniuerHity Sitbrary 3tl)aca, 5Jtm ^ork BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 oi < u b < O r. H P 1^ ,. H O The History of Ufton Court, of the Parish of Ufton, in the County of Berks, and of the Perkins Family: compiled from Ancient Records BY A. MARY SHARP. Kassemblons les fails pour avoir des idees." BUFFON. LONDON : ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. READING: MISS LANGLEY. | NEWBURY: J. W. BLACKET. 1892. /V, •# gaiir'f '<, % %!C CK Preface. There is a feeling experienced probably by most people in connection with an old hotise, more es- pecially should that aid house chance to be ones home, namely, a curiosity about its past — a wish to know as much as can be learnt about those who have inhabited it in past generations, whether they lived sadly or happily in the midst of these scenes now familiar to ourselves, what they looked like & what were their occupa- tions, their interests & their characters ; all these are questions to which we would fain seek a fuller answer than can be found in the histories of the country at large. It seems very sad that mens & women's lives should pass away from their homes almost as do those of the dumb cattle, forgotten & unrecorded except for a line in the parish register, & a half-obliterated & seldom read inscription on the church floor. For if the good that a man does is not always interred with his bones, yet, alas ! it often happens that he himself is not at all remembered in connection with it — so, at least, was the case at Ufton. A certain Lady Marvyn, who lived three hundred years ago, left an endowment for a charitable bequest to be distributed yearly viii Preface. among the poor people of the parish, whzch ts still duly received every Mid-Lent on a Friday afternoon ; Cf yet when inquiry was made concerning her, no one in the place kneiuivho she was, or cared anything whatever about her. It was because it seemed to the iVT-iter wrong that such things should be, that this book ivas begun. Like all other such tasks, the field of inquiry grew wider, (sf the interest o-reater as the zuork went on ; & as deeds, grants, zvills & other old parchment records each told its bit of the story, there came to light something, if not all., of what one ivould like to know about those ivho lived in former days at Ufton, & also, in addition, a great deal more of the history of the place as connected ivith our luider national interests, than could ever have been expected to exist. It may be objected that after all the history of one small parish of not much more than tzvo thousand acres cannot be of very general interest, & that the lives & fortunes of one family of English squires, in no way distinguished above their neighbours by talent, wealth or influence, can be scarcely ivortk chronicling. Yet surely the very fact that this is a tale so like many others ivhich could be ivritten, but are not, gives it a representative character. As the family at Ufton Court lived, so did, for the most part, our ancestors throughout the country. As the Ufton lands passed from the possession of the Saxon Thane to that of t fie Norman Baron, then to the ivealthy Abbey in the neighbourhood, & finally to the English country gentle- man, so it happened in other places also. Thus the story of one small parish is a key to that of the County. It IS to be hoped that this much more extended task Preface. ix viay before long be efficiently itndertaken, foj' a new & thorough Cou7ity history of Berkshire is very much needed. So many more sources of original information are now at the dis- posal of the student than in the days ivhen Lysons compiled his ''Magna Britannica" that it is not sjirprising if many of the statements made in his short notices of the various parishes have been proved inaccurate. The first task of a county historian ivill be to refute & correct many errors & misstatements which have been, till now repeated & reprinted through a whole library of local histories. With regard to the following pages, a word of explanation seems needed on one point : that of the spelling of proper names & places. Anyone at all familiar with ancient records IS aware how various is the orthography ; even on the same page the name of the same place or person is sometimes to be found in different passages, differently spelt ; how, then, is one to know which spelling to adopt ? In actually quoting the words of a contemporary I'ecord, I have tried to adhere to the spelling therein given ; and if, in the text of this history also, the orthography is sometimes varied, I must crave the indulgence of the reader. In collecting information for this book, I have been much indebted to the kindness of Mr. Maxivell Lyte, the Deputy- Keeper of the Record Office, also to the zeal & good nattire of many other friends who have not grudged time or trouble in supplying to me various odds & ends of facts which have all contributed to fill in the outline of the story. Chiefly I must b X Preface. thank Mr. Ma7tsfield Parkyns, not only for the materials which he has so liberally contrihded out of his abundant store of genea- logical & antiquarian knowledge, but also for his help in interpreting these materials, without which, I may fairly say, the followiiig history could 7iot have been tvritten at all. I have also to thank Miss Alice Fowler for two of the principal illustrations, & Mr. C. Buckler for so kindly allowzng me to reproduce many of his father s early drawings of Ufton Court. To Mr. Henry Hill I am indebted for the architectural ground-plans of the house. A. Mary Sharp. Ufton Court, 1892. The Contents of this Book. Preface PAGE vii CHAPTER I. Of Domesday Book. — Measurement of land — Villeins — Bordars^Serfs — Free sub-tenants — Knight's fee — Socage— No right of alienation — Complaint in Saxon chronicle — The two paragraphs — Ghilo's estate — Estate of William FitzAnsculf — The two parishes — ^Ufton Richard or Nervet — Ufton Robert — Pole Manor - - - i CHAPTER n. Of Uflon Richard or Nervet. — The family of Pinchegni — Richard Neyrvut — Grants to Reading Abbey — John Neyrvut sells the manor to the abbey — Contested possession — Henry de Pinkney sur- renders his lordship to Edward I. — Tythe granted to Edward I. - 7 Of Reading Abbey. — Founded by Henry I. — Rights and privileges — Suppression of monastery — Abbot Hugh executed — Building granted to Sir Francis KnoUys — The Book of Charters — The manor of Ufton Richard granted to Sir John Williams — Created Lord Williams of Thame — Daughter married Sir Henry Norreys - - 10 Of the Norreys Fainily. — Sir Henry Norreys executed by Henry VHI. — Mortgage of Berks estates — Sir John Norreys — Monument in West- minster Abbey — Sir Edward Norreys buried at Englefield — Disputed succession — Frances Norreys — Created Earl of Berkshire — Death — Descendants — Earl of Abingdon — Sale of Manor of Ufton Nervet to Francis Perkins in 1709 - - - - 16 CHAPTER HI. Of Ufton Robert. — Tenants in capite — William FitzAnsculf — Fulke Paganel — Ralph — Gervase — Marriage of heiress to John de Somery — John de Sutton — Estate seized by Hugh Despencer — Bradfield Manor sold to Nicholas de la Beche — Langford family — Ufton Robert transferred to Tidmarsh Manor — Thomas Engle- b 2 xii Contents. field — Sir Francis Englefield — Estate forfeited — Transaction of the gold ring — Death — Sir Peter Vanlore — Monument in Tilehurst Church — Extinction of feudal claims - - - - 23 Of the Sub-tenants of Ufton Robert. — Ralf de Offinton — Grant to Reading Abbey — William de Offinton — Robert de Offinton — William de Uffinton — Patron of the living — License to hear Divine service in his own house - - - - - - - 27 Of the Pagnels of Ufton Robert. — Richard Pagnel — Pagnel's Manor in Borwardescote — License to enclose a park — Thomas Pagnel — Agreement with the Abbot of Reading — Lawsuit concerning John Pagnel — Dame Constance Pagnel - - - - - 3° CHAPTER IV. Of the Family of Parkyns.- — Peter Morley, alias Perkins, servus to Lord Despencer — Spelling of the name — Mention of Parkyns in the manor rolls of Madresfield — Despencer estates — Hugh Despencer — John Parkyns, (139S) — Thomas Despencer, Earl of Gloucester — William Parkyns, (141 1) — Patron of Ufton Robert — Ballious to Humfry Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester — Accounts of Corpora- tion of Reading — Agreement between John and Elizabeth Collee and William and Margaret Parkyns — Ecclesiastical union of the two parishes — Thomas Parkyns, (1451) — Agreement between Earl of Warwick and John Montague and Thomas Parkyns with Bernard Brocas — Inq. P. M. of Thomas Parkyns — Ancestor of Nottingham- shire family — Visitation of county of Worcester — Thomas Parkyns of Mattisfield — John Parkyns, (1478) — Margaret Collee — Thomas Parkyns, (15 18) — His various estates — Peter Cowdray — Sir George Foster — Richard Parkyns, (1524) — Assault of Sir Humfrey Forster — Richard Parkyns' will — His settlement of Ufton Robert on Francis Parkyns — The sepulchre — His monument — The coats of arms — A display of pedigree — Fate of the monument — William Parkyns' will — Margaret, Countess of Salisbury — Cardinal Pole — Death of William Parkyns — Fever in 1558 - - - - 35 CHAPTER V. Of Pole Manor. — Elizabeth, Lady Marvyn — Sir John Marvyn's will — Pole Manor a sub-division of Ufton Robert — Sir Thomas Ipre, (1396) — Lord Lovel, (1408) — Francis, Lord Lovel, (1483) — Created viscount — Conspiracies — Battle of Stoke — Discovery of skeleton at Minster Lovel — Pole Manor granted to Richard Weston — Sold to Lady Marvyn, (1568) — Complicated tenure — Locality of Pole Manor — Will of Lady Marvyn - - . . 66 CHAPTER VL Of tJie Recusants. — Francis Perkins (ist, 1581)— Disputed succession — Sergeant Plowden — Wardship of Francis Englefield — Effects of the Reformation — Repressive legislation — Provocations — Elizabeth's Contents. xiii justification — Father Bluet's declaration — Information of Roger Plumpton against Francis Perkins — George Lingam — List of Recusants — Subscription to the defence fund — Fines — Search of Ufton Court — Lawsuit — Sir Francis Knollys — Death of Francis Perkins — His monument — His widow Anne — Her will — Edmond Perkins — Francis Perkins (2nd, 1616) — Forfeiture of two-thirds of rents — Petition for permission to leave his home — Civil wars — Skirmish at Pad worth— Petition of parishioners concerning certain charitable gifts — Answer to petition — Inscription on the tomb of Margaret Perkins — Katherine Tattersall — First deed of settlement — Second deed — Death of Francis — Inscription of his tomb — Inscrip- tion on the tomb of his eldest son - - - - - 83 CHAPTER VII. Of Later Times. — Francis Perkins (3rd, 1661) — His mother, Frances Winchcomb — Jack of Newbury — Epitaph on her tomb — First wife, Katherine Belson — Her epitaph — Second wife, Ann Perkins — Death of Francis Perkins — -His epitaph — Francis Perkins (4th, 1694) — John Berrington's accounts — Purchase of Ufton Nervet — Marriage with Arabella Fermor — Portraits — Poem of Parnell — The Rape of the Lock — Pope's dedication — His letter on her marriage — Settlement on Arabella — Francis (5th, 1736) — Lord Kingston — Aldermaston Bowling Club — James Perkins — Charles Perkins — John Perkins — His will — Death, 1769 — Francis Prior — Father Madew's note — Relaxation of laws against Papists — William Perkins executed — Visit of Prince Charles Edward to Ufton — Father Price — Father Madew's further notes — Bishop Chaloner — Father Baynham — Ufton estates inherited by Mr. Jones, of Llanarth — Sold to Mr. Congreve — Purchased by Mr. Benyon de Beauvoir - - - 115 CHAPTER Vin. Of the Court. — Situation — East front — Construction — The kitchen — The central porch — The hall — The dining-room — The library — Copy of Shakespeare — The oratory — The priest's room — Little cupboard — The chapel — The hiding-places — The upper story — Ghostly appearances — The drawing-rooms — Inventory of furniture — Terraced garden — The fish ponds — Fish sauce — The park - - -137 CHAPTER IX. Of the Parish. — Soil — Boundaries — The Bath road — The Kennet and Avon Canal — The common fields — Enclosure Act — Grimmer's bank — The chapel of St. John the Baptist, Ufton Nervet — Act of union of the parishes — Granted by Henry VIII. to R. Andrews and Leonard Chamberlayne — Sold to Thomas Burgoyne — Resold to Richard Bartlet — Sold to Sir Humfrey Foster — Sold to Thomas XIV Contents. Wylder — Ruined chapel — The church of St. Peter — Old church — Stained glass — Inventory of church goods — Monuments — Present church — Windows — Benefactions — Yew tree — Registers — Rectors — Suit with Abbot of Reading — Master Thomas Abberbury — Nomi- nation by the Venerable Robert Wright — Marmaduke Goode — Appointment of lay registrar — Act of Parliament — Thomas Wilson — Sale of advowson to Oriel College — Dr. Beke — William Bishop — Dr. Fraser — ^The Rectory — Gibbet piece — Murder of William Billimore — Hail storm — Letters patent — Feast after the battle of Waterloo — Prince of Wales's wedding — Queen's jubilee — Parish accounts — Increased prosperity of the parish in recent times 169 APPENDIX. A full table of Descent of the family of Perkins of Ufton - Section i. — Paragraphs from Domesday Book — Note on manors of Finch- ampstead, Padworth and Suthamstead — Pedigrees of Perkins of Ufton, from Herald's Visitation — Note on the same — List of institu- tions to livings of Ufton Nervet and Ufton Robert — Extracts from Ufton Parish Registers — Ditto from Beenham — Notes by Father Madew — Inventory of Church ornaments in 1889 — Inscriptions in parish church, Ufton — Note on wild flowers in Ufton— Recipes by F. Madew -------- Sedioii 2. — Notes concerning the families of Perkins of Beenham, Co. Berks — Perkins of Wokingham, Co. Berks — Perkins of Winkton, Co. Hants — Parkyns of Madresfield and Nottinghamshire — Sir Chris- topher Parkyns — Pedigrees of Parkins of Ashby, Co. Lincoln — Parkins of Grantham, Co. Lincoln — Perkins of Llandogo, Co. Mon- mouth — Perkins of Norfolk — Parkins of Sheffield — Parkins of Marston Jabet, Co. Warwick - . _ . . Section 3. — A roll of the pioneers of New England of the name of Perkins, compiled by Mr. D. W. Perkins of New York Index - - - - . - 219 247 263 >^ji: List of Illustrations. Outer Cover — View of Ufton Court. Frontispiece — View of the west front, showing the terrace wall and old garden steps. Title-page — Well in Shootersbrook Lane. CHAPTER I. PAGE I Norman knights ------ A caxMCdi with, ttaxn oi oxen, from an ancient MS. - - 6 CHAPTER H. Arms of the lords in chief of Ufton Nervet - - - - 7 Illuminated letter from the book of the charters of Reading Abbey - 10 Ruins of Reading Abbey in 1805 - - - - - 12 Anathema from the book of charters - - - - 14 Statue of Sir Edward Norreys - - - - - 18 Seal of Reading Abbey - - - - - - 21 CHAPTER in. Arms of the lords in chief of Ufton Robert - - - - 23 Monument of Sir Peter Vanlore, Mr. J. Buckler, F.S.A. - - 32 CHAPTER IV. Mompesson coats of arms - - - - - - 35 Facsimile of MS. £/!as Ashmok - - - - - 56 Monument restored - - - - - - - 57 Frieze from Hall - - - - - - - 65 CHAPTER V. East view of Ufton Court - - - - - - 66 Ruins of Minster Lovell - - - - - -71 Panel from oratory - - - - - - 81 xvi List of Illustrations. CHAPTER VI. PAGE Panel from oratory - - - - - - -83 Sir Francis KnoUys' party carrying away the chests. Miss Alice Foitikr -------- loi Effigies of Francis and Anna Perkins - - - - 104 Plowden Arms - - - - - - - Ji3 CHAPTER Vn. Distant view of Ufton Court - - - - - nS Portrait of Arabella Fermor as a child - - - - 120 Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins - - - - - 121 Portrait of Arabella Perkins - _ - _ - 123 Seal, 1709 - - - - - - - - 134 CHAPTER Vni. Ground-plan of Court. Mr. Henry Hill - - - - 136 Hall ceiling - - - - - - - - 137 Stables -_--____ j^g Triangular shield - - - - - - - '39 Kitchen roof ------- j^j View of outbuildings now pulled down. Mr. J. Buckler, F.S. A. - 142 Porch - - - - - - - - 143 Lozenge ornament ------- 144 Interior of hall as in 1838. Mr. J. Buckler, F.S.A - - 145 Carved shield - - - - - - - 146 View of Ufton Court as in 1820 ----- i^y Doorway -------- i^g Scratched inscription - - - - - - 148 I"irst floor plan. Mr. Henry Hill - ■ - - - 149 Staircase - - - - - - - - 150 Chimneypiece of library - - - - - - 151 Details of chimneypiece - - - - - - iS^ Window in south wing - - . - - - - 1C2 Oratory - - - - ; - - - - 154 Newell staircase - - - . - - - - i S S Plan of attic floor. Air. Henry Hill - - . - 156 Wooden lock - - - - - - - iS7 Statuette - - - - - - - - icS Garden steps - - - - - - - 163 Prospect of situation of Ufton Court - - - - 16^ Old gateway- - - - - - - ,166 Pollard oak ------ 167 List of Illustrations. xvii CHAPTER IX. Map of Parish . . - - Bath road - - - - - TraveUing in olden days. Miss Alice Fowler Ruins of chapel . - - - Old church. Mr. J. Buckler, F.S. A. Ipre Anns - - - - - Perkins chapel . . - - Brass of William Smith Church porch - - - - Old fonts ----- i68 169 172 181 182 183 '87 198 The History of the Parish of Ufton. Chapter j. Of Domesday Book. HE history of Ufton begins in Domesday a.D. 1085. Book ; it is there called Offetone, and is ■ named among the manors in Berkshire belonging to William FitzAnsculf The passage has been translated as follows : The same William holds in Offetone, & For original a certain knight of him. Herling held it 0/'^* ^pp'^""'-" King Edivard. It then answered for five hides., now for four aiid a half. There is land for five ploughs, there is one in demesne, & eight villeins & five bordars with five ploughs ; there is one bondsman & forty acres of meadow & wood for one hog. Another knight holds three virgates of this land, & has one plough there ; the whole was in King Edwards time zvorth one hundred shillings., & afterzuards & 7WIV sixty shillings. And again, in the list of the possessions of Ghilo : GHILO, the brother of Atisculf holds Offetone. Saulf held it of King Edzvard ; then it answered for five hides, now I The Histo?y of Ufton. Chap. i. for three hides & a half. There is land for five ploughs ; z^ ^ there are eight villeins & five bordars with three ploughs 'J ^''^' df thirty -six ac7'es of meadoiv. It was worth a hundred Domesday shillings, UOW Sixty. Book. The term hide originally expressed a homestead, with Lyton, Key to i i • i • • ii Domesday whatevcr land was attached to it ; later on it practically came oo , p. 13. ^^ imply a certain extent of land which could be ploughed with one team of oxen, and it was in consequence also often called a carucate, from caruca a plough ; hence the coinci- dence between the number of hides and ploughs mentioned. A drawing of a caruca and team of oxen, with peasants ploughing, taken from an early MS., will be found at the end of the chapter. The hide varied in extent in different districts ; its average measurement is generally considered to have been about 120 acres; it was divided into four virgates : thus the two estates of five hides taken together would have contained about 1,200 acres of arable land, besides 76 acres of meadow land and woodlands, the extent of which is not specified. The one hog ought, perhaps, rather to be translated one head of swine. The parish now contains 2,122 acres. The different measurements and values at the time of the Survey and previously, which are so specially mentioned, may be accounted for by the consideration that, owing to the disturbed state of the country and the change of masters, less land was probably under cultivation than during the reign of King Edward the Confessor. F. seebohm. Mr. Seebohm has described the vill, or manor, as divided munWes'^p^G into two parts. The lord's demesne, or, as we should now say, the home farm, was distinct from the rest of the estate, which was held in villeinage ; that Is, let out to villeins and cottars for fixed services. Each villein held, usually, one virgate of land, with a messuage or dwelling in the village ; his thirty acres, however, did not lie In one plot together, but were distributed in acre and half-acre strips through the open fields of the parish. This custom was not one of those introduced by the Norman conquerors, but had prevailed in the country from very early times. It seems to have been a Of Domesday Book. very widespread arrangement, and is common to this day in Chap. i. some parts of Germany and also in India. The probable ^^ , ^ explanation of it is, that in this way each landholder enjoys 'J '' equal advantages with regard to water and soil, and has an equal interest in guarding the village lands from the depre- dations of wild beasts that may haunt the unenclosed woods beyond ; and in the early days of English history, when wolves abounded and foxes and hawks were more numerous than at present, this last reason may have been of considerable force. The villein, so called from the vill, or manor to which he Villeins. was attached, was by no means a serf ; he was a person of some responsibility, as is proved by the fact that it was from information given by six villeins in each manor that the returns for Domesday Book were framed. But he was not a freeman ; he was bound to certain services to his lord, and these varied according to the customs of each particular manor ; usually he had to give a portion of the produce of the land he held to his lord, and besides which he must reap and mow on //?> Thorpe's An - lord^s land, hew the deer hedge, make new roads to the fc arm. cient Laws, pay chnrch-shot and almsfee and must hold head-ward and- horse-ward : that is, keep watch at his lord's tent and guard his horses. He must also go errands far and near whither- soever he was directed. But for these services he could sometimes pay as relief the best animal he had, whether it be an ox or a horse, and must have been in that case a man of some means. He was sometimes called the customary tenant, as holding by the customs of the manor ; later on he became the copyholder. Below the villeins were the bordars, or cottars. These Bordars or had smaller holdings than the villeins, or none at all ; they Cottars. worked as farm-labourers on their lord's land, being housed, fed, and directed by the steward or bailiff of the estate. Lower still in the social scale came the bondsmen or domestic serfs, of whom there appears to have been only one at Ufton. When the lord held the demesne in his own hands he Lord's visited it from time to time, staying, perhaps, as long as the Demesne. food supply, sufficient for the maintenance of his crowd of retainers, lasted, and then moving on to another of his estates. I — 2 The History of Ufton. Chap. i. In the absence of the owner the estate was managed by a JT resident baiHff or steward, or it was sometimes granted to a 'J free sub-tenant, who held it of the hege lord in fee; that is, for feudal service, being bound to supply one fully-equipped knight whenever required, for a certain-sized tract of land. This tenure was known as a Knight's fee ; or the land was held on socage ; that is, for some conventional service other than military. In theory it was not in the power of any landlord to sell or alienate even a single acre of land, the whole country belonged absolutely to the King ; but in practice these grants Keneim Dig. from the tenant in capite, as the original receiver of land was R'e'ai Property, Called, to his sub-tenant were often made for money payments pp. sin. and instead of service. At the death of the sub-tenant they 37- . . . descended to his heirs, and he became, in fact, as he was generally called, the lord of the manor. In his turn he often regranted his land in part or in whole to other tenants holding under him. But in case of failure of heirs the land always reverted to the superior lord, or to the King, if it was the tenant in capite whose family had died out. Owing to the legal difficulties which in early times impeded the direct transfer of land from one owner to another, all sorts of indirect methods, such as fines and recoveries, etc., were made use of in transactions which were virtually sales ; the King, however, constantly reasserted his rights by the exaction of money payments whenever a case of alienation came before him, and it was not till very much later in English history that the complications in legal procedure arising out of this theory concerning the ownership of land were entirely J. Morgan, cleared away. The poor Saxon landowners after the Norman the^Nomant" Conqucst lost all their rights. Everyone who wished to p 3- acquire land was obliged to purchase or to receive it as a grant from the King, and the unfortunate thane had but little chance in competition with a Norman baron. Some- times he was fain to take his own land as a sub-tenant under the Norman usurper, or even to become a villein or a serf where once he had been master. In the Domesday survey of Buckinghamshire there is mention of one Ailrie, who held four hides of land of that same William FitzAnsculf, lord of Of Doomsday Book. 5 Ufton, and, it is added, the same held it of King Edward, Chap. i. who now holds it at farm of William. Graviter et misera- , t-, „ biliter. Of Saulf and Herling, the Saxon owners of Ufton, ' — — we know nothing at all. The minuteness of detail with which the survey of the conquered land was made seems to have been especially irritating to the Saxons. It provoked from their historian, the old Saxon chronicler, the following piteous lament : So narrowly did he (the King) cause the survey to be made that there was not a single hide nor rood of land, Jior, it IS shameful to relate, that which he thought no shame to do, xvas there an ox or a coza or a pig passed by, that was not set down in the account & then all these zvritings were brought to him. And here something must be said of the existence of two paragraphs in Domesday Book, both referring to Offetone. There is sufficient resemblance between the two to have sug- gested the idea that they might possibly be repetitions, and might both refer to the same estate ; but when they are carefully considered, that view seems hardly probable, and It is more reasonable to suppose that they refer to the two separate manors which existed from early times in Ufton. The two estates together, considering them as separate hold- ings, correspond very fairly in extent with the size of the present parish. Moreover, the differences in the descriptions are more marked even than the points of resemblance. The owners, both Saxon and Norman, are different, and so also are the conditions of the land. In Ghilo's estate there is no mention of a demesne, and it was probably all held in villeinage ; while that which came to the share of William FitzAnsculf contained a lord's demesne, and the rest was divided and held under him by two separate knights, or free sub-tenants. These conditions correspond with tolerable accuracy to what is found to have been the case during the later history of Ufton. It was divided into two separate manors and parishes, taking their names from two of the early sub-tenants. That which corresponds to Ghilo's Ufton estate was called Ufton Richard or Nervet. In this, as has Richard or Nervet. The History of Uft07i. Chap. i. A.D. io8; Ukton Robert. Pole Manor. been said, there was no demesne, and it is noticeable that there is no record of there ever having been a manor-house in this parish, nor is there any existing trace of one now to be seen. The parish of Ufton Robert would seem to be the same as the estate of Wilham FitzAnsculf. It was subdivided into two manors. The larger was called, like the parish, Ufton Robert, while the smaller of the two was known by the name of Pole Manor or Ufton Pole. I am aware that in giving the names of the two parishes as above I am not following the account which has long been accepted from the statements of Lysons in his "Magna Britannica." According to him, the estate granted to Ghilo was afterwards called Ufton Greys- hall, and the name of Nervet was given to the manor which belonged to FitzAnsculf. But for the nomenclature that I have adopted I have, among other authorities, that of the Sarum Diocesan Register, a contemporary record dating from 1297, where the two parishes are entered as Ufton Robert and Ufton Richard or Nervet respectively. They are also so called in all the early deeds and charters which I have seen, in which, as will be shown in the sequel, the manor called Ufton Robert is repeatedly mentioned as being in the lordship of the successors of FitzAnsculf, while the sub-tenants of Ufton Nervet are said to have held under the family of Pinqueni, to which family Ghilo belonged. I have therefore thought it right to keep to the original names of the parishes as I have found them in early records. It will be more convenient to relate the subsequent history of these two estates and parishes separately. Chapter ij. Of Ufton Nervet or T^chard. HILO held eighteen other manors in different A.D. 1085 parts of the country besides his estate in Ufton, the principal being that of Weedon, in Ghilo de Northamptonshire. He was of the family of P'^'<=" '='=■"''■ Pinchegni, or Pinkeneye, and was uncle to William FitzAnsculf. His son Ghilo founded Weedon Priory in the time of Henry I. ; his grandson, Ralph, was living in 1140. After him came Gilbert de Pinkeneye, living in 1167; then Henry, who died about 1209 ; then Robert and two other Henrys, the first of whom Richard died in 1253. It must have been of him that it is recorded Nevrvut. in the Testa de Nevill that Richard Neyrvut held in Uffi}itom:eT.\a.de one Knighfsfee of Henry de Pinkeny. From Richard Neyrvut '^' '■'•*■ the parish subsequently took its names. Holding the manor himself of the tenant in capite, he in his turn had another tenant under him. Among the charters of Reading Abbey is one recording a gift to the monastery by Simon, son of Nicholas (elsewhere called of Bradefield), and Isabella, his wife, of land in Ufton which they had received from Thomas, son of Alan, who had held it of Richard Neyrvut : Know present & future that I, Simon, soit of Nicholas, & Isabella my wife, have given & granted, & by this my Ch/ A.D. The History of Ufton. present charter have confirmed, for the safety of onr souls & for the souls of our ancestors & successors, to God & the Blessed Mary & to the Abbot of Rading & to the monks, in free alms, all that land, with the appiirtenances, which Thomas, son of Alan, at one time gave to us, in the vill of Huffinton, & confirmed by his charter ; to have & to hold all the afore- said land with the appurtenances to the aforesaid Abbot & monks forever^ freely & quietly^ ivholly & fully, in wood & plain^ in meadows & pasttires, in ways & paths, with all easements & liberties pertaining to the aforesaid land. The aforesaid Abbot & monks rendering therefore annually to the aforesaid Thomas & his heirs id. at Easter, & to Richer Nervjit lord of the fee & his heirs ys. sterling at the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, for all custom, demand, stiit & secular service except foreign service, namely, as much as pertains to the aforesaid tenement which the said Abbot & monks shall acquit ; & we & our heirs will ivarra^it all the aforesaid land luith the appurtenances as our free alms to the aforesaid Abbot & monks against all men & women forever. Charters of Reading Abbey. In another deed Isabella de Rushel, as she is now called, who was the zuife of Simon, son of Nicholas, in her widow- hood & laivful poiver, Jor the safety of the soul of Simon, formerly her husband, repeats the gift ; and by a third charter Richard Neyrvut himself confirms to the Abbot and monks of Reading the same gift and grant already received. Notwithstanding all these charters, however, there seems, later on, to have been some dispute about the property. In Trinity Term 32 Henry III. (124S), Nicholas de Ingepenne, the nephew of Simon, son of Nicholas, made some claim upon the land ; but decision was given against him, and the Church remained in possession. In 1275 John Neyrvut, perhaps the son of Richard, sold all his rights in the manor of Uffmton Richer to the Abbot of HundredRoiis, Reading, and it was then stated that the Abbot held OJfinton Richer of Henry Pinkeneye, rejidering for it annually to the ward of Windsor 20s., and the same tfenry holds the 7nanor of the lord the King in chief. Assize Roll M. i. 7,2 m John Neyrvut. Berks, vol. i. p. 17, Of Uft07i Nervet or T^chard. But neither did this transaction pass undisputed. After Chap. ii. the death of John Neyrvut in 1284, his sister, Juhana, the wife .Z „ of John Rymbaud, and his three nephews, Nicholas, Richard, 'J — . and Nicholas, demanded of the Abbot the restitution of the John lands that had been given, on the plea that they were the Neyrvut. heirs to John Neyrvut, and that he was not sound of his mind A%%\za rou, when he demised them. The Abbot thereupon answered that, ^^'-^'i"'- '5- in his opinion, John was of very sound mind and good memory. For that, on the day when he made the grant, he was coroner of the liberty of the Abbot & for two years afterwards, and that he took from the Abbot for the said lands the livery of four monks & ten marks & four robes by the year for seven years after that he had demised to him the said land. Whatever may have been the nature of these privileges enjoyed by the defunct John, the Abbot's plea was successful, and the manor continued to be then, and for many years afterwards, the property of the monastery of Reading. In the year 1291 another Henry de Pinkeny finally ^r^w/,?!?' Exchequer and surrendered to the magnificent Prince Edward (the first) books, ''tolh.', Kinp- of Ensiland, the homao-e and whole service of Tohn ^°°Y: °' '^"^ Nervziit & of his heirs for one Knight' s fee, zuhich the foi. 3. same John had held of him in Offnton in the County of Berks. John had already made over all his rights to the monks of Reading, who thus henceforth held their land as tenants in capite directly of the King. Some uncertainty exists as to the original form of the name which has been given here as Neyrvut ; according to the old MSS. where it is found, it may also be read Neyr-unt or Neyrnut, or even Neyrmit. The fact, however, that it has come down to modern times in connection with Ufton as Nervet seems to suggest the probability that it was intended to be pronounced according to the spelling here chosen. One more incident may be noticed concerning the abbey property. In 1288, by permission of Pope Nicholas IV., Taxation of King Edward was granted a tithe of all ecclesiastical benefices P°P=J^''^hoias throughout the country, including the possessions of Reading Abbey in Ufton Richard, for six years, for carrying on the war against the infidel in the Holy Land. 2 lO The History of Uft 071. Chap. ii. There seems no reason to suppose that there was ever — — any branch estabhshment of monks at Ufton. They were the ■ ^ landlords and proprietors of the farms and messuages, and as such they continued to hold the property till the dissolution of the monastery in 1539. They certainly did not own the advowson of the living, which, till the union of the two parishes in 1434, formed part of the endowment of the preceptory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Green- ham. J A. D . 1 1 2 1 . Of Trading Abbey. ERE it may not seem out of place to give some short account of the Abbey of St. Mary, Reading, occupying as it does so important a place in the history of Ufton, and, indeed, of that of the whole neighbouring district. It was a Benedictine monastery, one of the oldest and wealthiest in the country, founded by Henry I. in the year 1121. Its church had been consecrated by Archbishop Becket in person, and within its walls were buried Henry I., the founder, his wife, Queen Matilda, and their daughter, the Empress Maud, besides various '■ / other princesses of royal blood, and a host of noble knights and barons, including, later on, the Earl of Warwick, the King -maker, and his brother John, Lord Montague. By royal charter the abbey enjoyed freedom from all taxation whatever, and its mitred Abbot was a peer of the realm with the right of administering justice and of coining money. Till the reign of Henry VIII. it continued to receive grants and endowments from successive monarchs as well as from private individuals. The valuable library of books which it possessed, the numberless relics in their costly shrines of gold and jewels, the magnificent buildings, including the church, the palace of the Abbot, and the spacious cloisters, refectories, and dormitories — all these Of Trading Abbey. 1 1 have been described to us in the reports of the greedy spoilers Chap bent on its destruction. AD I c "^ Q The story of its fall is a sad one. Though the wholesale ' — suppression of monastic houses throughout the land did not take place till 1539, yet the idea of such a suppression was by no means a new one. Wolsey's high-handed act in seizing upon the revenues of St. Frideswide's College for the endow- ment of his projected school at Ipswich and his new college at O.xford no doubt led the way to the later and wider confiscations, and suggested to King Henry an easy source of wealth, as well as a weapon of retaliation against the Pope for his opposition to the divorce of Queen Katherine and the marriage with Anna Boleyn. But even Henry needed a cloak for a deed so unrighteous. Accordingly, in 1539 a Royal Commission was appointed, with the minister Cromwell for its director, ostensibly to inquire into the morals of all the monasteries, convents, and priories throughout the kingdom. What amount of guilt or innocence was found elsewhere is not here to the purpose. Reading Abbey was visited among the rest, and the report, at any rate in this instance, of the Commissioner, John Loudon, does not justify its terrible consequences. He says, writing to Cromwell : / have re- qiiyred of my Lord Abbott the relyks of hys hojcse, wicli he Dugdaie's schewyd imto me lu' gndd will. I have taken an znventary of °"^^"'=°"- them, & have lokkyd them up beliynd ther liigh Awlter & haite the key in my kcping, Csr they be ahuays redy at yo'' Lordeschips co}nmandment. They have a gitdde lecture in Scripture dayly redde in their Chapiter Hoiise both in Inglisch & Laten, to the wiclie is gudde resort, & the Abbott ys at yt hymself. In another letter he says : Uly servant shall bi'ing you a tokyn in parchment under the Convent scale from the Abbott & Con- vent here. He desyrith oonly yo'' favour & no other thing, & I know so modi that my lord schall find him as conform- able a man as any iii thys realm., as more at lardg I will tell yon at the begynning of the term by the Grace of G odd. If this parchment token was in any sense an act of submission, as seems probable, it was of no avail ; it was not submission, but spoliation, that was required. On the strength of such reports as these an obsequious 12 The History of Ufton. Chap. ii. Parliament passed an Act declaring- that for the better » ;; observance of moralitv and religion in the country all A.D. 1539. . , ,. , -^ , & , . , -' . monastic establishments whose yearly mcomes were less m Reading value than ^200 Were to be suppressed, and their revenues Abbey. ceded to the King ; but this Act did not condemn the Abbey of Reading, seeing that its revenues far exceeded the limit fixed. A fresh expedient, therefore, was resorted to ; the oath of royal supremacy was imposed upon the heads of the larger monasteries, and when they refused it, as contrary to their religious allegiance to the Pope, they were tried and condemned for high treason, and afterwards hung, drawn, and quartered before their own abbey gates. Such was the fate that befell Hugh, the last Abbot of Reading. Three of his monks suffered with him, and Gasquet, Sup- then the Corporate property of the abbey, of which no Mona°renL. Surrender had been obtained, was, against every received principle of law or justice, treated as if it had been the private property of the Abbot, and confiscated to the Crown on his attainder. The beautiful abbey survived its uses for some little time, during which it occasionally served as a resting-place for royal personages who chanced to pass through Reading. Then it was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Francis Knollys, her Treasurer of the Household and Privy Counsellor. In 1650 it was partly in ruins, and shortly afterwards it was sold and demolished for building materials, and now nothing remains of it but shapeless masses of rubble and brickwork where once were the lofty cathedral aisles and the delicate tracery of vaulted cloisters. Only the gateway is still standing which Of Trading Abbey. 13 witnessed that last terrible catastrophe, that crowning act of Chap. ii. injustice and cruelty, the execution of the last Abbot of Reading. ~ The various charters and deeds of grant which have been ' 1 quoted above, as also the initial letter at the beginning of this Charters section, are to be found in a MS. volume of the Charters of of-" Reading Reading which has been preserved to the present day in a ^'^^'^^'■ curious manner. The book is the property of the Earl of Fingall, who has most kindly allowed me to copy from it. On a fly-leaf is written the following story : THIS book of the Charters of Reading Abbey was found- secreted in a very concealed & unknown corner in my Lord Fingairs house at Shinefield, near Reading ; it was broitght to Woolhampton great house, noiv Mrs. Crew's, by Qui. Corderoy, the steward, with several other books, fozmd by a bricklayer necessitated to pull some part of the hojcse, or, rather, part of a wall, down in order to repair thoroughly a chimney in- Shine- field House. This account I had from the forementioned Mr. Corderoy on Wednesday, the twentieth of f line, 1792, who likewise supposes the bricklayer, zuho is nozu living at Reading, found no small sum of money ^ or something valuable, as sho7'tly after that time lie advanced much in the world by means of money whicli no one knows how he could be worth. Wrote this account on June 2yd, 1792. N.B. — Mr. Corderoy told me that in this concealed place there was convenient room for three persons., there being three seats. Though this memorandum is not signed, yet there is every reason to believe that it is genuine, and that the book was found at Shinfield in the manner described. It may be supposed that when the hour of danger came upon them the monks took the precaution of hiding away their deeds and books of charters, or committing them to the charge of faithful friends who would keep them till the hoped-for return of better times. Such times never came, and for more than two hundred years this book and its hiding-place were forgotten. On the first page is an adjuration of anathema, not 14 77^^ History of Ufton. Chap. ii. Uncommon in old MSS., against anyone who should sacri- ^ j5~77 legiously tamper with, or misrepresent, the record ; a facsimile Charters Abbey. ^'^'f ™i- he did homage, and liad livery of t lie lands of her inheritance," and betook himself to the King's service in the wars in Gascony and Scotland. He behaved himself so well during these campaigns that the King bestowed upon him a discharge of all the debts he then owed or should owe to the Exchequer to the ensuing Michaelmas. He was summoned to Parliament from 12 Edward HI. till 22 Edward HI. inclusive, and died February 8, 23 Edward III. (1349), being seised of the manors of Great Marlow, in the county of Buckingham ; Maple Durwell and Ashleigh, in the county of Southampton (Hampshire) ; Caversham, Shipton, Burford, and Chadlington, in Oxfordshire, and many others. He was buried at Tewkes- bury, near the high altar. If Peter Morley, or Perkins, was living in 1380, he must have been quite a young man when in the service of Hugh Le Despencer. The following shghtly sketched table of descent will help to explain the further connection of the Despencers and their descendants with this story : 38 The Histo?y of Uft07i. A.D. 139? Chap. iv. Hugh Despencer (3rd),=Elizabeth, dau. of Edward De=pAnne, dau. of Lord Ferrers, died |OHK Parkyns. died without issue, WiUiam, Earl spencer, 1349. of Salisbury. died 1342. Peter Morley, bailiff. 1367-68. Edward Despencer, died i375=f=Elizabeth, Baroness Burgersh, died 141 1. Thomas Despencer, created Earl of=j=Constance, dau. of Edmund, Duke of Gloucester ; killed 1400. J^ohn Parkyns, seneschal. York, fifth son of Edward III. buried in Reading Abbey 1420. ist husband, Richard Beau-=plsabel, heir to=j=2nd husband, Richard Beau- champ, Earl of Worcester. her father ; died 1439. champ. Earl of Warwick ; died 1439. Elizabeth, Henry Beauchamp, Anne, co-heir=Richard Neville, Earl of co-heir with died without of Despencer Salisbury and War- half-sister, issue 1445. and Beau- wick, the " King- champ estates; maker." Thomas Par- died 1470. kyns co-trustee. The [^rrandson of Peter Morley, alias Per/chts, John Parkyns, was, according to the Visitation pedigree, seneschal to Thomas Despencer, and was Hving in 1398 and 1399. This Lord Despencer, by the favour of Richard II., whose kinswoman he had married, obtained a revocation of the judgment of exile which had been passed against his great- grandfather Hugh, and also repayment of the value of the possessions of various kinds which he asserted to have then been forfeited to the Crown. The list gives one an idea of the manner of life of the great barons of the time and in what their wealth consisted. From it we learn that Hugh was Rot. Pari, 21 possessed of no less than 59 lordships in various counties R-i[>n-3s- 28,000 sheep, 1,000 oxen and steers, 1,200 kine and their calves, 40 mares with their colts of two years, 160 draught Cart, de Ann, horses, 2,ooo hogs, 3,ooo bullocks, 40 tuns of wine, 600 ii.'.^n.'al'^"^'^' bacons, fourscore carcases of martinmass beef, and 600 muttons in his larder (all this meat being probably salted) ; 10 tons of cider, armour-plate, jewels, and ready money better Of the Family of Perkins. 39 than ^10,000 ; 36 sacks of wool and a library of books. For a.D. 1398. all this Thomas Despencer received compensation, and he : was, moreover, in 1398 created Earl of Gloucester. But in ^^^^^• the course of the very next year he was one of the chief of Thomas i,k those peers who formally deposed his unfortunate master in Despencer. favour of Henry IV. He did not live long after his act of treachery. Before many months were passed he fell into disgrace, was degraded from his earldom, taken prisoner to Dugdaie's Bristol, and there in the market-place beheaded by the mob p'"?J!f^''' on January 5, 1400. The two dates mentioned in connection with John Parkyns coincide with his patron's installation as Earl and with his disgrace, from which it may be supposed that he was in some way connected with both events. On February 23, in the year 1400— that is to say, a few weeks only after the death of the Earl of Gloucester, John Parkyns, with one Thomas More, received from King Henry IV. the custody of one Water-Milt & one cariicate ^pineRoiis. land in SJiipton under WicJiewode, in tJie County of Oxford, 'anT'^m'^i' which Anne, late Queen of England, deceased^ held for tlie term of her life as parcel of her dower . . . so that the afore- said Thomas & John may always have sufficiency of Timber for the construction, repairing, & sustaining of the Mill afore- said, as often & zuhere it shall be necessary. This small property must have been adjoining or very near to the property of John Parkyns' late master, but whether the grant had any connection with the forfeiture of the estates of the Earl of Gloucester does not appear. In 1390 John Parkyns, as we learn from the Madresfield court roll before referred to, had held one messuage and eighteen acres of land there, for which he did homage to the lady of the manor, Johanna Bracey, showing that he had then only recently acquired the property. William Parkyns, the son of John, was the first of the William family who was lord of Ufton Robert. From 141 1 he is Parkyns. named in the diocesan registry as patron of that living, and is styled variously Lord of Ufton, Donzell, and True Patron, samm Reg. He was attached to the service of Humphry Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, as baillious, or agent, and it was pro- 40 The History of Uft07i. A.D. 141 1, bably in that capacity that he was concerned in an agreement : by which one Wilham Leyre confirmed the lordship of ^^^^^- Child's Manor, East Barsham, Norfolk, to Humphry, Duke William of Gloucester, Alianore his wife, and William Parkyns, Esq. ; Parkyns. for immediately afterwards, in another deed, he released his right therein to the Duke. He sealed this deed with the Bioomfieid, arms, or, a fesse dancette between eight billets ermines. folk!' v°oi. iii!^| This is the first time in which the armorial bearings of the P- ^- family appear. They differ from the later shield in the number of the billets, which were afterwards increased to ten. Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, was brother to Henry V., and uncle and guardian to the young Henry VI. during his minority — " the good Duke Humfrey," as he was called, whose disgrace and tragic death suggested to Shakespeare the lament which he puts into the mouth of Henry : Henry VI., Fov iH tJic skadcs of death I shall find joy, in life but 2nd Pan, act (^Qiible death, now Glostcrs dead. \\\. William Parkyns is said in the Visitation pedigree to have been living in the year 1419 ; that is, during the French wars. On May 29 ot that year, soon after Rouen had capitulated to the English, a meeting took place at Menlau between the French Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Burgundy and Henry V., to arrange conditions of peace, the most important of which was to be the marriage of the King with the French Princess Catherine. Henry was on that occasion accompanied by his brother, the Duke of Gloucester, and from the special mention of the date in connection with William Parkyns it may have been that he also was present in attendance on his patron. In 1426 and the two succeeding years his name appears in the accounts of the Corporation of Reading as follows (translated) : Mss. Reading For payment at games given befoix the Mayor at TVil- oiporation. ^^'^^^ Parkyns\ 6s. 8d. For ale given at the same, 2d. To the minstrels of the Duke of Gloucester at the Mayor s breakfast at Parkyjts, 2od. Whether the Mayor came out to Ufton is not clear, or Of the Family of Perkins. 4.1 whether Wilh'am Parkyns entertained him in Reading-. One a.D, 1424. is reminded of a passaj^e in one of Margaret Paston's letters : to her husband in which she tells him that Ihe Mayor and ^^^^'^• Mayoress of Norwich sent their dinner this day. . . . they William dined here. I am beholden to them, for they have sent to ;«(: Parkyns. divers times since ye zuent hence. paston Letters, In William Parkyns' case the Mayor only paid for the '^'^'■' '"**■*' ale and the music and the games provided for the entertain- ment. William married a lady whose Christian name was Margaret, and conjointly with her, in 1424, he was party to an agreement with John Collee and Elizabeth his wife by Feet of Fines, which the manor and advowson of Ufton Robert and a moiety vf I'no. ",'^"' of lands in Borwardescote were settled on the same William ^■^■^■ and Margaret, and in case of William's death then on Mar- garet and her heirs male ; subject to the yearly payment of eight marks of silver to Elizabeth Collee. It is certain that the manor and advowson of Ufton Robert had been already for some years past the property of William Parkyns. This deed may, therefore, perhaps be considered as of the nature of a marriage settlement on his wife. From the fact that Elizabeth Collee had a charge on the Ufton Estate, it seems probable that she was in some way a relation of William Parkyns — perhaps his own or his wife's sister. But this is only conjecture. John Collee was the owner of a manor in the neighbouring John parish of Padworth, called Hussie's Manor, and his name Collee appears, with that of William Parkyns, in a list of gentry of Ashmoie, the county of Berks, returned in 1434 by Robert Nevil, g";^^'^';',^^/^ Bishop of Sarum, and his brother, Sir William Lovel, com- p- "=^- missioned by Henry VI. to administer the oaths. In 1427 and during several succeeding years William Parkyns served as escheator for the counties of Berks and Oxon. The most important event, however, in which he took part — at least, as regards the history of Ufton — was the ecclesiastical union of the two parishes of Ufton Robert and Ufton Richard or Nervet. In 1435 an agreement to this sarum Reg. effect was sanctioned by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, and signed respectively by William Parkyns and the Prior of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who with his brethren had 6 42 The History of Ufton. A.D. 1444. owned the advowson of the smaller living (see p. lo). This : they now resigned, and William Parkyns and his successors "'^''' '^ ' henceforth for several generations held the patronage of the William united living of Ufton as it now is. Parkyns. \^ 1444 William signed his name as a witness to a deed Rot. Pari, v., of grant, made by Henry VI. to the Provost and College of P' ^'- Eton, of lands in New and Old Windsor and in Clewer. Kerry's Hun- In 1447 he is mentioned in the Court Rolls of the Manor dredofBray, gf gj.j^y ^^ ^y^\ holding the office of balHous to the Duke of Gloucester. The manors of Bray and Crookham had been granted to the Duke by his father, Henry V. William must have died not very long after this date, for Thomas in 1451 his son Thomas presented to the living of Ufton Parkyns. as truc patroH. He continued to do so on successive occasions till 1474. These dates include the time of the Wars of the Roses, which culminated in the final triumph of the Yorkist party in 1 46 1, supported by Richard Nevile, the Earl of Warwick, the Kingf-maker. Close Roll, There is a deed of that date by which Thomas Parkyns, in conjunction with the Earl of Warwick and his brother John, Lord Montague, received from Bernard Brocas, of Horton, co. Bucks, a Lancastrian, certain manors in Hamp- shire, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire, in which Thomas Parkyns probably acted merely as co-trustee. By the light of contemporary events one may guess that it was an amicable transaction, such as was frequently practised at the time by which the adherents of the conquered party saved their estates from confiscation by handing them over temporarily to some friendly opponent. Some such arrangement was probably made in the case of Thomas Parkyns himself later on, when his patron, the Earl of Warwick, having taken arms against Edward IV., had been defeated and slain at the battle of Barnet. For though it Is certain that he had inherited his father's estates, and also that his son held the same after him, yet at the inquisition taken after his death In 1478 it was declared that Inq. P. M,, eS'iv^no.'s. THOMAS PARKYNS Aruu^ wu^ IUtcmtj fjd ?/t rkjA^ • ^AanS-OT- i^cit •'^'^'j^ lasaa l!.1^S. r[[Q5\>Aj I> II [b 0H ASi^ IfHW ii. rf \a^ \^ Of the Family of Perkins. c^y found to represent a genealogical sequence of five genera- Chap. iv. tions of the family. A.D. 1560. Richard Parkyns. S f J s / At the extreme left the shield marked No. i in the illus- tration gives the arms of Richard Parkyns himself, quartered 58 The History of Ufton. Chap. iv. with those of his heiress-wife, EHzabeth Mompesson. No. 2 ~ , is the arms of his father and his father's wife, Dorothy More. ' J ' No. 3 quarters the Collee arms, and represents the shield of Richard John Parkyns, whose wife Margaret Collee brought the Pad- Parkyns. worth and Fenchampstead manors into the family (see p. 43). No. 4 impales blank. This of itself is a convincing proof of the intention with which this row of shields was arranged. Had there been no intention of describing the descent of the family, any coat of arms connected with Richard's ancestors would have been represented ; but here, when Thomas, the great-grandfather's place, is reached in the sequence, his wife's arms not being known, nothing is put, and the impale- ment of the shield is left blank. The father of Thomas was William Parkyns, the first of the family who was lord of Ufton, and therefore very suitably his shield. No. 5, occupies the first place in the series. His wife's Christian name was Margaret, and the deed of settle- ment which has been quoted (see p. 41) is fair evidence of her having been an heiress ; but the arms here represented in the quarterings are borne by several families of possible con- nection with the Parkyns, and it is difficult to identify her family with any certainty. The same arms, or very nearly so, were borne by Mitchells, and a family of the name owned a manor called Mitchell's Court at Borwardescote. William Parkyns, we know, owned a moiety of lands in Borwardescote, and if we may suppose this to have been the property that Margaret brought to her husband, probability seems to point to her having been a co-heiress of that name. Above the columns, on an upper row, are two shields — Nos. 6 and 7 — which from their position might be supposed to refer to early ancestors or founders of the family. From the marks of cadency, they appear to represent two brothers, and the shield of the second brother occupies the place of honour ; from which one might infer that the Ufton family descended from a second son. But here we have no other record to support the hypothesis. The last shield — No. 8 — described by Ashmole as on the Of the Family of Perkifis. 59 west end of the monument, bears the arms of Sir Francis Chap. iv. Englefield, the chief lord of the fee of Ufton Robert. ■ There remains to be noticed the coat of arms and crest of ' '^ °' Richard Parkyns, with his name attached, which, as Ashmole Richard describes it, surmounted the whole. It is still in existence, Parkyns. though without the inscription. This was probably the first occasion on which the crest was used by the Ufton family, for it was only on August 18, 1559 — that is, the year before Richard Parkyns' death — that the grant of the crest had been made by William Hervey, alias Clarenceulx King-of-arms, to another Richard Parkyns, who was the representative of the Madresfield branch of the family — the same who has been already men- tioned (p. 46) as having some rights over part of the Ufton lands. A copy of the grant and an account of the Madresfield family are given in the Appendix. From the fact that the crest was so soon made use of at Ufton, it seems possible that the grant may perhaps have been applied for, at the instigation of Richard Parkyns, of Ufton, or of that of his widow, with the express intention of its display on this monument. Perhaps also the unusually elaborate genealogical arrangement of the coats of arms with which it was decorated, may have owed something to heraldic researches made at the time on their behalf by their relative, Richard Parkyns, the younger, who was then a barrister, living in London. All this, however, has been described from Ashmole's account of what was, but is no more. I have said that the history of this monument is a disastrous one, nor did its misfortunes end with the ill-treatment of the Puritans. It probably remained much as Ashmole saw it till i860, when the old church was replaced by the present building. Then the architect seems to have judged it out of keeping with his plans for the new church, so it was pulled down and its broken fragments were cast out. They would have utterly perished and been lost had not Dr. Fraser, the then rector, collected some of the carved stones and built them up again in some sort of fashion, as an arbour in his garden ; but five out of 8—2 6o The History of Ufton. Chap. iv. the twelve shields have disappeared, and such as remain have in the rearrangement lost half their significance. To make • • '^ °- the catastrophe complete the centre stone of the beautiful Richard frieze which decorated the canopy was somehow missed, and Parkyns. lacking this, and in default of any inscription, the memory even of those to whom the monument had been erected was completely lost. Some time afterwards, when Mr. Erskine was rector, a visitor whose genealogical tastes led him to take an interest in the pedigree of the Perkins family, came to Ufton to hunt for their relics. After examining the church and the above-mentioned arbour, he was further told of some old bits of carved stone in a neighbouring farm, and there in the yard (to use his own words) I found the centre stone with the initials R. E. P. in a sort of trefoil, mea^it for a true lover s knot, supported by two a7igels or cherubs. It was zised to prop up one end of a pig trough, that the little pigs might feed the easier I I inquired whether a certain Lady Marvyn had been heard of, & learned that she was remembered as a benefactress to the Parish, & then — / preached a sermon I ! & was faithfully promised that the stone should be put in a safe & more proper place., pending the hoped-for restoration of the tomb. But, alas, this sermon was no more heeded than many others. Mr. Erskine's health obliged him to be a great deal away, and after his death, in 1878, the centre-stone had been again forgotten. It was found again by Mr. Eraser Cornish, the son of the present rector — not in quite so ignominious a position as before, but lying out of doors among some rubbish in the farm-garden, and unfortunately very much cracked and damaged by the frost. However, its rediscovery came, happily, in time to help to the identification of the dismembered monu- ment. A subscription was got up, and the beautiful canopy, at all events, has been moved into the church under safe shelter, and re-erected as nearly as possible in its original place. One cannot but hope that all the remaining fragments may as soon as possible be also replaced. Unfortunately, as has been said, a great deal is hopelessly lost, and the architectural work is so broken up that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to understand its original design. AP. IV. Of the Family of Perkins. 6i The destruction is all the more to be deplored because the Ch parishioners continue to this day to benefit by a charitable endowment bequeathed to them by Richard Parkyns' widow, ' " '^ ^ Lady Marvyn, whose effigy was originally on the tomb ; nor are they in any way disturbed in their enjoyment of her gifts by the fact that they have forgotten the donor, and that her monument has been turned out of their church. Richard Parkyns' second brother William had probably William married late in life ; for his wife Anne was niece to his sister- Parkyns. in-law Elizabeth Mompesson, her mother being Sir John Mompesson's second daughter Mary, wife of Thomas Wells, of Bambridge. He died in 1558. In his will he describes himself as William Parkyns, of Bryvipton, in the countie of Barks, gentilman. Brimpton is about six miles distant from Ufton. As it does not appear that the Parkyns family ever had any estate there, it is probable that William had no more than a lease of the house he occupied in that parish. He says that — Being seeke of bodie, & hole ' 4"'- ^ ^^ cause it to be laid upon my saide mother & me/ & thies wourds to be graved upon him: Of your charitie pray for the soule of Dorothye Parkyns, who died the . . . day of in the yere of our Lorde God 1550 & fiftie ; & William Parkins, her sonne, who deceased the . . . day of in the yere of our Lorde God 1558, sometyme gentilifian Ussher to the Right honourable Ladie Margarette Countess of Sdfy, & after her decease gentilman Ussher to her sonne. The Lord Cardinalles Poles grace. Item, I bequeath to the poor people 40^• that is to say, 20^ at my buriall, & thother 62 The History of Ufton. Chap. iv. A.D. 1558 William Parkyns. 20^ at my 77ionnetkes mynd. Item, I bequeath to the mother chirche of Safy ^4. Item, I bequeath to the hie altar of Brympton, for tithes forgotten, 3^ 4°'. Item, I bequeath to the hie altar of Thatcham, for tithes forgotteii, 3-' \'^. Item, I will that mine exeeutotirs buye one new pall, p7-ice i^p 4^^, the whiche I give unto the parishe churche at Brympton to be laide uppon any personne or personnes that shall die within the said parishe & be broughte to the churche. Item, I bequeath to Saint Peters churche of Ufton Robert 1 3^ 4"". Item, I will that so^ne honnest priest pray & say a trentall of masses for my soule iTnmediatelie after my buriall, & another trentall after my yeres mynde, & they to be rewarded as m-y executours thinke meete & convenient. Item, I will that myn execzdoiirs iinmediatelie after my buriall, & before my monnethys jnynde, that they do praise & cause to be praised all my goods & cattalles, come in the fielde., plate & householde stuffe, & then to content & pay all such debts as I doo owe to any personne or personnes being in the knowen & proved by honnest witnes. Item, I give & beqtieath to ffrancis Parkyns, my sonne, one rijige of golde which I did comonly use to wear upon my finger to seal withal. Then follow small bequests to his sisi^r: Alice Parkyns ; his brother Christopher ; his nevewcs Harry and Francis ; and to his cousin Elizabeth Hobson he leaves my russettes furred gowne garde d with velvet. Also he gives and bequeaths Thotie half of my goodes, cattalles, &c. , (jfc. , unto A nne my ivife, & t hot her half of my goodes to Katherine, Elizabeth, Gurtred, Mary, & Susanne, my five daughters .^ yinediatilie & after my inventary taken. . . . Also, I will thatt such goods as shall come to my daughters shall be in the custodie of my brother Richard Parkyns & my uncle Thomas Standi sh, to be employed for the 7nost profile & advantage & bringing up, & to be divided amongst them the day of their marriage or else at the age of 21 yeires. Also, my will is that if any of 7ny said daughters doo marry agaifist the will of my wife or my executours, that thene they shall have none of my legacie. Of the Family of Perkins. 63 Item, my will is that my wife shall have thordering & Ch;i bringing up of all my saicie children, she being sole & tin- married. . . . & if it be fortune my saide wife to marry ^ & my '^ ^ said children not bestowed, then I will my executours to have William the order & bringiitge up & setting firthe my said children. Parkyns. Also, I ordayne & make my brother Richarde Parkyns & my iinkill Thomas Staitdishe my full & hole executours. I ton., I give to 7ny brother Richard Parkyns, for his paynes hem7i to be taken, my bay curtail gelding & a young sorrell gelding with a balde face. Item, I give tmto my tmcle Thomas Standish . . . a golde ringe with a dyamon in him, &" my best cross bow & my best racke, a payer of Spanish blanketts, a rapyer, a dagger, a sworde, that are in my chest at Lainbeith. Also, I ordain & make the Righthonourable Sir Fraimcis Inglefield, Knight, who been alwaies my singulier good maister & freende, to be overseer of this my last will & testament, desiring him to be good maister in aiding & assisting my said wif & children & myn executours, as rny hole trust (2f confdence is he will, & I give him in token of remembrance, that is to say., one ringe of golde with a turkayes in it. The witnesses are his sister Elizabeth Parkyns, Bernard More, John Ffisher., & John Salter. In 1562 both the executors, Richard Parkyns and Thomas Standishe, being dead, a commission was issued to WilHam's widow, who had married again a Mr. George Tatershale, to administer the will. Whether the gravestone and its inscrip- tion was ever put in the church, according to William's direc- tion, we cannot say ; it was not there, at any rate, in 1660, when Ashmole made a careful description of all that he saw. But to account for its absence it must be remembered that the Rebellion and the Commonwealth had intervened, and that to Puritanical bigotry the request for prayers for the soul would probably have been enough to cause its destruction. William Parkyns' patroness, Margaret Countess of Salis- bury, the last of the Plantagenets, was also descended from the Despencers and Beauchamps through her grandmother Anne, the wife of Richard Nevile, the king-maker, as is shown in the following table, a continuation of that on page 38 : 64 The History of Ufton. Richard Nevile, Earl ofWarwick,=pAnne Beauchamp, heiress of A.D. 155? killed 147 1. Despencers, died 1490. Margaret Isabel, died=j=:George, Duke Edward, Prince=Anne, died^Richard III. Countess OF 1476. | of Clarence. Wales. 1485. Salisbury. I Edward Plantagenet. Margaret Plantagenet, died i54i=j=Sir Richard Pole. Countess of Salisbury. | I \ I Henry Pole Lord Montague, Reginald Cardinal Pole, And others. beheaded 1537. died 1558. Wilt"' Parlzyns, Gent" Ussher. She was, therefore, a direct representative of the family of Hugh Despencer, the first patron of the Parkyns family, and also of Thomas Earl of Gloucester, whom John Parkyns had served as bailiff. Thus the connection between the noble house and the family of esquires had been handed on from one generation to another, and may almost be said to have been hereditary. The Lady Margaret, after her brother's death, was the heiress of the house of York, and as such could not escape the suspicion and distrust of Henry VH. But she showed no signs of ambitious intentions with regard to the Crown, and married a very worthy man, Sir Richard Pole, himself a con- nection of the Tudor family. In the following reign she became the intimate and attached friend of Queen Katherine of Aragon, and finally some of her family possessions were restored to her, her eldest son was created Lord Montague, and she herself Countess of Salisbury. Her tragic end is well known. On the divorce of Queen Katherine she fell into the disfavour of the Court, and her sons were more than suspected of plotting on behalf of the Princess Mary. Lord Montagu was thrown into prison and executed, and Reginald Cardinal Pole escaped abroad. The venerable countess, accused of corresponding with her son and being privy to his plots, was sent to the Tower ; and finally Henry VH I., being particularly irritated by a pamphlet written against him by the cardinal from abroad, ordered the execution of his mother. She was Of the Family of Perkins. 65 beheaded, without any trial or show of justice, on May 27, Ch 1 541, on Tower Hill, in the seventieth year of her age. From the expression that William Parkyns makes use of, ' ^ 1 one may perhaps gather that he had stayed with his noble William mistress and served her to the end, after which he may have Parkyns. escaped abroad and joined the cardinal during his exile. In 1553 a revival, as it no doubt seemed to them, of better things came. Mary was queen, and the old form of religion was restored, and Cardinal Pole came to Lambeth as Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by his gentleman usher. But the time was short. In 1558, within one week in the month of November, the queen, the cardinal, and his faithful servant all passed away. Grafton's Chronicle relates that Mary fell sick of a hole, Grafton's burning Fever, and died on November 17; Cardinal Pole p. 566."^ '^' died of the same disease on the i8th ; and from the fact that William Parkyns' will is dated November 17, and was proved on the 23rd, we must suppose that his death had taken place not later than November 18 or 20, or two or three days previous to the second of these dates. The fever specially mentioned in the queen's case was a very fatal epidemic, which, as Grafton goes on to say, was common that yere through all the reabnc,