ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE
 
 ID 
 
 ANNALS 
 
 OF AN 
 
 OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 
 BUTTON PLACE, GUILDFORD 
 
 FREDERIC HARRISON 
 
 IM 
 
 New and Abridged Edition 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1899 
 
 Rigkti of translation reserved
 
 TO 
 
 JE>arri0on 
 
 LESSEE OF SUTTON PLACE 
 
 WHICH HE HAS OCCUPIED FOR A GENERATION 
 
 AND HAS DONE SO MUCH TO PRESERVE 
 
 THIS EDITION OF ITS ANNALS 
 
 IS INSCRIBED BY 
 
 HIS BROTHER, THE AUTHOR
 
 PREFACE 
 
 ONE by one the old buildings of our country are perishing 
 by accident, neglect, or wanton destruction ; their memory 
 passes away, and their place knows them no more. When 
 the passion for covering this island with railways and 
 factories shall have done its worst, our great-grandchildren 
 will hardly possess a fragment of the older work to recall 
 to their eyes the beauty and the life of England in the 
 past. And so it becomes a sort of social duty for those to 
 whom chance has thrown it in their path to preserve such 
 wreckage of old things as the tempest of change has left 
 any relic that they find still mouldering in the flotsam 
 and jetsam of time. 
 
 Thus I came to put together in spare days of leisure 
 some memorials of a very beautiful and most interesting 
 house, which is a landmark in the history of art, and has 
 not a few associations with the history of our country. 
 During the last twenty-four years I have often found 
 there a time of peace and quiet thought ; and pacing up 
 and down the court, and watching the hues of russet and 
 orange in the mouldings, or the evening light as it 
 glowed through the jewelled quarries in the oriels, I 
 became curious to know a little more about the builders 
 and the building of it. From what movement of art did 
 it spring ? Whence came those amorini over Tudor 
 
 2040622
 
 viii ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 
 gates, and the Italian arabesques in those Gothic 
 traceries ? What manner of life did these walls witness 
 and serve ? Of what kin were the men whose devices 
 are recorded in the painted glass ? As, one by one, I 
 learned to recognise the story they could reveal, and had 
 found how curiously the house was connected with the 
 tempestuous days of the eighth Henry and his three 
 children and successors, as I traced all the circumstances 
 of the strange and bloody tragedy which set its mark 
 upon these walls almost before the mortar in them was 
 dry, I began for myself a connected record of the place. 
 
 A well-known historian used to say to me, " Sink a 
 shaft, as it were, in some chosen spot in the annals of 
 England, and you will come upon much that is never 
 found in the books of general history." So I sunk my 
 shaft in this spot, and tried to understand a bit of local 
 history, as seen from a single manor and a particular 
 family and house. I tried to identify SUDTONE, as 
 it is described in Domesday, and to make out the meadow, 
 and the land or arable, the woodland " of 25 swine," and 
 the mill. The fortunes of the manor sway back and 
 forwards during feudal times, as the fortunes of England 
 itself. Ten times it fell back into the hands of the 
 Crown ; ten times it was granted to royal favourites or 
 ministers ; eight times it was lost by attainder, forfeiture, 
 or surrender between the days of the Conqueror and the 
 days of the Tudors ; till at length Henry VIII. grants 
 the ancestral domain of the last of the Beauforts, his 
 father's mother, to the soldier and minister of his own 
 who built the house. 
 
 I have often pictured to myself the veteran gazing at 
 his newly finished home when his only boy lay headless 
 in the fresh grave on Tower Hill. I would wonder if
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 he still continued to entertain here his fierce master, and 
 still put his faith in princes. It would seem so, for he 
 kept his honours and his wealth ; and in the inventory of 
 his goods for the proving of his will is a "grete carpete 
 to lay under the Kyng's fete." And we find his widow 
 soon after sending presents of game and " swete bagges " 
 from this house to the Princess at Guildford. And then 
 I would try to conceive with what feelings the son of 
 that slaughtered youth came to receive the daughter of 
 Anne Boleyn in the house which his father had not lived 
 to inherit, which he himself owed to the slayer of that 
 father. With what thoughts, I have often asked myself, 
 did Elizabeth keep state in the hall associated so closely 
 with the death of her mother and the wayward passions 
 of her father, where are still to be seen the emblems of 
 Catherine of Aragon and Jane Seymour, of Mary and 
 Gardiner, of a succession of chiefs from both camps in 
 that furious revolution ? 
 
 And the old Duke of Norfolk, the hero of Flodden, 
 and Lord Berners, the friend of Caxton, both the 
 colleagues of the founder, and Stanley of Derby, the 
 famous Chamberlain, and Paulet of Winchester, the 
 famous Treasurer, do their emblems commemorate their 
 presence here ? And the calm proud face on the canvas 
 of Zucchero, which smiles as she might have smiled in 
 welcome to the Queen, that Dorothy Arundell who had 
 lived to see some twenty of her relations die as traitors in 
 the Tower, did the past become to her a dream ; and as 
 she did the honours of her home, did she find it a natural 
 incident of life that attainder should fall on the head of 
 her father, and her mother, and her aunt, and her husband's 
 father, and on her relations of both sexes and of every 
 degree on her father's and her mother's side ?
 
 x ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 
 And then that later Sir Richard Weston, who made 
 the canal upon the Wey, and who laboured so much in 
 agriculture, how came he to keep his house safe and his 
 estate intact in the great Civil War which shook and 
 battered down so many of his neighbours around him ? 
 How come we to find in his windows designs from the 
 fancy of the Parliament Poet, and also the portrait of 
 King Charles ? 
 
 These men and women were nothing to me or to 
 mine, no more than any other names in the history or 
 those days ; their house and their pictures and their 
 escutcheons do not belong to mine or to me, who am 
 but a passing visitor amongst them. But I came to love 
 the old place, the very brickwork and the weeds and 
 lichens which have clung round the mouldings, the 
 swallows twittering round the tiles, and the deep glow of 
 the painted glass. So, bit by bit, my notes grew into 
 a connected account of the house and its vicissitudes. 
 And as the owner pressed me to work into it the memor- 
 anda which he had collected in manuscript, and the hints 
 of many artistic and antiquarian friends, I found it 
 convenient for the curious in art, and the neighbours 
 who might visit it, to put the rough sketch I had 
 gathered together into print. 
 
 So this book is but the expansion of a catalogue or 
 manual that I began long ago for the use of our friends. 
 To any special acquaintance with art or with antiquities 
 of any kind I can make no sort of pretension. I have 
 sought, since no one else was disposed to do so, to make 
 a record or inventory of that which is passing away before 
 our eyes. I am neither professed historian nor antiquary, 
 and I certainly am no genealogist or herald. I am trying 
 merely to rub the dust and weeds from the tombstones of
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 the past, as " Old Mortality " would do in pious re- 
 miniscence of departed saints. My part is but to scrape 
 and copy the inscription on the neglected stone, to learn 
 who lie beneath, that I may keep their memory green. 
 In giving some portion of my leisure to the study of the 
 place, I feel as if I were repaying a personal debt that I 
 owe to a spot endeared to me by the recollection of hours 
 of perfect peace ; above all, as if I were fulfilling a duty 
 to my father, who lived and died in these walls, and who 
 laboured so lovingly to preserve them. And I now must 
 add to these memories those of my mother and of my 
 brother Lawrence, who were in succession occupiers of 
 this house until the close of their lives.
 
 ri i t HT. 
 
 Jill !!: III! II- -'11)1 X.I : ..'111 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory ........ i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Vicissitudes of the Manor of Sutton . . . .18 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PART I. Before the Reformation Sir Richard Weston 
 
 the Elder, Builder of the House . . 39 
 
 PART II. After the Reformation . . . .65 
 PART III. Westons, Knights of St. John ... 82 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Sir Francis Weston, the Son and Heir ... 89 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Sir Henry Weston 107
 
 xiv ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sir Richard Weston, the Agriculturist, 1613-52 . .120 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 From the Civil Wars to the Present Time . . .134 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The House 151 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Quadrangle 171 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The Great and the Panelled Hall . . . .182 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 The Long Gallery, Tapestries, Portraits, and Escutcheons 188 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Painted Glass 199 
 
 Coats of Arms, etc., in Windows .... 204 
 
 INDEX 243
 
 NOTE 
 
 THIS edition is a small and abridged form of the quarto 
 work published in 1893 by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. The 
 elaborate illustrations and coloured plates have been omitted, 
 with the exception of some head- and tail-pieces, as well as 
 the Appendices with the Pedigrees of Weston, Howard, 
 Copley, Shelley, and other families, the Wills of the Westons, 
 Grant of the Manor, and Inventory. For these and other 
 details reference must be had to the larger and original work. 
 The estate is still the property of F. H. Salvin, who holds 
 it by devise from his cousin, the last male of the Weston 
 family. It has been occupied under a lease since 1874 by 
 the family of the author.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 SUTTON PLACE is an ancient manor-house 
 on the banks of the Wey in Surrey, about 
 4 miles from Guildford and as many from 
 Woking ; and it was built between 1520-30 
 by Sir Richard Weston. It was the work 
 of a great building age ; Henry VIII., in 
 the words of the old chronicle, was " the 
 onlie phoenix of his time for fine and 
 curious masonrie " ; for this was the age 
 of Hampton Court, Christ Church, Ox- 
 ford, and Trinity College, Cambridge ; of 
 Thornbury, Hengrave, Grimsthorp, Ken- 
 ninghall, and Layer Marney. It was 
 built in the first outburst of the new art, 
 which in Europe is called Renascence, 
 when Henry was the successful rival of 
 Francis and the Emperor Charles, and 
 nearly in the centre of one of the most 
 creative moments in art which our country 
 has ever seen. The house is almost con- 
 temporary with some of those exquisite 
 chateaux of the age of Francis which are 
 B
 
 2 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 still preserved on the Loire. Like them it possesses 
 Italian features of a fancy and grace as remote from the 
 Gothic as from the classical world. Like them, as was 
 every fine work of that age, it is the embodiment of a 
 single idea, of the personal sense of beauty of some 
 creative genius ; and thus it stands apart in the history 
 of house-building in Europe, a cinquecento conception 
 in an English Gothic frame. 
 
 Here the airy and fantastic grace of the Renascence, 
 as we find it at Pavia and Blois, has lighted up a mass of 
 Tudor Gothic. Yet withal there is no single classical 
 feature, nor one that recalls the florid style of the Stuarts. 
 It is as if some prophetic genius in art, saturated with 
 Southern ideas of beauty, had been seeking to develop 
 here a new English style, which should be as little 
 military or Gothic as it should be classical. Had our 
 builders continued on these lines of thought, it is possible 
 that our architecture might never have fallen beneath the 
 domination of Palladio, and yet might have worked clear 
 of the imitation feudal castle and the mesquin inanity of 
 debased Gothic. But the idea, to whomsoever it belongs, 
 perished with him. Sutton Place remains the single 
 extant production of a peculiar and suggestive type of 
 Renascence Gothic. 
 
 The, material in which it is built, like much in the 
 conception itself, is Italian rather than English. It is 
 one of the very few ancient buildings still remaining in 
 our country which are made of terra -cotta and brick 
 without any dressing of stone. The use of terra-cotta, 
 not merely as a superimposed ornament, but as a con- 
 structive element, is exceedingly rare and instructive. 
 And in this house the terra-cotta is used, not only with 
 profusion for purposes of ornament, but precisely as stone
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 is used where a building of brick is dressed with stone. 
 Mullions, dripstones, string courses, turrets, arches, 
 parapets, groins, and finials are all moulded in fine terra- 
 cotta with delicate designs. After 380 years of exposure 
 the mouldings remain almost as perfect as when they 
 were cast ; nor in the main does the terra-cotta show 
 any sign of yielding to natural decay. The mass and the 
 completeness of the terra-cotta work is hardly equalled 
 by any old work in England. Now that our builders 
 are seeking to acclimatise anew this potent resource of 
 construction, it is of special interest to observe the 
 methods in use in the bold attempt made to introduce 
 terra-cotta as material for building more than three 
 centuries and a half ago. 
 
 The house, too, has the singular fortune to retain, at 
 least on the outside, its original form, and to be quite 
 free from later additions. Save that one side of the 
 court has been removed, the principal quadrangle, as 
 seen from within, is in every essential feature exactly 
 as the builder left it. Nor, except by the removal or 
 the renewal of some mullions, has the exterior on any 
 side suffered any material change. It is not, like so 
 many of our ancient mansions, a record of the caprice, the 
 ambition, the decay, or the bad taste of successive genera- 
 tions. No Elizabethan architect has added a classical 
 porch ; no Jacobean magnate has thrown out a ponderous 
 wing with fantastic gables and profusion of scrolls ; no 
 Georgian squire has turned it into a miniature Blenheim, 
 or consulted his comfort by adding a square barrack. Sir 
 Richard Weston, were he to return from his long sleep 
 with his descendants in Trinity Church at Guildford, 
 would find his way to the doorway in the court, and 
 would recognise his home, worn and dimmed a little in
 
 4 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 these 380 years, but, it may be, mellowed by time into a 
 peculiar charm, softened by the mosses and the lichens 
 on the cornices, and the wallflowers and the ferns which 
 nestle beneath the traceries of the bays. 
 
 This unity and peace, which seem to rest on the old 
 house almost as on a ruin or a cloister whence modern 
 improvements are shut out, are doubtless due to this : 
 that from its building till to-day the place has remained 
 in the same family, and that a family debarred by adher- 
 ence to the ancient faith from taking active part in the 
 world of affairs. The hall itself was built before the 
 Reformation, as the emblems and arms of Catherine of 
 Aragon remain to witness. Under Elizabeth the house 
 was searched as a secret receptacle of priests. In the 
 next century the heir married the heiress of an eminent 
 Catholic leader. According to the tradition of the 
 family, the mass has been continuously celebrated within 
 its walls, more or less openly, from the time they were 
 raised until the other day when the new chapel was built 
 in the park. During the civil wars and the last century 
 the penal laws pressed heavily on Catholics, and after the 
 civil wars the family took no part in public. Being 
 neither wealthy, nor ambitious, nor busy, they clung to 
 the old place, and they left it to hold its own with time, 
 unaltered and unimproved. Thus it comes about that 
 whilst the famous mansions of England bear the marks 
 of succeeding generations, this one has remained with the 
 unity and the pathos of a ruin, and still with but little of 
 structural decay. 
 
 It has another feature which is of much account in 
 the history of manners, and marks one of the great 
 epochs in the history of architecture. It is, if not the 
 earliest, at least one of the very first extant specimens in
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 England of a mansion-house built wholly as a peaceful 
 dwelling, and entirely without any thought of defence. 
 Down to the end of the fifteenth century all houses 
 in the country of any importance or size were built 
 either as actual castles and castellated mansions, or at 
 least in the form and in the spirit of a castle. Narrow 
 windows, turret staircases, cramped doorways, an irregular 
 plan, battlements, embrasures, and dominant towers were 
 the first necessities of a home to a wealthy and powerful 
 chief who was living on his own estates. Penshurst, 
 H addon, Sudeley, Warwick, even Thornbury and 
 Kenninghall, are all castles originally built with ideas 
 of war, and gradually transformed under habits of peace. 
 They are in spirit Gothic and feudal. When fifty years 
 later, in the piping times of Bess, Longleat and Wool- 
 laton were built, when the Cecils, the Sackvilles, and 
 Willoughbys were designing their new and stately palaces, 
 all notions of a castle were abandoned. But early in the 
 reign of King Henry VIII. it required an effort of the 
 mind to perceive that the wars of the barons were over ; 
 that a gentleman might live at his ease under protection 
 of law and the king's peace. 
 
 In Italy and in France men had long been building 
 palaces instead of castles. As we shall see, Sir Richard 
 Weston had gone on an embassy to Francis I. in 1518, 
 and was taken across France at the very time when the 
 new chateaux were building. It was natural that the 
 minister and courtier who had attended in full bravery at 
 the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and who was the trusted 
 colleague of Wolsey, should be one of the first to raise in 
 England a country house in our modern sense, instead of 
 an imitation castle. Here, at any rate, Sir Richard built 
 him a dwelling which would hardly resist the assault of a
 
 6 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 burglar ; symmetrical, airy, light, and commodious, with 
 large and regular windows, with an even and balanced 
 facade, with wide hall doors opening on to the green ; 
 with no towers, winding stairs, moat, battlements, or 
 outer rampart, but merely and simply a quiet country 
 home. Here is nothing feudal ; all is peace and art, and 
 the art is rather Southern than Northern in idea. To 
 conceive such a home was to inaugurate a peaceful 
 revolution in manners. 
 
 It is well known how deeply, all through the sixteenth 
 century, the ruling classes in England and in France had 
 absorbed that New Life and New Art which in Italy 
 had been fully developed in the century before. The 
 Machiavellian turn for craft, secrecy, and suddenness of 
 stroke, the passion for the beautiful, the revolt against the 
 feudal habits of war and the old traditions of religious art, 
 all these colour the politics, the poetry, and the manners 
 of the age. Henry loved the artists of Italy as much 
 as did Francis ; Wolsey lived surrounded by Romans ; 
 and Thomas Cromwell had his training in Italy itself. 
 Weston's brother, the Prior of St. John's, spent much of 
 his life in command at Rhodes, and they both belonged 
 to a family which had served as Knights of St. John, and 
 had seen foreign service for generations. Here, then, 
 was exactly the combination best fitted to introduce into 
 English homes that Southern grace, that colour and de- 
 light in life, that New Birth of beauty which warm the 
 whole sixteenth century in England, and with which 
 Surrey and Raleigh, Spenser and Shakespeare, so deeply 
 filled their souls. 
 
 Sir Richard Weston was one of those skilful, wary, and 
 trusty servants of the Tudors by whose energy and craft 
 they established a strong personal government in England.
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 He was made Knight of the Bath in 1518, and in 1519 
 he was named with three other "sad and ancient knights " 
 as gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. He was subsequently 
 Master of the Court of Wards, Treasurer of Calais, and 
 Under-Treasurer of England. In 1518 he was sent on 
 an embassy to Francis I. with his brother, the Prior of 
 St. John's, and Sir T. Boleyn. In 1520 he accompanied 
 the King in state to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In 
 1523 he took part in the campaign in France, and he 
 served under the Duke of Suffolk in the siege of Boulogne. 
 In 1521 he received a grant from the King of the royal 
 manor of Sutton, and in 1530 he received a further grant 
 of lands at Clandon and Merrow. His only son and heir, 
 a personal playmate and minion of the King, had been 
 married to a rich heiress by the King's favour in 1530, 
 and in 1532 he was made Knight of the Bath at the 
 coronation of Anne Boleyn. Four years afterwards that 
 son was executed on Tower Hill as one of the reputed 
 lovers of the Queen. Yet the father, mother, and widow 
 remain at Sutton and enjoy and accept the favour of the 
 King. They send presents to the royal family when they 
 pass near them at Guildford. In 1539, but three years 
 after the catastrophe, we find the old knight still at Court. 
 He is chosen with other knights to attend the reception 
 of Anne of Cleves in 1539. Then follow quickly the 
 divorce of Anne, with the marriage and execution of 
 Catherine Howard. 
 
 All these Sir Richard lived to witness. He died in 
 1542. For thirty-three years he was the trusted minister 
 and servant of Henry ; he had held his offices under 
 Wolsey and under Cromwell, through the Reformation, 
 the Six Acts, and the Pilgrimage of Grace, and all through 
 Henry's first five marriages. He lost his son, but not his
 
 8 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 head ; his patrons, but not his estates. The wild surging 
 of those times from Catholic to Protestant professions, 
 the deadly conflicts of that reign between mighty nobles 
 and low-born ministers, did not shake Weston from his 
 place, his offices, or his King's favour. In 1521, in the 
 heyday of Henry's renown and the full ascendency of 
 Spain, he received the grant of the royal manor of Sutton. 
 In 1525 Wolsey writes to ask for him from the King the 
 Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster. In 1539 
 Cromwell, who devised the marriage with Anne of Cleves, 
 was all-powerful. Weston is one of those chosen to 
 receive her in honour, as his son had been appointed to 
 wait on Anne Boleyn. The very next year Cromwell is 
 overthrown and brought to the scaffold as a traitor in the 
 Tower. Two years afterwards Sir Richard himself dies 
 peacefully at home ; his goods are inventoried at Sutton, 
 and his executors are Sir Christopher More of Loseley, 
 Fitzwilliam the Earl of Southampton, Sir John Russell, 
 then Lord Admiral, and founder of the house of Bedford, 
 and Lady Weston, the widow. Truly such a man who 
 had weathered so many storms of Henry's passion in rule, 
 in religion, in friendship, and in love, and is tranquilly 
 laid to his rest full of years and of honours, must have 
 been of the order of men to which belonged Paulet, he 
 who said, " I am the willow, not the oak." 
 
 The vicissitudes and ironies of such a career give one 
 a vivid sense of the tremendous whirlpool in which the 
 Reformation and its consequences kept men revolving in 
 the days of Henry. Here is an officer of state who serves 
 the King for thirty-three years, and retains the confidence 
 successively of Warham, More, Wolsey, Cromwell, South- 
 ampton, and Russell ; who was a courtier through all the 
 negotiations with Louis XII., with the Emperor, with
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 Francis I., with the German princes. He goes on an 
 embassy to Francis I. ; he names his only son after that 
 king. He who had obtained his grant under Wolsey, 
 and had adorned his house in honour of Queen Catherine, 
 accepts the new order of things under Cromwell, and 
 procures for his boy a place about the person of Anne 
 Boleyn. His brother is the prior of a great monastic 
 house, who dies of grief at the dissolution j Sir Richard 
 himself undoubtedly dies a Catholic, and yet he is chosen 
 to welcome the Protestant Anne of Cleves, and makes 
 Russell of Woburn the executor of his own will. 
 
 When the son is beheaded as a traitor, the Constable 
 of the Tower who executes the warrant is the knight 
 who had been chosen with the father, eighteen years 
 before, to be one of the four personal companions and 
 advisers to the King. Yet the grandson lives to marry the 
 cousin of Anne Boleyn, a cousin also of Catherine Howard, 
 of Lady Jane Grey, and of Lord Surrey. The old knight 
 himself serves first with the Bourchiers, the Fitzalans, 
 the Howards, the Stanleys, Berkeleys, and Brays, whose 
 arms and coronets and garters he so proudly displays in 
 his hall, and then with the new men, the Paulets, Fitz- 
 williams, Wriothesleys, Gardiners, and Russells. In the 
 end he leaves his will to be executed by the personal 
 confidants of Henry ; and to this very day we find in 
 his house a portrait of the Emperor, the devices of 
 Aragon and Castile, the pomegranate of Catherine, the 
 phoenix arising from the flames of Jane Seymour, the 
 arms of Bishop Gardiner, and the arms and portrait 
 of Queen Mary side by side with the devices of Eliza- 
 beth and the portrait and escutcheons of her cousin and 
 hostess. 
 
 And what a wreck and ruin after all was the old man's
 
 io ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 life ! With what bitterness and hopelessness of heart in 
 his last years must he have looked across the links of the 
 Wey and beheld the fresh beauty of his newly-risen house. 
 There is a certain accord between the fortunes of the 
 knight and the fortunes of his master ; and the home 
 which the minister built him on the ancestral manor of 
 the King has shared in the blight which crushed the lives 
 of both. It is still overshadowed by the catastrophe which 
 snatched from the one his wife and from the other his 
 son. Bright and promising was the fortune of Henry 
 and the fortune of Sir Richard when these walls first rose 
 in the freshness of their fanciful grace. But the only son 
 who had played within them as a boy never lived to in- 
 habit the house he had watched in the building. He who 
 gave the estate in his bounty cut off the first heir to it 
 in blood and shame. He who obtained the estate by the 
 King's favour lost the son who should have inherited it 
 by the King's fury. And the two men so strangely linked 
 seemed still to have lived on in relations of intercourse, 
 nay almost of friendship, as if their calamities had come 
 to them by some inscrutable destiny, as if the father could 
 as little blame the King as the King could blame the 
 father. And now as we look on the building where 360 
 years ago the bereaved father lived on with the dead son's 
 widow, it seems to bear traces of the tragedy and the ruin 
 with which it began. One wing and the gateway are 
 gone ; one remaining wing is desolate and bare. Huge 
 stacks of chimneys tower up, but are never warmed by 
 a fire ; the chapel and the chapel bell are gone ; the 
 amorini still dance and sport, but under mosses and 
 weeds ; decaying casements creak in the wind, and ivy 
 encumbers the arabesques upon many an empty mullion. 
 Sir Francis who died on Tower Hill left an only child
 
 i INTRODUCTORY n 
 
 in his father's house. The child grew up to be Sir Henry 
 Weston, a soldier and a politician. He served with dis- 
 tinction in the last siege, when Calais was lost for ever 
 in 1558. He was made Knight of the Bath with ten 
 other gentlemen at the coronation of Elizabeth. In the 
 next year he was High Sheriff of Surrey, and in the year 
 following he was elected to Parliament as Knight of the 
 Shire. Cousin by marriage of Elizabeth herself, and son 
 of the man who had died in the same condemnation with 
 her mother, he was in favour with the Queen. Two 
 years after her accession she visited him in this house, and 
 stayed in it three days. Many years later we find her 
 again dating despatches to her ambassador from hence. 
 It is probable that she was often here, as it stood on the 
 way to Loseley, Cowdray, and other houses which she 
 constantly visited. One of these visits of the Queen 
 was the occasion of a serious fire, a fire of which traces 
 remain, and which apparently destroyed one wing in some 
 irreparable way. Kings and queens alike were destined 
 to be dangerous friends of the house. 
 
 Sir Henry had married a lady (her portrait still hangs 
 in the hall) whose family history was yet more tragic 
 than his own, as her birth was far more illustrious. As 
 he was the son of the man who had been executed as a 
 traitor in 1536, so she was the daughter of Sir Thomas 
 Arundell of Wardour and of Margaret Howard, both 
 attainted in 1552 in the coup d'etat that struck down the 
 Protector Somerset. Sir Thomas Arundell was a nephew 
 of Grey, Marquis of Dorset, and thus great-grandson of 
 Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII., once Queen 
 Dowager of France. He was a nephew of that Henry 
 Grey, Duke of Suffolk, who was beheaded in 1554, of 
 Leonard Grey, who was beheaded in 1541, and of
 
 iz ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Thomas Grey, who was beheaded in 1554; he was 
 cousin therefore of Lady Jane Grey, who was beheaded 
 with her husband, Guildford Dudley, in the same year, at 
 the accession of Mary. He was a cousin also of Catherine 
 Seymour, the unhappy victim of Elizabeth, who died 
 prisoner in the Tower in 1567. Indeed ten of Lady 
 Weston's near relations on the father's side had perished 
 on the scaffold. But on her mother's side the havoc had 
 been even greater. Her mother was attainted but not 
 actually beheaded in 1552; her mother's sister was 
 Catherine Howard, the queen who was executed in 1542 ; 
 her mother's cousin was Lady Rochford, sister-in-law of 
 Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded in the same year ; her 
 mother's cousin also was Anne Boleyn, who had been 
 beheaded along with Sir Henry's father in 1 536. Margaret 
 Howard was great-granddaughter of the famous "Jockey 
 of Norfolk," who was killed at Bosworth, granddaughter 
 of the second Duke of Norfolk, who after being attainted 
 by the Tudors and spending three years in the Tower, 
 lived to be the victor over James IV. at Flodden ; she 
 was niece of the third Duke of Norfolk, who was attainted 
 in 1546, and of Thomas Howard, who died prisoner in 
 the Tower in 1536 ; she was cousin of Lord Surrey, the 
 poet, who was beheaded in 1547 ; of the fourth Duke, 
 who was beheaded in 1572 ; of Philip, Earl of Arundel, 
 who died prisoner in the Tower in 1594; and she was 
 sister-in-law of Ann Howard, who was attainted and died 
 in prison in 1 542. For two generations from the building 
 of it the masters and mistresses of Sutton had worn 
 mourning in their hearts, if not in their hall, for almost 
 every head that had rolled on Tower Hill. 
 
 The career of Sir Henry and his house in the reign of 
 Elizabeth seems to have closed as darkly as the career of
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 Sir Richard in the reign of Henry. From the time when 
 the tremendous conflict with Spain shook the throne of 
 the Queen, as the internecine war of assassination on the 
 one side and executions on the other began to grow 
 fiercer, it seems that the position of Sir Henry became 
 less brilliant or less secure. After 1570 we find him in 
 no public office. In 1569 he receives from Sir Thomas 
 Copley, a desperate Catholic recusant, who ultimately 
 ended his career fighting on the Spanish side, a letter 
 imploring his intercession from his "loving neighbour 
 and assured pore friend." Sir Henry's great-grandson 
 married the descendant of this very man ; it is possible 
 that the knight interceded for the exile to his own cost. 
 From this time the fortunes of the house, which still 
 remained Catholic, seemed to fade. They sought no 
 alliances with the great houses whose family burial-place 
 was by Tower Hill ; they avoided the perils of the Court, 
 and they took no public employment. It would seem 
 almost as if they lived more constantly on the Clandon 
 estate, and ceased to reside in a house darkened by so many 
 memories and seriously injured by the fire. 
 
 One other effort alone was made in the next century. 
 Sir Richard Weston, the grandson of Sir Henry, and 
 fourth in descent from the founder of the house, was in 
 possession of the manor from 1613 to 1652. He seems 
 to have occupied himself enthusiastically with agriculture, 
 travelled much in Holland, and wrote a valuable treatise 
 which introduced some new devices of scientific husbandry. 
 He made known in England not only several foreign 
 products, but the Dutch system of canals with locks, and 
 for years he was occupied in obtaining an Act for his 
 canal upon the Wey. By what skill he succeeded in 
 carrying his project through the reign of King Charles,
 
 14 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 and then got his Bill passed by the Parliament of the 
 Commonwealth, we have not succeeded in learning. He 
 was a neighbour and a collateral connection of Richard 
 Weston, Earl of Portland, the favourite of Charles, High 
 Treasurer, and Royalist minister. 1 And yet Sir Richard, 
 who had been made a Royal Commissioner by Charles I., 
 and was a known Catholic and Royalist, lived peacefully 
 for years under the rule of the Parliament, and is buried 
 in Guildford, full of honour, in the high tide of the 
 Commonwealth. 
 
 He married his son to the heiress of Gatton, and 
 thereby the Westons obtained the splendid estates and 
 quarterings of Copley. They sold the Clandon estates 
 to Sir R. Onslow j they seem to have refitted the house 
 at Sutton, placing the family residence in the undamaged 
 side, and probably they built the new quadrangle on the 
 western side, now the offices. From this time the family 
 is heard of in history no more. Their children and 
 fathers, their uncles and cousins no longer lay their head 
 on the block. No kings or queens are again ever 
 welcomed at Sutton. The fortunes of the family not 
 only disappear from the annals of England, but they hardly 
 are traceable in the annals of the county. They mind 
 their lands beside the Wey, nor think of adding a brick 
 to the old place that was now too large for their estate. 
 The stirring traditions of Sutton Place end with the 
 Commonwealth, where for the most of our famous man- 
 sions the stirring traditions begin. 
 
 From that day till our own the silent process of decay 
 has slowly gone on with but little violent change. No 
 structural additions were made to the house ; one ruinous 
 wing was pulled down in the last century ; the pictures, 
 
 1 See further particulars below as to Sir R. Weston, 1645-50.
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 the furniture, the parchments have gradually been lost to 
 sight. Some few portraits remain Queen Mary and the 
 hostess of Elizabeth ; the Weston who married the heiress 
 of Gatton ; William Copley, her grandfather ; the last of 
 the direct line of the founder ; the ladies of the last 
 century and the collateral Westons, to whom it passed in 
 1782. But of the glass in the hall the choicest and 
 rarest part is happily preserved. The red and white roses 
 united, the Tudor portcullis and the crown of Henry, the 
 hawthorn and the monograms of Henry of Richmond and 
 Elizabeth of York, the arms of the archbishop who 
 married them, of Richard, whom Henry Tudor defeated 
 and slew at Bosworth, these remain of the same work- 
 manship as the fragments in the chapel of Henry VII. in 
 the Abbey at Westminster, and are evidently the work 
 of the same school. There are the coats, too, of the 
 finest period of painted glass in England, magnificent 
 specimens of that wonderful art, in the arms with crown 
 and garter of Henry, of Catherine of Aragon, of the Duke 
 of Norfolk of Flodden, of the two Earls of Derby, the 
 successors of the husband of Margaret Beaufort. There, 
 too, remain in the richness of their colours the arms or 
 devices of the men with whom the founder had served 
 as a colleague and friend Stephen Gardiner, and Fitzalan, 
 Earl of Arundel, and Lord Berners, and Sir Reginald 
 Bray, and Sir Walter Dennys. And above, of a later age, 
 and in less conspicuous quarries, may be found the coats 
 of Cecil, Paulet, Vane, Shirley, Coke, and Onslow. 
 
 The glowing blazons of these mighty and stormy 
 personages which gleam across the hall like ghosts in a 
 dilapidated house are all that remains in Sutton to recall its 
 connection with the great. For two centuries and a halt 
 it has neither sought nor found such relations. Within
 
 16 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 the last eighty years its possession has passed in the same 
 family five times, and only twice has the son succeeded 
 the father. The pressure of the penal laws of religion has 
 hardly yet been redressed. Happy (in an antiquarian 
 sense) is the house whose annals are a blank. The 
 restorer, the improver, the architect, and the landscape 
 gardener have no scope for their art. Time and our 
 forefathers have the long-drawn fight to themselves. 
 
 Thus it has come to pass that the genius of the place 
 has retained in no scanty degree the peace and retirement 
 of a ruin. The gently-gliding circles of the Wey, where 
 it issues through the gate in the chalk at Guildford, wind 
 round the house in long enfolding reaches, which on 
 three sides alike shut it off from the neighbouring 
 country. The water meadows stretch for miles from 
 the foot of the wooded bank on which the house is placed. 
 Far beyond them, on the ridge between Guildford 
 and Farnham, lies the ancient track of the pilgrims 
 from the west to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury. 
 Above Guildford the Chapel of St. Catherine and the 
 Chapel of St. Martha crown the western and the eastern 
 hills. Through the gap where the Saxons bridged the 
 Wey at Guildford the glades of Surrey reach in broken 
 vistas to the weald. To the east, head away in the 
 distance, in sweeps of woodland and copse, the downs 
 of Effingham and Clandon and Horsley. Broad open 
 upland is all around, nor has our nineteenth century as 
 yet broken the spell. One may watch the brickwork 
 and the mouldings that the old knight raised in the 
 heyday of the merry king without disturbance from the 
 world or an echo of busy life. One listens to the cooing 
 of the wood-pigeon in the shady masses of the limes j 
 one may watch the kingfisher skim the unruffled bosom
 
 i INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 of the Wey and the heron at work in the shallows. 
 And in the evening there comes across the warren the 
 murmur of the tumbling bays the invention that the 
 younger Sir Richard brought out of Brabant, and the 
 beat of the water-wheel of the mill, which is the mill 
 recorded by the Conqueror in his Domesday.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 VICISSITUDES OF THE MANOR OF SUTTON 
 
 THE manor of Sutton, lying quietly out of the way in 
 a home county, with nothing of any distinguishing char- 
 acter about it, supplies a good example of the vicissitudes 
 which befell thousands of estates in England between 
 the Conquest and the battle of Bosworth. Encircled in 
 the reaches of the Wey a little below Guildford, it was 
 far from the great tide of civil war which rolled so fiercely 
 in Plantagenet times through the Midland and Northern 
 counties. It was not near any great stronghold or battle- 
 ground, nor did it form part of any rich and coveted tract 
 of land. And yet during four centuries it is continually 
 changing hands, passing from the Crown to the Crown 
 favourites ; back again to the Crown, and thence into 
 a. new line. It is held in turn by a succession of men 
 and women famous in English history, and the domestic 
 annals of this unobtrusive manor form a rude outline of 
 the history of England. 
 
 Though not very valuable in itself, and not forming 
 part of the great vantage-grounds of war, it was sufficiently
 
 CH. ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 19 
 
 desirable, inasmuch as it lay not far from the valley of 
 the Thames, and was conveniently placed between the 
 important town of Guildford and the capital to be worth 
 possessing by statesmen and favourites of the Crown. It 
 is thus during four centuries tossed about like a racquet- 
 ball from chief to chief, as were scores of estates in the 
 south, if they were worth the having. It passes suc- 
 cessively to eight or ten families. More than ten times 
 it is forfeited to the Crown. At least ten times the 
 owner of it or the immediate heir to it is beheaded, 
 attainted, or killed in civil war. It passes from king to 
 baron, and back from baron to king, from Red Rose to 
 White Rose, from York to Lancaster, and during the 
 Wars of the Roses it is not easy to say at any given time 
 to whom it belongs in law. It is held in turn, amongst 
 other owners, by the Conqueror, by his favourite Robert 
 Malet, by King Stephen, by his son William, Earl ot 
 Warren, by Henry II., by King John, by the Lords 
 Basset, by Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, by Hugh 
 Despenser, by Edward III., by Edmund of Woodstock, 
 half-uncle of Edward III., by Roger Mortimer, Earl of 
 March, by John, Earl of Kent, by Joan, the Fair Maid 
 of Kent, afterwards wife of the Black Prince, and by 
 Thomas, Earl of Kent, her son. Thence it passed by 
 marriage to John, Earl of Somerset, the son of John of 
 Gaunt. At last, by the death of various Beauforts who 
 fell in battle or on the scaffold in the Wars of the Roses, 
 the inheritance ultimately passed, in 1468, to Margaret, 
 Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII. Of 
 course during the reign of the house of York the manor 
 was actually possessed by the Crown in the time of 
 Edward IV. and Richard III. But after the battle 
 of Bosworth, in 1485, Henry VII. put his mother in
 
 20 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 possession of the estate. She included it in her 
 marriage settlement with Thomas, Earl of Derby, and 
 at her death, in 1509, she left the manor to Henry 
 VIII., her grandson. 
 
 During the stormy times of Angevins and Plantagenets 
 the unfortunate manor seemed to grow less and less 
 valuable. At each inquisition the value dwindles below 
 its rating in the age of the Confessor. In three centuries 
 the arable land diminishes from 500 to 300 acres, then 
 to 130 acres, and in 1353, the date of the Statute of 
 Labourers, between the battles of Crecy and of Poictiers, 
 we find the inquisition run thus : 
 
 " I. A ruinous messuage valued, after reprisals, at o o o 
 2. A dovecote, intirely ruined, as appears on 
 
 view of the same . . . . .000" 
 
 Such was the result of three centuries of feudalism. 
 
 But feudalism practically ended with the battle of 
 Bosworth. Henry VIII. and his grandmother quietly 
 retain the property for thirty-six years. Then in 1521 
 Henry grants the estate to a favoured comrade and friend 
 to build himself a stately mansion ; and from that day to 
 this the property has remained in the same family, and 
 descends peacefully from father to son or from kinsman 
 to kinsman, save only that the ancient spell of treason, 
 attainder, and beheading seems so far to cling round the 
 manor, that hardly had its last grantee covered in the 
 roof of his new home when his only son and heir was 
 convicted of high treason and beheaded in one of the 
 passionate outbursts of his fierce benefactor and king. 
 
 The hapless lad's son grew up to enjoy in peace his 
 grandfather's home, though his own wife in turn had seen 
 nearly a score of her near relations die on Tower Hill in
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 21 
 
 the wild hurly-burly of the Reformation settlement. 
 Thenceforth the manor peacefully descends from father 
 to son for three centuries ; and (what is not a little 
 singular) the place which during the Wars of the Roses 
 had changed its owner almost with every great battle 
 remained perfectly undisturbed during the great civil 
 war of the seventeenth century. The home of a devoted 
 Catholic and Royalist family, of the same name and stock 
 as that of one of Charles's most unpopular ministers, a 
 house within an hour's walk of a stout Puritan town, 
 and within a day's ride of Winchester and of Basing 
 House, has not an escutcheon defaced or a window broken. 
 The portraits of Dorothy Arundell, the hostess of Eliza- 
 beth, of Mary Tudor, the crowns, the garters, the red 
 and white roses, the emblems of royal and noble persons, 
 leopards and fleur-de-lys of England, and the arms and 
 crest of Weston, kinsman of the hated Earl of Portland 
 all stood uninjured in the great hall whilst Oliver's 
 fierce Ironsides were sweeping by to the storm of Basing 
 House. And Protectorate, Revolution of 1689, and 
 Hanoverian dynasty leave the stubborn, Jacobite, and 
 non-juring race unbroken, though cruelly disabled by 
 sequestration and fine. 
 
 And now at length, after more than eight centuries, 
 on the very spot where the Confessor had his hunting 
 lodge, they build a chapel of the old faith and dedicate 
 it to St. Edward, and continue to worship after the ancient 
 rite in despite of Tudor reformations and Elizabethan 
 persecutions, and in despite of Roundheads, Whigs, and 
 Georgian penal statutes. The manor of Button is thus 
 one of the very few estates still remaining in England 
 of which we can positively assert that it has never for a 
 day passed away from Catholic hands, and wherein the
 
 22 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 mass has been continuously celebrated since the times of 
 our Saxon kings. 
 
 The manor of Sutton, which is a member of Woking 
 parish, and evidently so named as the southern hamlet of 
 the Woking village community, was originally, we are 
 told, held by the Saxon kings. King Edward the Con- 
 fessor had there a hunting lodge, on the hill about three 
 miles north of Guildford, close by the modern church of 
 St. Edward and the priests' house, Fine Cottage. A 
 clump of birch trees marks the remains of a very ancient 
 well, always called St. Edward's Well, within which 
 fragments of old pottery and of very early encaustic tiles 
 have been found. The spot is still known as the " Manor 
 Field." 1 
 
 Edward the Confessor, it appears from the Survey, had 
 granted the manor of about 500 acres to one Wenesi. 
 The account given in the Domesday Survey (1082-1086) 
 is as follows : 
 
 SUDRIE. XXVIII 
 
 TERRA ROBERTI MALET IN WOKINGES 
 HUNDREDO 
 
 ROBERTUS Malet tenet SUDTUNE. Wenesi tenuit de 
 rege Edwardo. Tune se defendebat pro v hidis, modo pro 
 iii hidis. Terra est iii carrucarum. In dominio est una, et 
 v villani et v bordarii cum ii carrucis. Ibi vi servi, et unus 
 molinus de v solidis, et xx acrae prati. Silva de xxv porcis. 
 Tempore Regis Edwardi, et post, valuit viii libras, modo c 
 solidos. Hanc terram saisivit Durandus, et dicunt homines 
 quod iniuste habet, nam nemo eorum brevem regis vel liber- 
 atorem vidit. 
 
 1 Information supplied by F. H. Salvin, from MSS. and relics in his 
 possession. The account of the manor of Sutton down to the grant to Sir 
 R. Weston is taken from Manning and Bray, i. 120 et sey. They have been 
 followed by Brayley, Surrey (1850), vol. ii. 16.
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 23 
 
 In English it would run thus : 
 
 The land of Robert Malet, in Waking Hundred. 
 Robert Malet holds Sudtune. Wenesi held it of King Edward. 
 It was then rated for 5 hides ; now for 3 hide s. The arable 
 land is 3 plough-teams. There is \ in demesne, and 5 villains 
 and 5 bordars, with ^ plough-teams. There are 6 serfs, and I 
 mill of 5/. a year, and 20 acres of meadow. Woodland to feed 
 2 5 swine. In the time of King Edward, and afterwards, it was 
 valued at 8 : now at IOQJ. Durand has seized this land : but 
 the homage present that he hath it without right, for that none of 
 them hath seen the King's writ, or any one who gave him livery of it. 
 
 When Wenesi held this manor of the Confessor, and 
 at the date of the Conquest, it was assessed at five hides, 
 and valued at ^8 per annum (or say about ^500 of our 
 currency). At the time of the Survey, twenty years after 
 the Conquest, the assessment was reduced to three hides, 
 valued at ^5. It actually contained, however, about 300 
 acres of arable and 20 acres of meadow, with woodland 
 for 25 swine. 1 The right of pannage would probably 
 extend over 50 acres at least. The mill is valued as 
 equal to 15 acres (roughly about ^15 of our value). Of 
 the manor, 100 acres were in demesne, occupied by the 
 lord himself, 200 acres were occupied by 5 villains re- 
 gardant, or attached to the soil, and tenants of the class 
 which ultimately developed into copyholders, and 5 cotter 
 tenants, bound to supply the lord's establishment, and 
 there were 6 serfs, the lord's personal property, and acting 
 as his domestics. 
 
 Thus an estate of about "400 acres in actual use 
 
 1 The bide was a measure of rateable value, not of actual area. The 
 carruca was the plough-team, and gave a rough measure of area. See 
 Pollock (Sir F.) and Maitland (Professor F. W.), History of English Law 
 before Edward /., 2 vols., second edition, 1898.
 
 24 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 supported and was worked by 16 resident tenants, and 
 was valued at something like the equivalent of 400 
 per annum of our currency. The value of it was much 
 about what it would be now ; but the tenants, about one 
 to each 25 acres, would be more in number than would 
 now be found on it. 
 
 Besides the King and the Churchmen, who together 
 hold the greater part of the county, there are only men- 
 tioned in the Survey about twenty holders of land in all 
 Surrey. Every one of them appears to be a foreigner, 
 and not one a native Englishman. 1 
 
 The manor of Woking, which at the Survey was held 
 by the King in demesne, was retained by the Crown as 
 a royal manor until the reign of Henry II. But the 
 manor of Sutton, in the same parish, had been granted 
 to a subject by the Confessor, and was again continually 
 separated from that of Woking by the Conqueror and 
 his successors. 
 
 The Conqueror gave Sutton, along with immense 
 possessions in five other counties, to Robert Malet, son 
 of that William Malet to whom, with Toustain, the 
 White, and many paladins, the mighty William entrusted 
 the consecrated banner at the battle of Hastings, and 
 whom he charged with the interment of Harold. William 
 Malet, one of the most favoured of his chieftains, 2 and 
 ancestor of the house of Malet, which lately served the 
 Crown in Berlin, died about 1071 in the campaign 
 against Hereward, but the Conqueror heaped estates on 
 
 1 " Kent, Sussex, Surrey, became above all other shires the prey of the 
 spoiler." Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 41. 
 
 2 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii. 466, 514; iv. 472. "William Malet, 
 well-nigh the only Norman on whom Englishmen can look with personal 
 sympathy and honour."
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 25 
 
 his son Robert. As he had no other manor in Surrey, 
 that of Sutton was apparently worth having by a royal 
 favourite. Henry I. made Robert Malet Great Cham- 
 berlain of England ; but on his taking part with Robert, 
 Duke of Normandy, in the conspiracy of the Duke 
 against his brother, as did most of the Norman barons, 
 Robert Malet was banished and his property confiscated 
 (1102). 
 
 On the forfeiture of the estates of Robert Malet, 
 Henry I. gave his possessions to Stephen of Blois, the 
 son of Adela, the daughter of the Conqueror ; and he, 
 on coming to the throne as King Stephen, granted the 
 manor of Sutton to his own son William, afterwards Earl 
 of Warren. As there is no trace of any castle of import- 
 ance on the manor, and as the adjacent manor of Woking 
 remained in the hand of the Crown, there is no reason 
 to suppose that during the terrible twenty years ot 
 Stephen's reign this particular district suffered especially 
 from feudal anarchy. When Henry II. came to the 
 throne in 1154 he, in accordance with a previous treaty, 
 restored to William of Warren the lands which his father 
 had held as a subject, and Sutton was amongst the vast 
 estates of the popular prince. 
 
 On the death of William, Earl of Warren, Morteigne, 
 and Surrey, in 1160, the manor of Sutton again reverted 
 to the King. Henry II. gave it to one Urric, and it was 
 confirmed to his sons by Richard I. It was then valued 
 at ^8 (say, vaguely, about ^oo). 1 Urric, called the 
 Engineer, left it to a son ; but on his death without 
 
 1 Money values in ancient times cannot be reduced to any modern equiva- 
 lent. The older writers gave arbitrary equivalents by multiplying by 12, 20, 
 or 40, and they are sometimes followed here. But they have no real 
 authority, and are not adopted by good modern authorities.
 
 26 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 heirs it again reverted to the Crown. King John then 
 granted it to Gilbert Basset, son of Lord Basset of 
 Wycombe ; and in the family of Basset the manor 
 remained for upwards of seventy years. The manor of 
 Sutton was now again united with that of Wolcing, and 
 it remained so joined for the 300 years which separate 
 the Great Charter from the time of Henry VIII. 
 Though the great house of Basset were owners from 
 the reign of John till the end of the reign of the third 
 Henry, the estate descended rapidly through the family. 
 Gilbert Basset died young from an accident in the hunt- 
 ing field, and his infant son followed him immediately to 
 the grave. His next brother having been killed in battle, 
 the estate descended to the third brother, Fulc, Bishop 
 of London ; and on the speedy death of Fulc, to Philip, 
 a fourth brother. Philip was one of the barons who 
 fought for the King at the battle of Lewes, 1264, and 
 there was made prisoner along with his royal master. 
 On his death, some years later, his inheritance passed to 
 Aliva, his only surviving child, formerly wife of Hugh 
 Despenser, the famous Justiciary, but now the wife of 
 Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. 
 
 The mighty baron, the Earl Marshal, who in a famous 
 scene bearded the greatest of the Plantagenets, 1 possessed 
 the estate in right of his wife ; but on her death, in 1283, 
 he was forced by law to surrender it to her son by her 
 first husband. Hugh Despenser had been killed at the 
 battle of Evesham in 1265 ; but he left by Aliva Basset 
 a son, Hugh Despenser, Earl of Winchester, father of 
 Edward II.'s wretched favourite, who was executed like 
 him in 1327. And thus, for the fifth time since the 
 Conquest, the manor reverted to the Crown. 
 
 1 See Stubbs's Constit. Hist. i. 132.
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF BUTTON MANOR 27 
 
 On the death of Philip, the last of the Bassets, and on 
 the claim of Roger Bigod to the inheritance in right of 
 his wife, an inquisition was taken in the year 1272. It 
 consisted of a tenement of the value of is. In the 200 
 years which had passed since the Great Survey the 300 
 acres of arable land had sunk to 145. There were 17 
 cocks and hens of the yearly value of is. 5d. (nearly half 
 as much again as the "tenement"), the customs and 
 services of the villains amount to ^3 : 18 : 2, and the total 
 value {5^17:3:6. The whole was held of the King in 
 chief by the office of Mareschal and the render of a pair 
 of buckskin gloves furred with minever. 
 
 Roger Bigod, the great Earl Marshal, on the death 
 of his wife, Aliva, attempted to hold her estates on the 
 plea of having issue by her born alive as the lawyers still 
 call it, as tenant by the courtesy of England. But a jury 
 being impanelled to inquire into this plea, Roger, Earl 
 of Norfolk, thought fit to withdraw from trial and sur- 
 render the estate. It seems a strange and somewhat 
 pettifogging proceeding of so mighty a baron ; for he 
 could hardly have been ignorant whether or not his 
 lamented spouse had borne him a son who would be her 
 heir. And it seems to show that in 1283, in the days 
 of the " Statute of Merchants " and " >uia Emptores " 
 and the rest, the law-courts of our English Justinian 
 were strong enough to deal even with an earl marshal. 
 At any rate Earl Bigod withdrew and left young De- 
 spenser in possession of the estate. He was not then of 
 age ; but he retained it for forty-four years, till his own 
 death in 1327. 
 
 Hugh Despenser lived to be Earl of Winchester, and 
 father of Edward II. 's arrogant favourite. He shared 
 in the overthrow and death of his king and his son, and
 
 28 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 was attainted and hanged in the furious revulsion of 
 feeling which swept into space the wretched Edward of 
 Caernarvon. The manor, of course, was forfeited to the 
 Crown. The very first year of his reign Edward III., 
 or those who acted in his name, gave the manor to his 
 half-uncle, Edmund of Woodstock, second son of Edward 
 L, by Margaret of France. Three years later Edmund 
 engaged in a conspiracy against the hated tyranny of the 
 infamous Isabella, the queen mother, and her favourite, 
 Roger Mortimer, Earl of March. He had short shrift, 
 and was beheaded in 1330 ; and again the manor reverted 
 to the Crown. The manor was found on inquisition to 
 have fallen again in value. It is now worth altogether 
 only ^12:7:5!- The "tenement" of Bigod's time, 
 worth is., is now a " ruinous messuage," ^o : o : o. The 
 arable and the meadow lands have both fallen in value ; 
 there is a " warren " of 2s. but the " cocks and hens " 
 have disappeared. However, such as it is, with Woking 
 and other estates, Roger Mortimer obtained a grant to 
 himself and his sons. 
 
 But the triumph of Mortimer was short. A few 
 months later Edward III., then a youth of but eighteen, 
 seized the reins of government, arrested Mortimer with 
 his own hand in the castle of Nottingham, and summarily 
 brought him to the block. Thus within three short 
 years of storm, insurrection, and rebellion the manor or 
 Sutton had seen three of its lords and masters attainted 
 and beheaded. And three times in as many years the 
 manor was forfeited to the Crown. It is no wonder 
 that its value appears to diminish, the messuages to get 
 more and more ruinous, and the very cocks and hens 
 of Roger Bigod to disappear. 
 
 Edward III. was now well seated on the throne, which
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 29 
 
 he occupied for fifty years ; and one of his first cares 
 was to undo the infamous work of the favourites of his 
 father and of his mother. Edmund, Earl of Kent, the 
 son of Edward I., lay in a traitor's headless grave ; but 
 his sons Edmund, and then John, were restored in blood, 
 in honours, and in estate, and were successively Earls 
 of Kent. 1 Edmund, John, and John's widow became 
 entitled to the manor, and peacefully enjoyed it ; but on 
 the death of John, in 1352, subject to the dower of 
 John's widow, the inheritance passed to his sister Joan, 
 commonly known as the "Fair Maid of Kent." Joan 
 was the wife, first, of Sir Thomas Holland, one of the 
 original Knights of the Garter, by whom she left a family, 
 then of William, Earl of Salisbury, and then of Edward, 
 the Black Prince, by whom she became the mother of 
 Richard II. From Joan the estate passed through a 
 succession of Earls of Kent and Earls of Somerset, all her 
 lineal descendants, to Margaret, Countess of Richmond, 
 and thence to her grandson, Henry VIII. But though 
 during 150 years the estate descended in the same blood, 
 this period includes the tremendous struggle of the Roses ; 
 so that attainder, executions, and forfeitures are for this 
 period even more frequent in the annals of the manor 
 than they had been in the 150 years preceding. 
 
 When in 1352 the estate came to Joan, the Fair Maid 
 of Kent, its annual value had sunk to $ : i : 6 ; " the 
 ruinous Messuage " and " the Dovecote, intirely ruined," 
 were valued at ^o : O : o. The 300 acres of arable of the 
 Conqueror's Survey were shrunk to 1305 the pannage, 
 or right of turning pigs to feed in the wood, was worth 
 
 1 For the genealogies of York and Lancaster, Beauforts, Hollands, and 
 Staffbrds consult the tables in Sir James Ramsay's valuable work, Lancaster 
 and York, Oxford Clarendon Press, 2 vols., 1892, Tables I., II., III., IV.
 
 30 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 55. ; and there is another wood " whose pasture is worth 
 nothing " at jCo : O : o. The Fair Maid, the great heiress 
 and principal parti of her time, must have had more 
 profitable estates than Sutton before she won the Black 
 Prince, her chivalrous, ferocious, and splendid cousin. 
 The fact was that Elizabeth, daughter of John, Marquis 
 of Juliers, and widow of John, Earl of Kent, Joan's 
 brother, had a settlement of these estates by way of 
 dower, and she kept actual possession of them till her 
 death in 1411. In the meantime the inheritance or 
 feudal lordship continued to pass through the descendants 
 of Joan. 
 
 Joan had a son, Thomas, by Sir Thomas Holland, 
 who was created Earl of Kent after the extinction of 
 that title in the person of Edmund of Woodstock ; and 
 Thomas the second in due time became Earl of Kent. 
 He died in 1397, when Thomas, his son, who succeeded 
 as Earl of Kent, was created Duke of Surrey. " He was 
 one of those," writes the patient historian of the county, 
 " who in the very beginning of the next reign (Henry IV.) 
 entered into a conspiracy for seizing the King's person ; 
 but failing in the attempt, was taken prisoner at Giren- 
 cester^ whither he had fled, and according to the custom 
 of the times beheaded the day following without further 
 ceremony. An attainder and forfeiture of his estates was 
 the consequence." 1 The next year, 1400, Bolingbroke, 
 for reasons of his own, restored the estate to the mother 
 of the Duke, Alice, daughter of Richard Fitzalan, the 
 tenth Earl of Arundel, and Earl of Surrey, the great 
 seaman, who himself, after a stormy career, lost his head 
 on the scaffold in the later days of Richard II., I397- 2 
 
 Manning and Bray, Surrey, i. izi. 
 2 Stubb, ii. 495.
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 31 
 
 The surviving son of Alice Fitzalan was Edmund, Earl 
 of Kent, to which title he succeeded on the execution of 
 his elder brother, Thomas, Duke of Surrey, in 1400. 
 But as he died a few years after his unhappy brother 
 without issue the inheritance next descended on their 
 sisters. One of these was Margaret Holland (afterwards 
 wife of that Duke of Clarence who was killed in his 
 brother's wars in France), previously the wife of John 
 Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, eldest son of John of Gaunt 
 by Catherine Swynford, his mistress, and then his third 
 wife. 
 
 Here we come, in 1408, into the times of the Beauforts, 
 in which family the estate remained until its alienation 
 by the Crown. It remained, indeed, but with wild 
 vicissitudes, deaths, attainders, and constant revolutions. 
 John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, died, strange as it may 
 seem, in his bed about 1410. His eldest son, Henry, 
 Earl of Somerset, died a minor, and without issue, in 
 1418. John, Earl and Duke of Somerset, the next 
 brother, his heir, assigned the estate to his younger 
 brother, Edmund, eventually Earl and Duke of Somerset, 
 who was killed in the first battle of St. Albans in 1455. 
 His eldest son, Henry, Duke of Somerset, who succeeded ) 
 founder of the ducal house of Beaufort, was taken, after 
 the battle of Hexham in 1464, and promptly beheaded 
 on the field. The second and third sons were slain at 
 Tewkesbury, 1471, without issue, and thereupon, the 
 male issue of John of Gaunt being extinct, the manor 
 of Sutton at last devolved on Margaret, Countess of 
 Richmond, the famous mother of Henry VII. 
 
 One need hardly say that the manor of Sutton was not 
 the only inheritance which the whirligig of civil war, 
 battles, attainders, and executions had cast into the lap
 
 32 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 of Margaret Beaufort. As the only child of John 
 Beaufort, third Earl of Somerset, she represented the 
 family of John of Gaunt by his third wife. One part 
 of the inheritance aforesaid was the claim to the throne 
 of England. Henry VIII., as every one knows, at last 
 combined the claims of the Red and White Rose ; and 
 it is indeed no wonder that the house built on the Wey 
 by Henry's minister should be covered with the symbolic 
 emblems of Red and White Rose in union ; for the 
 knight there received from his master a manor which 
 for 1 20 years had belonged to the Red Rose, but which 
 the White Rose had been so constantly confiscating, 
 seizing, and occupying all through the grand tussle. 
 
 The succession to the manor of Sutton, which from 
 the time of Edward I. really follows the lines of the 
 succession to royal titles and the control of the State, 
 is, as every lawyer would perceive, a legal, and not 
 a possessory interest. The heirs -at -law were very far 
 from being always in possession. Widows were very 
 real powers in feudal times, and dower was a fact and 
 not a conveyancing conundrum. In truth, Elizabeth, 
 daughter of the Marquis of Juliers, and Alice Fitzalan, 
 the daughter of the Earl of Arundel, both kept possession 
 of the estate by right of their dower. And furthermore, 
 when the estate did devolve on the Beauforts, their actual 
 enjoyment of it not a little depended on the issue of the 
 battles and the ups and downs of war and intrigue. 
 
 On the attainder of Henry, Duke of Somerset, after 
 the battle of Hexham, the estate was forfeited to King 
 Edward IV. He and his brother, Richard III., kept 
 possession of the forfeited estates during their reigns. 
 Edward IV. resided not seldom in his manor of Woking, 
 which, as we saw, was conjoined to that of Sutton
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 33 
 
 throughout the whole fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
 In the hall of Sutton to this day stands the blazon of 
 Richard when Duke of Gloucester. No doubt as king 
 he held possession of the estate ; but it was only on the 
 battle of Bosworth, in 1485, that Henry VII. could put 
 his mother in effective possession of estates which, 
 confiscation and attainder apart, had been her property 
 for the 20 years since the battle of Hexham, and which 
 Margaret Holland had first brought to the Beauforts just 
 80 years before. Here, with Bosworth field, ends the 
 whirligig of escheat and forfeiture which had swept 
 round continually since the death of the great Edward 
 Longshanks. During that period of 178 years the estate 
 had been forfeited eight times on the attainder, execu- 
 tion, or death in civil war of the legal owner. There is 
 nothing exceptional in this. It is a fair average specimen 
 from a southern English county in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries. There is much to learn by observing 
 feudalism at home in its own manor-house and its 
 "ruinous messuage." 
 
 We need not here rehearse the virtues, piety, dignities, 
 and beneficence of Margaret Beaufort, sole remnant and 
 hope of the Red Rose, Countess of Richmond, and then 
 of Derby, who lies in so noble a monument in the south 
 aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster. 1 She 
 married first, at the age of sixteen, Edmund Tudor, Earl 
 of Richmond, a son of Catherine of France, widow of 
 Henry V., and thus she became the mother of Henry 
 
 1 She " whose merit exceeds the highest commendation that can be 
 given," as the laborious Camden declares. Her Latin epitaph was written 
 by Erasmus. Brayley, Westminster Abbey, i. 70. For Margaret Beaufort's 
 title to the Crown see Mr. Alfred Bailey's excellent book, The Succession to 
 the English Crown, 1879. 
 
 D
 
 34 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 VII. Then she married Sir H. Stafford, son of the 
 Duke of Buckingham ; and thirdly she married Thomas, 
 Lord Stanley, the hero of Bosworth, and first Earl of 
 Derby. Great ladies in those days, as we see in the 
 little story of our manor, married early and married 
 often ; and as their lords and masters soon came to 
 untimely ends in the field or on the scaffold, they carried 
 their hands and their possessions through half the feudal 
 nobility. Lady Margaret, the saintly princess of whom 
 Gray sings 
 
 " Foremost and leaning from her golden cloud, 
 The venerable Margaret " 
 
 has perpetuated her name by the foundation of St. John's 
 College and Christ's College at Cambridge, and the 
 divinity professorships at both universities which bear 
 her name. She was a learned and pious woman, as is 
 fully told in Halsted's Life^ and she herself translated 
 from the Latin the Imitation and other books of devotion. 1 
 And as engaged in religious vows, she is represented in 
 the well-known picture, belonging to Mr. Milner Gibson, 
 exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition in 1890, in the habit 
 of a nun. She died in 1509, at the age of sixty-eight, 
 having lived to see her grandson crowned as Henry VIII. 
 Margaret Beaufort lived much at Woking from the 
 battle of Bosworth till her death, and the manor of 
 Sutton was practically a part of her home estate. She 
 often received in it her son, Henry VII., many of his 
 Acts being there signed. Woking and Sutton were 
 both included in the settlement which Margaret made 
 on the marriage with the Earl of Derby, and were 
 appointed to the Earl for life after her decease. But 
 
 1 C. A. Halsted, Life of Margaret Beaufort, 1839, p. 195.
 
 n VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 35 
 
 as she survived him, the two manors, with much else, 
 passed by her will to her grandson, now Henry VIII. 
 
 Henry VIIL, when possessed of the manor and 
 mansion of Woking, used it as a summer residence all 
 through his reign. "In the middle of September 1515," 
 we are told by Grafton, " he came to his Maner of 
 Okyng, and thether came to him the Archebishop of 
 Yorke, whom he hartily welcommed, and shewed him 
 great pleasures," and there " a Letter was brought to the 
 Archebishop from Rome, certifying him howe he was 
 elected to be a Cardinall." l As Richard Weston was 
 already attached to the King's person, and held various 
 offices, there is every probability that he was often with 
 the Court at Woking ; and he may well have been one 
 of those who congratulated Wolsey on the coveted Red 
 Hat. During these visits he must have had occasion to 
 notice the obvious advantages that the manor of Sutton 
 would offer as the site of a mansion. Woking remained 
 a royal manor and the residence of the sovereign all 
 through the reigns of the Tudors ; and in 1621 James I. 
 granted it to Sir Edward Zouch. But a hundred years 
 before this the manor of Sutton was granted to Sir 
 Richard Weston in May 1521. 
 
 King Henry VIIL, by Letters Patent, dated at 
 Westminster ijth May 1521, in the thirteenth year 
 of his reign, granted the manor of Sutton with its 
 appurtenances and all the knights' fees thereto belong- 
 ing, villains, goods and services, waifs and strays, ward- 
 ships and rights, woods, meadows, pastures, fisheries, 
 water, vineyards, ponds, rents, reliefs, escheats, court- 
 leets, weirs, with all the profits of the same and free 
 warren within the forest, in consideration of good and 
 
 1 Grafton, CArort. p. 1016.
 
 36 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 faithful service, "to his noble and well-beloved Privy 
 Councillor, Sir Richard Weston, Knight, his heirs and 
 assigns." l 
 
 Nine years later Sir Richard Weston received a further 
 grant, dated 25th May 1530, which gave him license to 
 impark 600 acres of land and pasture, 50 acres of wood, 
 and 400 acres of heath and furze, in the parishes of 
 Merrow and Clandon, with free warren and fishery. 2 
 This made him lord of the lands lying south of the 
 manor of Woking, across both banks of the Wey, as 
 far up as the top of Merrow Downs. The dates of these 
 grants deserve notice. The first grant was during the 
 zenith of the power of Cardinal Wolsey, when he had 
 just negotiated a league between Henry VIII., the 
 Emperor Charles V., and the Pope, at the time when 
 Wolsey was aspiring to the Papacy, and when the 
 English Government was straining every nerve to carry 
 on the war with France. The grant of Sutton followed 
 close on the visit of Charles V. to Henry VIII. at Dover 
 and Canterbury. Sir Richard Weston had been one of 
 the witnesses to the treaty with the Emperor, and one of 
 the noblemen and knights appointed to receive and attend 
 him at Dover. The second grant was made after the 
 fall of Wolsey and the trial for the divorce of Catherine 
 of Aragon. 
 
 From the date of the grant in Wolsey's time the 
 manor has been held by the Westons, descendants of 
 Sir Richard, and since 1782 by Westons from an allied 
 branch of the same family. The present owner, F. H. 
 
 1 The grant is abstracted in the Calendar of State Papers, Rolls Series 
 (Brewer), iii., 1519-23, Record Office, No. 1324, 17, marked S.B., pat., p. 2, 
 m. 1 8. An ancient copy of the patent is in possession of the owner of the 
 estate, F. H. Salvin, Esq. 2 Manning and Bray, iii. p. 60.
 
 ii VICISSITUDES OF SUTTON MANOR 37 
 
 Salvin, is the sixth son of Thomas Salvin of Croxdale, in 
 Durham, by Mary Ann Weston, eldest daughter of John 
 Webbe-Weston, the devisee of the estate on failure of 
 the issue of Sir Richard. It is somewhat remarkable 
 that an estate which, from the Conquest to the battle 
 of Bosworth, had been so often forfeited to the Crown 
 should never since have passed out of the same family, 
 although the only son of the grantee was attainted and 
 executed fifteen years after the grant, although the 
 grandson of the grantee was a notorious Catholic all 
 through the penal laws of Elizabeth, and although its 
 owners were Catholics and Royalists, malignants of 
 the deepest dye, all through the times of the Civil War, 
 the Commonwealth, and Protectorate, though they were 
 non-jurors and obstinate Jacobites under the Dutch and 
 Hanoverian dynasties. 
 
 From the day when Henry VIII. granted the estate 
 to his favourite knight and to Wolsey's " most humble 
 servant," "through whose goodnes and medyacion all 
 that I have now preceded and came," as Sir Richard 
 wrote to "my lorde legate's grace" in 1527, down to 
 this day the manor of Sutton ceases to have any connec- 
 tion with the history of England, and becomes a mere 
 private estate and unobserved country mansion. Henry 
 VIII. was frequently there : indeed he constantly re- 
 sided at Woking and at Guildford, and he could only 
 pass from one to the other across the manor of 
 Sutton. Elizabeth was often there too ; for she, too, 
 was constantly passing it on the way to Woking, 
 Pirford, Guildford, and Loseley. From that day to the 
 present time the owners of Sutton had little trust in 
 princes, and small favour to expect at Court. They 
 were Catholics, non- jurors, disaffected Jacobites, and
 
 38 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. n 
 
 deeply alien to all Protestant settlements. Henceforth 
 the history of the manor concerns no one but the owners 
 and their family. 
 
 It may be partly by chance, and possibly by some 
 removal of painted glass from the old manor-house at 
 Woking, but it is singular that to-day we find in the 
 windows and quarries of the hall arms, emblems, and 
 devices of a great number of historic persons and families, 
 all of whom had some connection with the past history 
 of the manor, who had owned it, or had been visitors in 
 it, or were friends and colleagues of its owners. Amongst 
 these may be mentioned the Beauforts, Edward IV. and 
 Richard III., Henry VII. and Henry VIII., the Earls of 
 Arundel, Earls of Derby, and Dukes of Norfolk, Arch- 
 bishop Bourchier, Catherine of Aragon, Sir Reginald 
 Bray, Edward VI., Mary Tudor, Philip of Spain, Queen 
 Elizabeth, Bishop Gardiner, Paulet, Marquess of Win- 
 chester, Charles II., and the Earls of Onslow. There is 
 no reason to suppose that Sir Richard Weston when he 
 built his house was deeply versed in the history of his 
 manor ; but when he came to place in his hall the coats, 
 crests, and devices of men of historic name with whom 
 he had served, or who had visited his hall, he was really 
 placing there the same emblems which centuries before 
 had been borne on the pennons of the lords of the manor 
 before him.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PART I. BEFORE THE REFORMATION 
 
 SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER- 
 HOUSE 
 
 -BUILDER OF THE 
 
 SIR RICHARD WESTON, who built Sutton Place and 
 there founded a family, was one of those typical men, at 
 once soldiers, diplomatists, and statesmen, by whose arms 
 and brains Henry VII. and Henry VIII. consolidated the 
 great Tudor monarchy of the sixteenth century. In 
 following up his life and story, we are struck with the 
 vast change in social and political life which this mon- 
 archy introduced, and with the flexible, versatile, Italian 
 character of the agents by whom these masterful kings 
 were served. Ordinary history does not say much of Sir 
 Richard Weston. But the State papers are full of his 
 name. There is hardly a single State ceremony or event
 
 40 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 during the eighth Henry's reign in which he is not re- 
 corded to have part. A bare list of the offices he held 
 would fill some pages. He is a soldier, seaman, ambassa- 
 dor, governor, treasurer, privy councillor, judge of the 
 Court of Wards, courtier, the amasser of great possessions, 
 a munificent patron of art, a wary, adroit, and successful 
 man of affairs. 
 
 Sir Richard Weston was just such a man as was Sir 
 Richard Cromwell, founder of the Hinchinbroke family, 
 great-grandfather of the Protector, or such as Sir Henry 
 Marney, Sir Edward Seymour, Sir Thomas Boleyn, and 
 Sir John Fitzwilliam. He served his royal master for 
 more than thirty-two years, from the first year of the 
 reign until his own death at a great age ; and there is 
 almost complete evidence that he never lost the King's 
 favour or resigned a single office till his last illness. He 
 saw out all the changes of policy and religion, the book 
 against Luther, the Reformation, and the Six Articles ; 
 he did homage to five of Henry's queens, he saw scores 
 of his colleagues and his own son beheaded on charges of 
 treason, and yet he retained to the last the confidence of the 
 King. It gives one a new idea of Henry's character, to 
 see the unbroken loyalty which he could show to an old 
 and tried servant. Sir Richard seems to have been indeed 
 a servant after Henry's own heart : brave, discreet, wary, 
 magnificent, artistic, cosmopolitan, without troublesome 
 scruples or feelings, either in Church or State ; a man 
 without any feudal connections or instincts, and with 
 no dangerous ambition ; devoted to his master, body and 
 soul, essentially one of the " new men." l He rose into 
 
 1 See Henry's own view of his councillors, in the answer to the rebels of 
 Yorkshire, 1537. "In the beginning of our raigne, where it is said that so 
 many noblemen were councillors, we doe not forget who were these council-
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 41 
 
 royal favour under Archbishop Warham long before 
 Wolsey ; he retained it under Wolsey, and after 
 Wolsey's fall, after that of More, and after that of 
 Thomas Cromwell. He served them all, and he outlived 
 them all. 
 
 There is nothing about him of the old feudal nobility. 
 He belongs to an ancient family of knights and squires, 
 soldiers and crusaders, men of good blood, but not noble 
 in the legal sense of the word. In the splendid pedigree 
 of the family, the work of Garter-King-at-Arms in 1632, 
 long preserved at Sutton Place, and now in the British 
 Museum, 1 the family of Weston is traced from the time 
 of Henry I. ; but with its galaxy of Norman and feudal 
 chivalry there is not a single alliance of a Weston with 
 any of the greater houses or titled nobility. Sir Richard 
 was evidently one of the able men, of courage, brains, and 
 culture, on whom the Tudors relied to break the teeth of 
 the barons and such remnants of them as the Wars of the 
 Roses had left, and to build up a modern king-craft of a 
 civilised, organised, rich, artistic, intellectual order, such 
 as was the dream of Francis I., Charles V., and afterwards 
 of Elizabeth of England and Henry IV. of France. Sir 
 Richard Weston was evidently one of the men who helped 
 on this work j after his kind, personally unscrupulous, 
 grasping, time-serving, and self-seeking, but withal of 
 
 lors, for of the Temporally there were but two worthy to be called noble 
 the one the Treasurer of England, the other the Lord High Steward of our 
 Household ; others as the Lords Marney and Darcy, but scant, wel-born 
 gentlemen, and yet of no great lands till they were promoted by us, and so 
 made Knights and Lords " (Speed, p. 776, bk. ix.) Howard of Norfolk was 
 Treasurer 5 the High Steward was Talbot, fourth Earl of Shrewsbury 
 (Brewer, i. 54). Weston was exactly one of Henry's scant, well-born gentle- 
 men, of no great lands till promoted. Consult Paul Friedmann, Anne Bokyn, 
 vol. i. pp. 26-29. 1 Addit. MS. 31, 890.
 
 42 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 unblemished credit, and staunchly faithful to his master 
 and to his friends. 
 
 According to the pedigree made by Garter, one may 
 suppose in anticipation of the famous Copley alliance of 
 1637, the Westons of Sutton are descended from a very 
 ancient family seated in Lincolnshire in the time of Henry 
 I. The judicious historian of the nineteenth century 
 will as little guarantee as he will dispute the accuracy of 
 a family genealogy of such absolute heraldic authority, and 
 blazoned in so splendid and scientific a form as is the Roll 
 which is now one of the prizes of the British Museum. 1 
 In that gorgeous family tree the race starts from Hayleric 
 of Weston in Holland, County Lincoln, temp. Henry I., 
 and descends through a succession of Nigels and Lamberts, 
 who witness charters and otherwise prove their reality, if 
 not their relationship, down to one Humphrey of Prested 
 Hall, in Essex, 13 Richard II. (1390). Humphrey 
 Weston, by his first wife, Catherine, widow of John de 
 Beauchamp, was the father of John de Weston of 
 Boston, 38 Henry VI. (1460), from whom descend in 
 right line the Westons of Sutton. By his second wife, 
 Joan, he was the father of the Robert de Weston, the 
 ancestor of the Westons of Prested Hall, Essex, 2 from 
 whom descended Richard Weston, Earl of Portland, 1632, 
 temp. Charles I., and also John Webbe-Weston (the 
 
 1 See Friedmann's Anne Boleyn, i. 37. "Nowhere has the making of 
 false pedigrees been so extensively practised as it was in England during the 
 sixteenth century. Every man or woman who rose into the royal favour 
 had but to apply to the herald to have for a consideration some genealogi- 
 cal tree made out, the root of which was a fabulous Saxon chieftain, or an 
 equally imaginary Norman knight." But then judicial Mr. Friedmann is a 
 foreigner, of a somewhat sceptical turn, and a cruel judge of Henry and of 
 Anne. Besides Segar's pedigree was made in the reign of Charles I. 
 
 2 See Morant's Essex, ii. 70, 171.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 43 
 
 devisee of the estates from the last male descendant of 
 Sir Richard), who was grandfather of the present owner. 
 
 John, the eldest son of Humphrey aforesaid, was settled 
 at Boston, in Lincolnshire. It is proudly recorded by 
 Garter that he received four yards of scarlet cloth at the 
 coronation of Henry V. in 1413. His son Peter (temp. 
 Edward IV.), likewise of Boston, had by Agnes, daughter 
 of John Daunay of Escrick, in the county of York, three 
 sons, Edmund, John, and William. John, the second son, 
 was Lord Prior of the Knights of St. John in England, 
 1476, and died in 1489. William, the third brother, was 
 a Knight of St. John's at Rhodes. Edmund, the eldest, 
 also of Boston, was the father of Sir Richard Weston and 
 of Sir William Weston, last Prior of St. John's in England. 
 
 This Edmund Weston married Catherine, daughter 
 and ultimately heir of John Camell of Shapwick, in the 
 county of Dorset, by whom he had two sons and two 
 daughters. 1 William, the younger son, became a Knight 
 of St. John's, took part in the heroic defence of Rhodes 
 against Solyman, and, after a life of great services in arms 
 and in diplomacy, was, as his uncle had been, Lord Prior 
 of St. John's in England, and died of grief, 1540, on the 
 day of the dissolution of his order in England. The elder 
 daughter, Mabel, married Sir John Dingley of the Isle 
 of Wight, and was mother of Sir Thomas Dingley or 
 Dyneley, who served at Malta in 1531, and who was 
 executed in 1539. Ann, the younger, married Sir Ralph 
 Verney of Bucks. The eldest son of Edmund Weston of 
 Boston was Sir Richard Weston, the builder of the house. 
 
 Boston was at this time one of the great ports of the 
 
 1 For the pedigree of Catherine (or Anne) Camell (or Cammell), traced 
 from Sir John de Plecy, temp. Edward I., see Manning and Bray, ii. 638, 
 and Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset, iii. 1 66.
 
 44 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 kingdom, and it carried on a large trade with the Levant. 1 
 The Westons were great seamen as well as soldiers ; Sir 
 John Weston, 1474, and also Sir William, the Prior, 1 520, 
 served as Admirals of the Fleet of the Knights of Rhodes ; 
 and it is possible that the family assisted Richmond in his 
 landing at Milford Haven before Bosworth. The services 
 of three Westons, Knights of St. John, the brother and 
 two uncles of Sir Richard, in the heroic crusade against 
 the Turk, will be spoken of later. There seems some 
 ground for thinking that the Westons had materially 
 contributed to the successful venture of Henry Tudor, 
 which eventually placed the crown on his head on 
 Bosworth field. 
 
 Within a month of the coronation of Henry VII. in 
 Westminster Abbey by Archbishop Bourchier, 2 we find 
 Edmund Weston, the father of Sir Richard, promoted by 
 the King. On z8th November 1485 a grant is made to 
 Edmund Weston and Thomas Saintmartyn, Esquires, in 
 survivorship ("in consideration of good and gratuitous 
 services performed by them with great labour and great 
 personal cost to themselves") of the office of Captain, 
 Keeper, and Governor of the island of Guernsey, and 
 castle of Cornet, and of the other islands and places in 
 those parts, and the castles and fortresses within the same, 
 and the revenues, without rendering any account thereof. 3 
 
 What were these " good and gratuitous services " per- 
 
 1 See Pishey Thompson, History of Boston In Lincolnshire, 1 8 56, p. 1 84, tomb 
 of a Weston, Knight of St. John. Sir W. Weston of Boston is mentioned 
 1333 and in 1377 (pp. 467, 469). 
 
 2 Emblems of the King and the arms and mitre of the Archbishop are 
 represented in the painted glass of the hall of Sutton ; see chap. xii. " The 
 Painted Glass Windows" (I. 6 ; II. 5). 
 
 3 Calendar, Henry VII., i. pp. 186, 372, Public Records, Record Office, 
 P.S. No. 514, pat., p. 2, m. 20.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 45 
 
 formed at " great labour and great cost " ? Doubtless 
 the use of money or ships ; possibly a contingent that 
 fought at Bosworth. The extreme haste of the reward, 
 within three months of the great battle, suggests it ; and 
 that the service was great is shown by the nature and 
 value of the gift. Edmund Weston proved to be the 
 survivor, or the more successful, for four months later, 
 on 8th March 1486, there is a grant for life to Edmund 
 Weston, now Esquire of the King's Body (" in considera- 
 tion of various services in which he had expended large 
 sums of money "), of the office of Captain, Keeper, and 
 Governor of the island of Guernsey. The office became 
 almost hereditary in the family. The year of the 
 accession of Henry VIII., Richard Weston, the son of 
 Edmund, was appointed to the same office, 22nd May 
 1509, and he held it for thirty-two years. 1 
 
 The Westons were evidently of a family which had 
 rendered signal service to the Tudors, and were high in 
 favour with Henry VII. Edmund twice received a 
 lucrative and important government, and was named 
 Esquire of the King's Body in the first year of the reign. 
 His younger brother, John, had been appointed by Peter 
 d'Aubusson, then Grand Master of the Order, Lord Prior 
 of St. John's in England ; and Edward IV., in a letter to 
 Pope Sixtus IV., accepts the nomination of the Grand 
 Master and the Pope. 2 The elder prior, as afterwards 
 was the second prior, his nephew, was employed in 
 
 1 See W. Berry, History of Guernsey, 410 ed., 1815, p. 205. The office of 
 Governor of the Island is one of great antiquity, and in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries had been often held by royal princes. The Westons held 
 the post continuously from 1488 to 1541. 
 
 2 Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1202-1509 (Archives of Venetian 
 Library), No. 452. Letter of Edward IV. to Pope Sixtus IV., 25th February 
 1476.
 
 46 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 embassies by the King. In 1486 we find him one of the 
 Commissioners to arrange a treaty between Henry VII. 
 and James III., King of Scotland ; and in 1488 he is one 
 of the ambassadors to treat for peace with Ferdinand and 
 Isabella of Spain. 1 He himself died in 1489. 
 
 Richard Weston, accordingly, in the reign of Henry 
 VII. was the eldest son of an officer high in favour with 
 the King, and heir of a family which had rendered him 
 conspicuous services in peace and war. It does not appear 
 whether Richard had any part in Bosworth field and the 
 campaign which it ended. As he was probably born 
 about 1465 or 1466, he would be under age at the time 
 of the battle, but may well have taken part in it. He 
 would be early introduced to the King and the Prince ; 
 and he certainly held office in Berkshire under Henry 
 VII. 2 
 
 The very first year of the young king, Henry VIII., 
 we find Richard Weston receiving promotion and grants, 
 just as his father Edmund had received them in the first 
 year of Henry VII. ; and in such hot haste that it would 
 seem as if the splendid young prince (he was then but 
 
 1 Materials for History of Henry VII., Rolls Series (Campbell), vol. i. p. 480, 
 vol. ii. p. 273. He is there called " Friar John Westoun, prior of the order 
 of St. John Jerusalem in England." 
 
 2 Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII., i. 1505. In the Pri-vy Purse 
 Expenses of Elizabeth of York, S^ueen of Henry VII., we find in 1 502 that 
 4 : los. was paid to Richard Weston for "certain harnesses of gyrdelles by 
 him brought for the Queen beyond the sea." And in 1502 and 1503 (pp. 
 2 3 99) wages (6:12:4) are paid to " Mrs. Anne Weston," a lady in 
 attendance on the Queen. This was obviously Sir Richard's wife. Thus 
 both he and his wife were in the service of Henry VII. as well as that of 
 Henry VIII. ; and in all probability Anne, afterwards Lady Weston, was in 
 attendance at the death of the Queen, Elizabeth of York. There is also 
 mention of money paid to Weston for " the kinges losse at disse opon Shrove 
 Monday, 1 : 13 :4," i8th February 1502 ; and again, "to Weston for the 
 king to play at Cheke, 2." Excerpta Historica, p. 127.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 47 
 
 eighteen) thought that Weston, who was then more than 
 forty, had not been duly recompensed. Henry VIII. had 
 not been king a month, and had not yet been crowned, 
 when three patents were signed in favour of Richard 
 Weston. He was made Keeper of Hanworth Park and 
 of the manor of Cold Kennington, Steward of Marlowe, 
 Cokeham, and Bray, and finally he was appointed Captain, 
 Keeper, and Governor of Guernsey, of the castle of 
 Cornet, and the isles of Alderney, Sark, etc., as held by 
 Edmund Weston, etc. All this on 2ist to 22nd May 
 1509, before the King had been crowned. 1 
 
 May, we shall find, is a critical month to the Westons. 
 The day of the coronation Weston is appointed Steward 
 of the Lordship of Flamsted ; two months later he has the 
 custody and wardship of a young heir ; his wife, Anne 
 Weston, " gentlewoman with the Queen," has the ward- 
 ship of another young heir ; the next year he is in the 
 Commission for Berkshire ; the security for a loan to him 
 by the King of jioo is cancelled ; he has the grant of 
 the manor of Upton Pole, Berkshire, forfeited by the 
 attainder of Francis, Lord Lovell ; he has license to 
 freight a ship with wools, skins, etc., to carry them to 
 foreign parts through the Straits of Marrok (Morocco) ; 
 and the next year he is appointed Lieutenant of the Castle 
 and Forest of Windsor, with lodgings in the Lieutenant's 
 Tower, and perquisites as held by Sir John Williams or 
 Sir John Norres (2nd June 1511). 
 
 There is no doubt that he married some years before 
 Anne, the daughter of Oliver Sands or Sandys of Shere 
 who died on the /th November 1515. His son Francis 
 
 1 Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII., i. 92, 93, 94, 231, etc. N.B. 
 This was six years before the rise of Wolsey, whilst the Great Seals were 
 held by Archbishop Warham.
 
 48 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 appears to have been born in 1511. Mrs. Weston is 
 mentioned as gentlewoman of the Queen in 1509, as 
 she no doubt was to Queen Elizabeth of York, who died 
 I 53- 1 The King has only been on the throne two 
 years when Richard had two noble governorships, lands, 
 wardships, stewardships, and a mercantile patent. Truly 
 this is a man bent on amassing a great fortune, the destined 
 architect of a broad and stately career. 2 
 
 Every few months during the earlier part of Henry's 
 reign the State Papers record some appointment in favour 
 of the Westons. In 1510 (Calendar^ Henry VIII., i. 
 1262) we have a letter from the Grand Master of Rhodes, 
 Emery d'Amboise, to the King, notifying receipt of the 
 King's letter on behalf of William Weston of the pre- 
 ceptory of Badislay. The Grand Master has given him 
 an annuity. 3 
 
 In the following year a Weston is sent with the force 
 under Lord Darcy to assist Ferdinand, King of Spain, in 
 the campaign against the Moors. 4 Ferdinand had asked 
 of Henry 1000 English archers. These were sent under 
 the command of Lord Darcy. " There were appointed 
 to go with the Lord Darcie, Lord Anthony Grey, brother 
 to the Marquis Dorset, Henry Guildeford, Weston, 
 Broune, William Sydney, Esquires of the King's Horse." 5 
 
 1 Manning and Bray, i. 524. For pedigree of Anne Sandys see Manning 
 and Bray, ii. 671, where she is said to be the sister of Oliver Sandys of Shere, 
 and daughter of William Sandes of Rotenby, St. Bees, in Cumberland. So 
 Berry, Genealogies of the Surrey Families Westons of Sutton Place. 
 
 2 Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII., i. Nos. 231, 424, 867, 885, 1006, 
 1207, 1208, 1707. 
 
 3 Brit. Mus., Otho, ix. 4, 6. 
 
 4 The history of this expedition may be read in the historians Brewer, i. 
 1 8 ; Rapin, i. 710 j Rymer, Feed. xiii. 297 ; Hall, Chron. p. 522 ; Stow, p. 
 488 ; State Papers, Henry VIII., i. 297, 1566. 
 
 8 See Hall, p. 520.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 49 
 
 Nothing came of the expedition, but Weston at any rate 
 did not disgrace himself or lose favour. Shortly after- 
 wards the King makes him a loan of ^250.* According 
 to Hall (Chron. p. 522), Weston and other young and 
 lusty esquires had leave to visit the Court of Spain, where 
 they were handsomely received. The King dubbed them 
 all knights, " and gave to Sir Weston and Browne an eagle 
 of Sicily on a chief to the augmentation of their arms." 2 
 If this were Richard Weston, he was too prudent to 
 avail himself of this foreign knighthood and honour, for 
 no trace of it ever appears in his house or his own history. 
 Richard Weston was made knight by Henry VIII. in 
 1514, and thenceforth his fortunes grew apace. He is 
 present at the marriage of Mary, the King's sister, to 
 Louis XII. of France, I4th October I5I4. 3 In 1516 he 
 is appointed Knight of the Body ; he is made Keeper 
 of Hanworth Park, of Le Mote Park in Windsor Forest, 
 of the Swans on the Thames, of the Chase at Cranbourne, 
 Steward of the Lordship of Caversham, and then of the 
 Lordship of Marlowe, all of these, with salaries and dues. 
 As Knight of the Body, he is in personal attendance on 
 the King, and is associated with many of Henry's knights 
 and ministers, with whom Weston became connected 
 Sir T. Arundell, Sir J. Russell, Sir C. Pickering, Sir W. 
 Sandys, Sir W. Dennys. 4 
 
 1 Calendar, Henry VIII., i. 14.55. 
 
 2 This was no doubt the eagle displayed as borne by the Emperor Frederick 
 II. See an example in Westminster Abbey (Boutell, English Heraldry, No. 
 200), and also as borne in the arms of the Emperor Charles V. The 
 Ordinary of British Armorials (Papworth and Morant, i. 301) gives the arms 
 of Frederick II., Emperor, as Or, an eagle displayed, wings downwards, sable. 
 So Sandford, Genealogical History, fol. 1707, p. 87. These were the arms 
 granted by Segar in 1628 to Weston of Rugely, County Stafford. 
 
 3 Calendar, Henry VIII., i. 5483. * Ibid. iv. 2735. 
 

 
 50 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 One cannot here follow the shifting European policy 
 of Henry and of his tortuous minister, the Cardinal. 
 But whatever it may be, the King finds in Weston an 
 ever-obsequious agent. On 2nd October 1518 Henry 
 signed his solemn and short-lived treaty of peace l " be- 
 tween the Confederated Kings of France and England," 
 and amongst the witnesses stands the name of Richard 
 Weyston (sic). Others who sign the stately but worth- 
 less roll are Wolsey, Dorset, Surrey, T. Boleyn, Maurice 
 Berkeley, Sir T. More, William Fitzwilliam ; and on the 
 4th October 1518 is signed by the same personages the 
 treaty of marriage between the Princess Mary and the 
 Dauphin of France. 2 This was the vain and short-lived 
 project of an alliance between Mary Tudor, afterwards 
 our Queen Mary, and the eldest son of Francis I. He 
 was then a baby of six months, and she was three ; and, 
 as we all know, she in the end married Philip II. of 
 Spain. Had the ill-starred project of Wolsey succeeded, 
 and the royal children of France and England lived to 
 become husband and wife, a good many things might 
 have gone differently. But, though the project resulted 
 in nothing so far as the history of England is concerned, 
 it perhaps had no small effect on the house of Sutton ; 
 for during his embassy in France Sir Richard Weston 
 must have seen, envied, and determined to imitate the 
 chateaux of the Loire. 
 
 In the autumn of 1518, tenth year of Henry VIII., 
 a solemn embassy was sent over to Francis to obtain 
 ratification of this treaty. The ambassadors named 
 are the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Worcester, the 
 Earl of Surrey, the Lord Admiral, West, the Bishop or 
 
 1 Brit. Mus., Vit., bk. xx. 92 ; Calendar, Henry VIII., ii. 4469. 
 
 2 Brit. Mus., Vit., chap. xi. 169 ; Brewer, Henry VIII., i. 194.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 51 
 
 Ely, Dockwra, the Lord Prior of St. John's, Sir Thomas 
 Boleyn, accompanied by seventy knights, with whom Sir 
 Richard Weston, Sir W. Fitzwilliam, Sir Maurice 
 Berkeley, and others were named. 1 They were abroad 
 fifty days, and the expenses allowed to the Lord Chamber- 
 lain are ^166, to the Bishop of Ely, ^133, to the Prior 
 of St. John's, jioo, to Lord E. Howard, Lord Ferrers, 
 Sir R. Weston, and other knights, ^66 each. 2 
 
 The ambassadors, with a train of about 500 persons, 
 came by Calais to Paris. They were treated by Francis 
 with great magnificence ; and, desiring to display his 
 wealth and taste, he induced a separate embassy, of which 
 the Bishop of Ely, Sir T. Boleyn, the Lord Prior, and 
 Sir Richard Weston were members, to visit the baby 
 prince, who was then at Cognac, in Angouleme, the 
 ancestral castle of Francis. The ambassadors were taken 
 with much pomp along the Loire, where the chateaux 
 of this glorious period of French art were just risen, or 
 were rising, in all their fantastic grace. 3 
 
 Sir Richard remained in France five months, at a 
 time when the Court of Francis was at its zenith of 
 pride and beauty. A letter to Wolsey 4 speaks of him 
 and Fitzwilliam as still in France in January 1519 ; and 
 a letter of Sir T. Boleyn, then permanent resident, to 
 
 1 Calendar, Henry VIII., 4409 ; Brewer, i. 202. 
 
 2 An interesting account of the embassy will be found in Hall's Chronicle 
 (p. 596), and in Holinshed, vol. iii. (pp. 634 and 1519). 
 
 3 According to Hall, Chron. p. 396, Henry VIII. (1519), "After divers 
 feasts, jousts, and banquets made to the English ambassadors, the Bishop of 
 Ely, with Sir Thomas Boleyn and Sir Richard Weston, were sent by the 
 French King to Konyack, to see the Dolphyn, where they were well 
 received, and to them was shown a fair young child; and when they had 
 seen him they departed." The fair young child unfortunately died soon after, 
 and his younger brother became Henry II. 
 
 4 Brit. Mus., Calig. D. vii. 73 ; Calendar, Henry VIII., iii. 9 and 57.
 
 5z ANNALS OF AN' OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Wolsey from Paris, 2nd February, informs the Cardinal 
 that the Bishop, Sir R. Weston, and Fitzwilliam had left 
 for England. Immediately on his return Weston re- 
 ceived the important advancement which he retained for 
 the rest of his life. 
 
 He was already Knight of the Bath. In a beautiful 
 blazoned MS. in the British Museum (Claudius CIII. 
 XIV. E.) is a list of the Knights Commanders of the 
 Bath from the time of Henry VII. We there find that, 
 3rd January, anno nono, Henry VIII. (1518), Sir 
 Richard Weston was " dubbed at Wyndesor the same 
 time." His arms are blazoned precisely as they are seen 
 in the glass of the hall of Sutton to-day : Quarterly, I and 
 4, Ermine^ on a chief azure, five bezants ; 2 and 3, 
 Argent^ three camels, sable. Crest, a Saracen's head 
 langued, sable. Further in the same MS. book are the 
 names of Sir Richard's son and grandson. " Sir Francys 
 Weston " is knighted at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, 
 3ist May 1533 ; and Sir Henry Weston is knighted 
 at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, ifth January 
 1558. The arms of Sir Francis are blazoned as those 
 of his father. Sir Henry, in right of his mother, Ann 
 Pickering, quarters Pickering, Lascelles, Moresby, and 
 Fenwick. 
 
 A revolution in the palace was effected in 1519, an 
 account of which we read in Hall's Chronicle^ Henry 
 VIII., 4-to, 598. In that year "young men, Lord 
 Carew and other the King's minions, were discharged at 
 the request of the Council, and four sad and ancient 
 knights were put into the King's privy chamber." 
 They were Sir Richard Wingfield, Sir Richard Jerning- 
 ham, Sir William Kingston, and Sir Richard Weston. 
 All of them, we are told, were upwards of fifty years old.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 53 
 
 In the British Museum is a letter from Sir T. Boleyn, 
 ambassador in Paris, to Wolsey, 1 requesting information 
 as to the effect of this appointment. Every man's 
 tongue in Paris, he says, is full of it. 2 The King was 
 now just twenty-eight. He had been on the throne and 
 he had been married exactly ten years. He was in the 
 heyday of his activity and splendour. Sir Richard, like 
 all the sad and ancient knights, was upwards of fifty. 
 He did not owe the friendship of Henry to any subservi- 
 ency to the King's pleasures. Weston retained this 
 office, that of Knight of the Privy Chamber, till his 
 death, and as Knight of the Body he had a salary of 
 ^100. All the four ancient knights served the King 
 long and steadily ; there were several of them Captains of 
 the Guard, Governors of the Tower, and the like. Sir 
 W. Kingston was the jailor of Anne Boleyn and of 
 young Francis Weston in 1536 ; it was from a report of 
 Kingston to Wolsey that Francis Weston was arrested. 
 Jerningham and Wingfield were both envoys of Henry 
 in foreign courts. 3 
 
 Sir Richard Weston, it is clear, was occupied with 
 things more solid than Court gaieties. He now seems 
 
 1 Calig. L>. vii. 118. 2 Calendar, Henry VIII., iii. 246. 
 
 3 In this year there is an amusing passage recorded by Hall, Chron. p. 599, 
 where Sir Richard Weston figures before Queen Catherine and her ladies in 
 an unwonted part. A banquet was given at Beaulieu, a royal palace at New- 
 hall, in Essex. After the feast "eight maskers entered the chamber and 
 danced with the ladies sadly, and communed not with the ladies after the 
 fashion of maskers, but behaved themselves sadly. Wherefore the Queen 
 plucked off their visors, and there appeared the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of 
 Essex, the Marquis of Dorset, Lord Burgavenny, Sir Richard Wingfield, 
 Sir Robert Wingfield, Sir Richard Weston, Sir W. Kingston ; all of these 
 were somewhat aged, the youngest man of fifty at the least. The ladies had 
 good sport to see these ancient persons maskers." The Queen was now 
 thirty-four, the King twenty-eight, and the dark years of their lives had not 
 begun.
 
 54 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 to have turned his mind very seriously to duties that 
 involved trust, care, and profit the wardships of heirs of 
 tender years. In the very year 1519 he has several such 
 grants, amongst others that of William Lytton, of Kneb- 
 worth, Herts, with custody of the profits of the manor of 
 Knebworth and a reversion of part of the manor. He 
 has a grant of the wardship of Ann, daughter and heiress 
 of Sir Christopher Pickering, deceased, nth July 15 19.* 
 Now the prudent knight eventually married this girl, 
 heiress of immense possessions in Cumberland, to his 
 only son, Francis, in 1530, and they became the 
 ancestors of the Westons of Sutton Place. The knight 
 nursed the young lady and her estates for eleven years, 
 and the husband he found her was only about nineteen at 
 the wedding, and must have been cutting his teeth when 
 the knight secured the wardship. In the same year Sir 
 Richard is mentioned as associated with Sir Thomas Lovell, 
 the Master of the King's Wards, with a salary of jioo a 
 year. He had also a salary of jioo a year as Knight of 
 the Body, and he gets a grant of ^79 for a new lodge in 
 Windsor Forest. And in the following year (1520) Sir 
 Richard Weston and Sir E. Belknap are appointed to be 
 surveyors, governors, keepers, and sellers of wards and 
 their possessions during pleasure, at a salary of ioo. z 
 
 But Sir Richard Weston is not content with wardships 
 and the care of infants and their possessions. He passes 
 from soldier, diplomatist, official, to the place of judge. 
 In 1519 "the following councillors, my Lord of West- 
 minster, the Dean of St. Paul's, my Lord of St. John's, 
 Sir Richard Weston, and four others, are appointed to 
 hear the causes depending in the 'Sterred Chambre,' 
 and will sit in the White Hall in Westminster, where 
 
 1 Calendar, Henry VIII., iii. 405. 2 Ibid. vol. iii. 1121, 10.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 55 
 
 the said suitors shall resort." l In the following year 
 took place the meeting of Henry and Francis, known as 
 the " Field of the Cloth of Gold." Sir R. Weston is one 
 of the knights selected for Hampshire, along with Sir 
 W. Sandys, Sir W. Fitzwilliam, and Sir W. Dennys. 2 
 Doubtless we have the portrait of the knight himself in 
 one of the pictures of the scene now in Hampton Court ; 
 but there is no means of identifying him ; his banner 
 is not visible, and beyond his name as one of the knights 
 in the King's retinue we have no record of his part. 3 
 
 The alliance with Francis, as history relates, was short 
 indeed. In spite of the efforts of Wolsey, Henry in his 
 self-will flung himself into the arms of his young nephew, 
 the astute Charles V., and within a few months he signed 
 with him a treaty of alliance. Weston, as before, was 
 one of the witnesses (Brit. Mus., Galba, bk. vi. I44). 4 
 
 1 Calendar, Henry VIII., vol. iii. 571. This is, of course, the famous Star 
 Chamber, finally suppressed in 1641 by the Long Parliament. 
 
 2 Ibid. iii. 703. 
 
 3 In the College of Arms is an exemplification of the standard of Sir 
 Richard Weston, thus blazoned : " Or and Vert. A. on a wreath Argent and 
 Sable, a Saracen's head affront/, with a band round the neck, Or, couped at 
 the neck proper, wreathed about the temples Argent and Azure. Motto on 
 
 .each side of the two bands, Ani boro.'' 1 The arms are the same as before 
 described (Excerpta Historica, p. 183). As to this motto, a long and apparently 
 undecided battle has raged amongst the heralds as to the origin of this motto, 
 its correct form, and whether it belongs to the family of Weston or to the Order 
 of St. John ; see the Herald and Genealogist, v. 530 j vi. 369 5 viii. 182. It 
 is said that it is derived from the Syriac Ani buroh, meaning " I go," " I am 
 sped," "I am killed." The story is that Sir Hugh de Weston, having killed 
 a Saracen emir in hand-to-hand conflict and taken a Moslem standard, took 
 as his crest and motto the head and last cry of the emir. Other authorities 
 have found Sane Baro as a motto of the priors of St. John, and declare that 
 the motto is not a family motto at all. Certain it is that in the College of 
 Arms this motto is attributed to Sir R. Weston in the sixteenth, and also to 
 J. Webbe- Weston in the eighteenth century. 
 
 * Calendar, Henry VIII., iii. 739 ; Rymer, Feed. xiii. 714.
 
 56 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 In July followed the meeting of Henry and the Emperor, 
 and again, with Boleyn, Berkeley, Fitzwilliam, and others, 
 Sir Richard Weston attends the King. 
 
 In the dark tragedy carried out by the insatiable 
 ambition of Wolsey and the remorseless jealousy of his 
 master the judicial murder of Stafford, Duke of 
 Buckingham, Sir Richard Weston has a part. In 
 April 1521 there is a highly significant passage in a 
 letter from Pace to Wolsey. 1 Pace, who was then at 
 Greenwich with the King, and was his secretary, informs 
 Wolsey, who was then in London, under date (i6th 
 April), that "Sir Richard Weston signifieth unto your 
 Grace that the King doth well approve such things as 
 you communed with him this morning." What were 
 these things ? 2 The letter refers just above to the 
 examination of the Duke's serving- men. It is not 
 precisely so stated, but one remembers that the trial of 
 the Duke began on 8th May, just twenty-two days after 
 this letter. 
 
 Wolsey stood at the head of the French party, 
 Buckingham of the Spanish. The Duke, the son of 
 Richard III.'s Buckingham, beheaded in 1483, was at 
 the head of the English aristocracy, and claimed 
 descent both from John of Gaunt and also from 
 Thomas of Woodstock, sons both of Edward III. 
 The Duke had openly sworn to have Wolsey's head, 
 if both survived the King, and Wolsey had sworn (less 
 openly) to have the head of Buckingham. As Shake- 
 speare makes the Duke say (Henry VIII^ Act I., 
 Scene I ) : 
 
 1 Calendar, Henry VIII., vol. iii. 1233 ; sec Vit., bk. iv. 96, and Ellif, 
 Letters, etc., 2nd series, i. 286. 
 
 2 Brewer, i. chap. iii.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 57 
 
 " The net has fall'n upon me ! I shall perish 
 Under device and practice. . . . 
 ... It will help me nothing 
 To plead mine innocence." 
 
 Wolsey triumphed. On i6th April the Duke was 
 arrested the very day of Weston's message to the 
 Cardinal. On 8th May the indictment was found. 1 
 The jury who found the indictment were the Lord 
 Mayor (Sir John Brugge) and fourteen others. Amongst 
 them are Boleyn, Fitzwilliam, William Shelley, Marney, 
 Lovell, Sir J. More, and Sir Richard Weston? Weston 
 is thus one of Henry's creatures in the judicial assassination 
 of the next most eminent representative of the royal 
 house ; and the Duke died the death of a traitor, as his 
 father had done in 1483, as his grandfather had done 
 in 1455, as his great-grandfather had done in 1460, as 
 his great -uncles in 1464 and 1471, and his mother's 
 great-grandfather in 1455. 
 
 The unlucky Duke was executed on ijth May 1521, 
 and it is most significant that the grant of the manor of 
 Sutton was sealed on that very day to Sir Richard Weston, 
 one of the jury on the indictment of the Duke. 3 On 
 that day was made the grant in fee simple to Sir Richard 
 Weston, Knight of the Body, Knight Councillor, etc., of 
 
 1 Calendar of State Papers, iii. 1284, R. O. Rep., Hi., App. II. 230 ; State 
 Trials, i. 287. 
 
 2 Every one of these were closely associated with Weston through life. 
 Fitzwilliam built Cowdray Castle, and More's son built Loseley Hall. Lovell 
 was Sir Richard's colleague in custody of the wards ; William Shelley was an 
 ancestor of Mary Copley, who married the sixth owner of Sutton in 1630, 
 and Boleyn's son and daughter were executed together with Sir Richard 
 Weston's son in 1536. 
 
 3 See State Papers, Henry VIII., iii. 1324, 17, Record Office, S.B. pat., 
 p. 2, m. 18.
 
 58 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 the manor of Sutton, in Surrey, found by inquisition at 
 Southampton to have been held by Margaret, Countess 
 of Richmond, on whose death it descended to the King. 
 For a full account of this grant see note above, chap. ii. 
 Was this grant the price of blood ? Who now can say ? 
 If it were, the sins of the father were visited unto the 
 third and fourth generation. Exactly sixteen years later, 
 on iyth May 1537, y9ung Weston was beheaded on the 
 same charge and on the same spot. 
 
 Honours continue to pour in upon Sir Richard. In 
 the next year, 1522, he is made one of the cup-bearers to 
 the King along with Brian, Jerningham, Lord Herbert, 
 and Lord Roos. In the year following he is Sheriff for 
 Berkshire. In the same year the bubble of the French 
 alliance broke down ; and, in spite of Wolsey, the King 
 received the Emperor with great state. Sir Richard 
 Weston, along with Boleyn, Fitzwilliam, Kingston, 
 Marney, and the Prior of St. John's, is ordered to attend 
 the King at Canterbury, 27th May 1522 j 1 and in one ot 
 the attendances on the King, Weston received a grant of 
 jiO0. 2 On New Year's Day 1522 he receives "twelve 
 pairs of shoes." 3 
 
 In 1523 followed the foolish and useless war with 
 France, and here Sir Richard Weston raised a contingent 
 and served under the Duke of Suffolk. 4 The force 
 consisted of 13,000 or 14,000 men, and a further foreign 
 contingent of 7000 men. It was the largest army, as 
 Wolsey said, that had ever left these shores for a hundred 
 years. 5 It proved a miserable failure, owing to the 
 incapacity of Brandon and the petty jealousies of the 
 
 1 See State Papers, Henry VIII., iii. 2288. 2 Ibid. iii. 2483. 
 
 8 Ibid. iii. 2585. * Ibid. 3288. 
 
 6 Brewer, i. 504 ; ii. I ; Hall, p. 662.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 59 
 
 allied princes. Suffolk sailed in great pomp in August, 
 and returned crestfallen in December 1523. 
 
 Hall relates that " the Duke and his captains came not 
 to the King's presence in a long season, to their great 
 heaviness and displeasure. But at the last all things were 
 taken in good part, and they well received and in great 
 love, favour, and familiarity with the King." l 
 
 But though Sir Richard earned no glory in a war 
 ill-planned and shamefully mismanaged by Brandon, the 
 coarse and stupid commander-in-chief, the martial honour 
 of the Westons was sustained by his brother Sir William. 
 He took part in the heroic defence of Rhodes, June to 
 December 1522, under the immortal type of the true 
 Crusader, Villiers de Lisle -Adam. A graphic account 
 of this magnificent exploit, where 300 knights, with 
 about 1000 soldiers and 4000 townsmen, for six months 
 kept at bay the whole forces of Solyman the Magnificent, 
 at the height of the Turkish power, may be read in a 
 report in our State Papers by Sir Nicholas Roberts, one 
 of the survivors. 2 Sir William Weston bore his share in 
 this great struggle, was wounded, and lived to be appointed 
 by his noble chief the Head of the Order in England. 
 
 In 1525 Sir Richard obtained the important and 
 lucrative appointment which he long retained. This 
 was evidently the gift of Wolsey ; for Wolsey asks Henry 
 VIII. to give to Sir R. Weston the office of the Duchy 
 of Lancaster in lieu of that of Master of the Wards, or 
 his annuity of jioo per annum (1525). In the Record 
 Office is a Bill signed by Wolsey appointing Sir R. 
 Weston, Knight of the Body, to be Treasurer of the 
 
 1 Hall, p. 972 ; in Brewer, ii. 2. 
 
 2 Calendar III. 1272; see the story in Brewer, i. 581, and in Porter's 
 History of the Knights of St. John (ed. 1883, p. 360).
 
 60 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Town and Marches of Calais, surrendered by Sir W. 
 Sandys. 1 Sir W. Sandys, who in 1523 was made a peer 
 by Wolsey, 2 was subsequently Comptroller of the House- 
 hold. It was this Sir W. Sandys who built the Vyne in 
 Hampshire about 1509. He was a valiant soldier and a 
 staunch Catholic, the exact contemporary of Sir R. 
 Weston, dying in 1540, two years before him, and was 
 closely associated with the knight during his whole 
 career. Compare the History of the Vyne, by Chaloner 
 W. Chute, late owner of the Vyne, 1888. The arms, 
 badges, and devices of Sandys do not appear at Sutton, 
 but many of the devices given in Mr. Chute's work may 
 be seen at Sutton, and the inventory taken at the Vyne, 
 1541, should be compared with that of Sutton, 1542, 
 preserved at Loseley. 
 
 This year, 1525, was that of the battle of Pavia, in 
 which Francis I. was taken prisoner, the year in which 
 Sir Thomas Boleyn was created Viscount Rochford. 
 Henry made peace with France soon after, and entered 
 into an alliance against the Emperor in the year following. 
 
 Sir Richard appears to have resided much in Calais in 
 discharge of his duties. On various local grounds it 
 seems more probable that the house was at least partially 
 built in the years between the grant of the estate, in May 
 1521, and the appointment of the knight to his treasurer- 
 ship in Calais, 1525. There is frequent mention of him 
 in the Chronicles of Calais? 
 
 Nor was Sir Richard content with obtaining office for 
 himself. The very next year, 1526, we have an entry 
 
 1 Calendar IV. 58. The salary appears to have been 140 per annum. 
 
 2 Calendar III. 2982. 
 
 3 Camden Society's publications, Chron. of Calais to 1540, edited by 
 J. Gough Nichols, 1846.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 61 
 
 that " young Weston " is to be the King's page. 1 From 
 that day the spoiled lad lived mainly at Court till his 
 worthless young life was cut short on Tower Hill. An 
 account of him is reserved for the next chapter. And 
 again, in 1527, we have Sir Richard interceding with 
 Wolsey to promote his brother, Sir W. Weston, " the 
 Turkopolyer " of the Order, to the office of Prior of St. 
 John's in England. The letter is dated I2th April 1527, 
 and is written from Calais. It may be seen in the Record 
 Office. 2 
 
 As the letter is one of the two which have been traced 
 in the handwriting and with the signature of Sir Richard, 
 it is here set forth verbatim. 
 
 " Pleaseth yo r good grace to be advertyzed That where as 
 I am credebly enfourmed that my lorde of Sainct John's is 
 veary sore sick, and lyeth at the mercy of God In cas God 
 do call hym out of this transytory lyff, I beseche yo r grace as 
 my singular good and gracious lorde and refuge in all my 
 peticions and affaires (through whose goodnes and medyacion 
 all that I have is preceded and com), That it may please yo r 
 grace the rather at the contemplacion of this my poore 
 instance and supplycacion to be bening and gracious lorde 
 unto my brother Sr Will m . Weston, Turkepolyer, in the 
 preferrement, and promocion of him unto the foresaide lorde 
 of Sainct John's rome ; Reducing unto your grace's remem- 
 beraunce the consyderacion, that by auncyen custume and 
 good congruence The Turkepolyer hath evermore bene wont 
 to succede the master of Sainct Johns in his rome. Wherefor 
 eftsones I humbly beseche yo r grace to be good and gracious 
 lorde unto my said brother in the premisses. And I trust yo r 
 grace shall allways fynde him in arredynes to do yo r grace as 
 acceptable servyce to his power as ever any other in that rome 
 
 1 Calendar IV. p. 861. * Ibid. No. 3035.
 
 62 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 hath done. And during his lyff and myn yo' grace shall 
 bynde us from much to more, to contynue yo r grace's 
 servauntes and bedemen, At the toune of Caleys the xii day 
 of Aprel. 
 
 " Yo r most humble serv* 
 
 "RYCHARD WESTON." 
 
 " Endorsed To my Lorde Legate's grace." 
 
 Whether owing to the importunity of Sir Richard, 
 the influence of Wolsey, or rather, let us trust, his own 
 fame and character, Sir William Weston was on 27th 
 June 1527 appointed by the Grand Master Lord Prior of 
 England. This put him at the head of the titular Roll 
 of the Barons, made him a member of the Upper House, 
 and gave him rank as one of the great officers of State. 
 The letter of Sir Richard calls for little comment. It 
 shows him as the almost menial " bedeman " of Wolsey. 
 But such language was the ordinary form of all solicita- 
 tions in that age. The rhythm of the words almost 
 recalls the collects of Cranmer in the phrase "through 
 whose goodnes and medyacion all that I have is preceded 
 and com." The spelling is much superior to the time, 
 and the language is that of a practised penman. It is 
 probable that the letter is in the handwriting of the 
 knight, but hardly that it is his own composition. It is 
 a somewhat fulsome letter to be addressed to the Cardinal 
 in 1527 by one of Brandon's captains, and by one who 
 in 1530-36 was in high favour with the Boleyns and 
 Cromwell. Such was the way of the times ! 
 
 In this year, 1527, and in the very month in which 
 this letter was written (April), the Records reveal that 
 Henry first stirred with his advisers the possibility of 
 obtaining a divorce from Catherine. In the great fire-
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 63 
 
 place of the hall at Sutton, and in that of the panelled 
 parlour, is still to be seen, in contemporary terra-cotta 
 castings, the pomegranate, the special badge of Catherine 
 of Aragon. 1 Would a Knight of the King's Chamber, 
 an obsequious follower of Wolsey, put up in his fireside 
 the personal badge of the Queen at any date later than 
 April 1527 ? In the July following Wolsey went to 
 France, passing by Calais, and he must have there seen 
 the Treasurer. 
 
 In the following year we have a second letter of Sir 
 Richard to Wolsey "written at the Kinges towne of 
 Calays the XXXth day of October" 1528. The letter 
 is in the Record Office. It is entered in the Calendar^ 
 vol. iv., No. 4887. It is a business letter of no great 
 importance, and is without any special character or 
 interest. 
 
 It begins thus : 
 
 " Pleaseth your grace to be advertyzed that I have receyved 
 by the handes of my Lorde Chamberlayne, the lettres which 
 it hath pleased your grace to send unto me, whereby your 
 grace wolleth me to make undylaid payment unto the said 
 Lorde Chamberlain Captain of Guysnes." 
 
 It ends thus : 
 
 " Wherefore I beseche yo r grace that I may be advertyzed 
 of yo r pleasure in the premisses. And I shall endeavour 
 myself to accomplisshe the same to the best of my power ; 
 humbly beseching your grace to be good and gracious lorde 
 unto the Kinges poor servauntes here in this toune, who suffre 
 great necessyte for lacke of payment of their wages." 
 
 The whole letter is an urgent appeal to Wolsey to 
 permit the first payments made into the Treasury of 
 
 1 This badge was also placed in his house by Lord Sandys, and is still to 
 be seen there. Hist, of the Pyne, C. Chute, p. 135.
 
 64 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. m 
 
 Calais the Company of the Staple being in arrear of 
 their dues to be paid to the " Kinges poor servauntes in 
 Calays," of course including Sir Richard Weston himself. 
 He insists that his own salary was payable from the day 
 of his patent. 
 
 The Lord Chamberlain mentioned above is Lord 
 Sandys, whom Weston succeeded at Calais. It will be 
 noted that the spelling, writing, and phraseology of these 
 two letters agree in the main. They are certainly signed 
 and probably written by Weston. The handwriting of 
 both letters is the same, and the name Weston in the first 
 letter seems to coincide with the signature. 
 
 The signature, strangely enough, varies in spelling. 
 The letter of 1527 is signed Rychard Weston. The 
 letter of 1528 is signed Rychard Weyston, as was the 
 Treaty of 1518. The knight, like every one in that 
 age, had no settled mode of spelling his own name. In 
 1532 he again wrote Rychard Weston. 
 
 The two letters above are the only pieces of Sir 
 Richard's own correspondence of any interest now in 
 the Public Records, though his name occurs in many 
 hundreds of papers. There is nothing singular in this. 
 Letters of any importance were in those days instantly 
 destroyed, and private correspondence, as Friedmann tells 
 us (Preface 6), hardly ever alluded to public affairs. 
 
 The better to understand the man we have to deal 
 with, we must take some note of the momentous change 
 which now began in the history of England.
 
 PART II. AFTER THE REFORMATION 
 
 IT was in July 1528 that Wolsey first received his great 
 rebuff from Anne Boleyn and his first formal reprimand 
 from the King. In July 1529 he was practically super- 
 seded, and his fall began. In October following he was 
 deprived of the seals and was a ruined man. In Nov- 
 ember 1530 he was arrested, and he died a few weeks 
 later. 1 Thomas Cromwell took his place. In this very 
 year Cromwell became the King's secretary and chief 
 adviser. He actively allies himself with Anne and her 
 party ; he suggests an attack on the Churchmen as 
 a means of securing the divorce. In 1531 Catherine 
 is expelled from the palace ; in 1533 Henry VIII. is 
 married to Anne Boleyn, and the train of events is pre- 
 pared which brought about the Reformation. 2 
 
 Through all these stirring times Sir Richard Weston, 
 as a practical man, kept on undisturbed the even tenor of 
 
 1 See Frieclmann, i. chap. iii. 
 
 Friedmann, i. chaps, iv., v., vi.
 
 66 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 his way ; and before the fall of Wolsey, " through whose 
 goodnes and medyacion all that he has proceded and 
 came," Sir Richard is high in favour with Wolsey's 
 successor and Wolsey's enemy, Anne Boleyn, in whose 
 goodness he appears to have found another mediator, we 
 can suppose "his singular good and gracious lady and 
 refuge in all his petitions and affairs." No doubt the 
 stout old knight (he was now upwards of sixty-five) said 
 to Wolsey in the words of Cromwell (Shakespeare's 
 Henry 7IIL, Act III., Scene 2) : 
 
 " O my lord, 
 
 Must I, then, leave you ? must I needs forgo, 
 So good, so noble and so true a master ? 
 Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, 
 With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord. 
 The king shall have my service ; but my prayers 
 For ever and for ever shall be yours." 
 
 The King certainly had the old knight's service, and 
 so did the Queen, and three queens after her. The 
 Treasurer of Calais parted from Cromwell as easily as he 
 had parted from Wolsey. And the knight had his reward, 
 and also his retribution. That is to come ; in the mean- 
 time Sir Richard and his house thrive exceedingly. 
 
 Three years after his appointment as Treasurer of 
 Cakis Sir Richard was made Under-Treasurer of England 
 Michaelmas 1528 (20 Henry VIII., Rot. 24, memor- 
 anda in the Rolls, sub voc. Sub-Thesaurarius}. This 
 office, though not of great authority or value, was one 
 that could only be then held by a trusty and devoted 
 servant of the King, who was ready to execute any order 
 whatever with silent precision. Gardiner had been made 
 Chief Secretary to the King in July 1529, and Anne's
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 67 
 
 influence was now paramount. The office of Under- 
 Treasurer was held by Sir Richard for twelve years more. 
 He surrendered it at the time of his last illness (he must 
 have been then about seventy-five), in the thirty-second 
 year of Henry VIII., 1541, Hilary Term, as is testified 
 by a memorandum in the Record Office, Rot. 7. It is 
 there stated that he surrendered this office to the King, 
 and Sir John Baker was appointed in his place, Sir John 
 Baker paying to Sir Richard 100 a year for his life. 
 Sir Richard withdrew from office with grace and profit ; 
 ^100 was the salary of the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, half the salary of the Lord Chancellor, and is 
 equal, at least, to ^1200 of our money. 
 
 All this while the records of the Exchequer are full of 
 the bounties of the King to " young Weston," who had 
 been made page in 1526. And it must have been one of 
 the duties of the Under-Treasurer to pay out or counter- 
 sign the orders for young Weston's hose and shirts, and 
 for the monstrous sums which the King suffered him 
 win at " dyce," tennis, and " imperiall." But after four 
 years of these high jinks at Court, the prudent old knight 
 thought it time for the lad to settle. Accordinglyjin May 
 1530 Francis Weston was married to Ann, the daughter 
 and heiress of Sir Christopher Pickering, the great heiress 
 of Cumberland, whose wardship the old knight had secured 
 in 1519, eleven years before. The marriage was a 
 splendid alliance, for Ann was one of the great partis of 
 her age, and brought to the Westons of Sutton Place 
 undoubted quarterings and indisputable estates. Nor was 
 the marriage at all unfavourably viewed at Court. The 
 King gave him as a wedding present 6 : 13 : 4, a sum 
 equivalent to about ^80 to-day, and one wonders if it 
 was the fashion of those times to send wedding presents
 
 68 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 in specie or by draft. The wedding was hardly over 
 when "young Weston" continues the same gambling 
 games with his sovereign, beats him at tennis at 405. a 
 game (that is fl\ !), and wins at a sitting at dyce ^46 
 
 (< 550-'). 
 
 Sir Richard, however, as became his years, steadily 
 kept his eye on the main chance. In the very month 
 in which his son is married, May 1530, he received a 
 new grant of lands, a license to impark more than 1000 
 acres of land and heath at Merrow and Clandon, the 
 present Clandon estates of the Onslows, and in 1533 he 
 obtained a renewal of his patent as Captain, Warder, and 
 Governor of Guernsey, which he had now held for 
 twenty-four years, since the King's accession, and it is 
 regranted to Sir Richard and his son in survivorship. 
 The office was thus made hereditary in the third genera- 
 tion 1 (State Papers^ Calendar VI., p. 596, No. 1481). 
 
 This last grant was in the full tide of the ascendency 
 of Anne Boleyn. She was crowned ist June 1533. 
 Francis Weston, now become, in right of his wife, an 
 illustrious and broad-acred squire, was made Knight of 
 the Bath at the coronation, and soon became one of the 
 Queen's personal courtiers and gentleman of her chamber. 
 The coronation of Anne was received somewhat coldly 
 by the mass of the English nation, and by all but the 
 party of the Court. But the two Westons were foremost 
 in testifying their devotion. Within two months of the 
 coronation Henry made a state visit to Sutton Place. 
 
 In two letters preserved at the Record Office we 
 hear of this visit. On the 4th of August 1533 Lord 
 
 1 There is in the Record Office a letter of Sir R. Weston to Cromwell, 
 ist September 1532, relating to the seizure of some Guernseymen's goods, 
 to the value of 1500 (Calendar F., No. 1276).
 
 HI SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 69 
 
 Sandys, writing " at the Vyn " to Lord Lisle at Calais 
 says : 
 
 " Concernyng newis here be non wourthe the writing, 
 saving that God be thanckid the Kinges highnes is in 
 prossperous astate at this present tyme at Sir Richard 
 Westons " (Calendar PL, No. 936). 
 
 And on the 6th of August we have a letter, written and 
 dated from Sutton by Sir John Russell to Lord Lisle, in 
 which we read : 
 
 " My Lord, newes here ys none but that thankyd be God, 
 the kynges Highnes ys mery and in good helth and I never saw 
 hym meryer of a great while then he is now. And the best 
 pastyme in huntyng the redd dere that I have sene. And 
 for chere what at my lord Marques of Exetours Mr Trea- 
 sourers and at Mr Weston's, I never saw more dylicates nor 
 better chere in my lyff. The kyng was myndyd to go to 
 Fernham, and from thens to Est Hampstede and so to 
 Wyndsour. And now he commyth not ther by cause of 
 the Sweatt. And he was fayne to remove from Guyldford 
 to Sutton, Mr Weston's howsse, by cause of the sweatt 
 lykewise. And now within these viii days he commyth from 
 hence to Wyndsour, and sone after the Quene removyth 
 from thens to Grenewich, wher Her Grace takith her 
 Chambre." 
 
 Lord Sandys, the writer of the first of these letters, 
 was Sir Richard's old colleague, whom he had succeeded 
 as Treasurer at Calais. Sandys was now Lord Chamber- 
 lain of the Household, and one of the commissioners and 
 judges by whom Anne was done to death. His place, 
 the Vyne, in Hampshire, is within a ride of Sutton. 2 
 
 1 Calendar VI., No. 948. 
 2 History of the Vyne, by Chaloner Chute, 1888.
 
 yo ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 He was presumably a connection of Weston's wife, nee 
 Anne Sandys. 
 
 Lord Lisle, to whom both letters are addressed, was 
 Deputy of Calais. He was Sir Arthur Plantagenet, one 
 of the official group called to the Upper House by 
 Wolsey, along with Sir William Sandys, in 1523. 
 
 Sir John Russell was afterwards Lord Russell, founder 
 of the ducal house, and a tried envoy and minister of 
 Henry. 
 
 The Treasurer was Sir William Fitzwilliam, a firm 
 friend and neighbour of Weston's, afterwards known as 
 the Earl of Southampton, who had recently received the 
 adjacent manor of Pirbright, etc. 1 He and Lord Russell 
 were two of Weston's executors. Thus all the persons 
 mentioned in these letters were closely associated and 
 belong to the innermost circle of Henry's confidants. 
 
 The news, or no news, which Sir John Russell conveys 
 to the Deputy of Calais was not a little disingenuous. 
 There was indeed great news at that crisis, and no one 
 knew it better than Sir John. A few weeks before, the 
 Pope and cardinals in open consistory had annulled the 
 pretended marriage with Anne, and on the 28th of July 
 Lord Rochford, her brother, reached the King with the 
 news. The Court had left London and gone to Hampton 
 Court. The King was restless and anxious ; the Queen 
 was expecting her confinement, and she and the King 
 were frantically hoping for a son. Elizabeth was born 
 at Greenwich, 7th September, whither the King and 
 Queen had returned on 28th August. When the King 
 
 1 Sir William Fitzwilliam had a grant of the manor of Pirbright, igth 
 December 1520, a little before the grant of Sutton to Weston, and Sir 
 William died seized of it, I4th October 1542. Manning and Bray, Surrey, 
 i. 148. He was created Earl of Southampton, October 1537.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 71 
 
 was at Sutton, three weeks previously, things were almost 
 desperate with him, and he was trying to conceal his 
 anxiety from the expectant mother. His " pastimes in 
 huntyng the redd deer" were often at this time 
 expedients to meet his council secretly ; and it is not 
 improbable that the old roof of Sutton Hall has covered 
 many a gloomy council board and caught the murmur 
 of whispered plans in one of the great crises of Henry's 
 reign the real turning-point in the Reformation. The 
 following year Fisher and More were committed to the 
 Tower, and the convocation of York declared that the 
 Pope had no power in England. It is most doubtful that 
 Anne, within one month of her expected delivery, on 
 which so much turned, was then at Sutton with the King. 
 She was carefully nursed, whilst he travelled about, angry, 
 restless, and violent. 
 
 In 1534, the year following, Cromwell sends to 
 Weston a patent that had been granted to him (Calendar 
 VIL No. 73). 
 
 A little later we find him still Steward of Cokeham 
 and Bray. And in the same year are two memoranda in 
 the voluminous and curious document known as Crom- 
 well's Remembrancer}- In that year Cromwell was made 
 Master of the Rolls, and Henry was declared, by Act of 
 Parliament, head of the Church. It must have been a 
 terrible dilemma to the old knight, the brother of the 
 Lord Prior of St. John's. Did Cromwell mean by these 
 lists to remind Weston that he owed all to the King ? 
 
 If hint were given at all, Sir Richard acted on it, for 
 
 1 Calendar VII. No. 923, i. vii. "Item, a paper of the names of the 
 offices of Sir Richard Weston." " Item, a paper of offices and fees granted 
 by the King's Hygnes unto Sir Richard Weston, knight." Repeated search 
 has failed to discover these lists.
 
 72 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 he never swerved from his duty to his sovereign nor lost 
 the favour of those in power. The tremendous drama 
 unfolds itself with rapid revolutions year by year. In 
 1535 Fisher and More are executed. In 1536 Catherine 
 died and Henry fell in love with Jane Seymour. In April, 
 with Cromwell's assistance, he determines on the destruc- 
 tion of Anne. Cromwell himself, Lord Sandys, Sir Wm. 
 Fitzwilliam, and others are amongst the commissioners 
 and judges. On 2nd May Anne is arrested. Two days 
 later Francis Weston is arrested. On the ijth of May 
 he is executed. Two days later the Queen is executed. 
 On the third day after Henry marries Jane Seymour, 
 the mother of our most Protestant sovereign, Edward VI., 
 Defender of the Faith, and founder of the Established 
 Church of England. 
 
 Sir Richard held on to his King, whose passion and 
 lust had just cut off his only son. There is abundant 
 evidence that the execution was regarded by himself, by 
 the King, and by others as a melancholy incident which 
 in no way affected his public position any more than if 
 his heir had died by any ordinary accident. There is ex- 
 tant, in a fragmentary state, a letter from a trusty agent 
 of Cromwell and Cranmer, an old friend of Sir Richard's, 
 who says : " I lament extremely the evil sort of young 
 Wes[ton, because of the] amity which I had with his 
 father a man of great [? favour with ?] the King's Majesty, 
 a prudent and most gentle Knight" (Edmund Harvell 
 to Thomas Starkey, I5th June 1536; B. M., Vit., bk. 
 xiv. 228; Calendar XL No. 1142). This is the only 
 contemporary character of Sir Richard Weston that we 
 have. Every one, and especially the King and his ministers, 
 were friendly to the " prudent and most gentle knight." 
 In September of this year Sir W. Weston writes two
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 73 
 
 letters from Sutton to Cromwell, remonstrating with him 
 in matters relating to the Priory of St. John's. In 
 October we have a list of the noblemen and gentlemen 
 to attend the King's own person. For Surrey there are 
 Sir Richard Weston, with 150 men-at-arms, and he and 
 his brother, the Lord of St. John's, are named to attend 
 the Queen's Grace. 1 Queen Anne brought the son to 
 Tower Hill ; Queen Jane must be served by the father. 
 
 In June of the next year the governorship of Guernsey, 
 etc., had to be filled up, as a vacancy had been caused by 
 the death of Sir F. Weston, who had held it since 1533. 
 Accordingly, by patent 26th June 1537, "the office of 
 Captain, Keeper, and Governor of Guernesey and the 
 island of Cornet is granted to Sir N. Carewe, K.G., in 
 reversion from Sir R. Weston, now holding it, in lieu of 
 Sir F. Weston, attainted and executed." 2 About this 
 time Cromwell seems to have resided at Sutton. On nth 
 July Sir J. Russell, writing apparently by the King's order 
 from Guildford to Cromwell, says, as he, Cromwell, has 
 a servant ill of the plague, the King suggests that not 
 to frighten the Queen, then with child (Edward VI.), 
 Cromwell might lie at Mr. Weston's, Mr. Browne's, 
 the Lord Marquis's, or other good fellows' houses and 
 meet the King by day. 3 Cromwell evidently chose 
 Sutton and went there. We hear of him there on I7th 
 July and on 26th August. 4 
 
 At the splendid pageant of the christening of the young 
 Prince, who became Edward VI., I5th October 1537, a 
 scene preserved to us by Holbein, we find Sir Richard 
 Weston present as usual. 5 And when a few weeks later 
 
 1 Calendar XL No. 579. 2 Calendar XII. pt. ii. 191 (46). 
 
 3 Ibid. pt. ii. No. 242. * Ibid. pt. ii. Nos. 267, 583. 
 
 5 Ibid. pt. ii. No. 911 (ii.)
 
 74 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Queen Jane Seymour is buried (i2th November), we have 
 him there at the pompous funeral. 1 Births, marriages, 
 and deaths come all alike to the veteran courtier. 
 
 Jane Seymour died in October 1537. ^ ne ^ x Acts 
 were passed in 1539 ; in 1536 the Lesser Monasteries 
 were suppressed ; in 1539 the Greater Monasteries. In 
 1540 Henry married Anne of Cleves, repudiated her, had 
 Cromwell executed, and married Catherine Howard. 
 
 The year 1540 was one of importance for Sir Richard 
 Weston. He was of great age, and had served the King 
 more than thirty years. At the marriage of Anne of 
 Cleves, in January 1540, Sir Richard, who had figured 
 in the pageants of three queens already, was sent to meet 
 the fourth queen on her landing in England. He is there 
 with Sir Walter Dennys, his own son-in-law, and Sir T. 
 Arundell, whose daughter married Sir Richard's grandson. 
 The odious marriage enraged Henry against Cromwell, 
 its adviser ; and in July the great contriver of the 
 Reformation, Thomas Cromwell, now Earl of Essex, 
 lost his King's favour and his own head. 
 
 But the fall of Cromwell no more shook the credit of 
 Sir Richard than did that of Wolsey. In the very year 
 of it the old knight is appointed Master of the New Court 
 of Wards. 2 It was a new office created by 32 Henry VIII., 
 
 1 Calendar XII. pt. ii. No. 1060. 
 
 2 Appended to Ley's Reports, folio 1659, by Sir James Ley, afterwards 
 Earl of Marlborough, is a Treatise concerning Wards and Li-verm. " The 
 Master of the Wards," runs the patent, " shall dispose of all our wards, idiots, 
 lunatics, and their lands, tenements, and hereditaments." There had always 
 been an officer to deal with the estates of tenants in cafite dying with heirs 
 under age as Master of the Wards. Sir Richard Weston had held this office 
 since 1519. But after twenty years it was found necessary to create a Court 
 of Wards, in which, under statute, were consolidated the equitable authority 
 and powers of the Crown over all estates where the legal owners were under 
 any incapacity. Such an office was practically that of Chancellor, and must
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 75 
 
 c. 46 ; enlarged by 33 Henry VIII., c. 22 ; and abolished 
 by the Long Parliament, confirmed at the Restoration by 
 12 Car. II., c. 24. And it was natural that Sir Richard 
 Weston, who in 1519 had been appointed with Sir Thomas 
 Lovell Master of the King's Wards, and in 1520 had 
 been named with Sir E. Belknap to be surveyor, governor, 
 and seller of wards and their possessions, should now be 
 appointed Master of the New Court. 
 
 He seems to have held office until his death. But a 
 new disaster was on him. The Greater Monasteries were 
 suppressed in 1539 ; but the illustrious Order of St. John 
 still remained at its house in Clerkenwell. The old prior, 
 Sir William Weston, who had been relieved of his duties 
 through the infirmity of old age four years before, died 
 on Ascension Day, yth May 1540, the very day of the 
 Dissolution of the Order in England. He was treated by 
 the King with great honour, for he received a pension of 
 1000 a year. 1 
 
 This month of May seems strangely big with weal 
 and woe to the house of Weston. The first batch of 
 offices and honours fell to Sir Richard 2ist May 1509. 
 On the i yth of May 1520 Sir Richard Weston has the 
 grant of Sutton, the very day of the execution of Stafford, 
 Duke of Buckingham. In May 1530 he had a grant of 
 Merrow and Clandon, and in May of that year, too, his 
 only son is married to a great heiress. In May 1533 Sir 
 Francis is made Knight of the Bath. On the I7th of 
 May 1536 that son is beheaded as a traitor on the very 
 
 have opened unlimited opportunities for jobbery and malversation to unscrupu- 
 lous men. 
 
 1 An enormous sum, five times the salary of the Lord Chancellor, 
 perhaps equivalent to 12,000. The entire revenue of the house at the 
 Dissolution was onl
 
 76 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 day of the same month as the Duke in the same place. 
 And now in May 1540 the Order of St. John, of which 
 Sir William Weston is the English head, is suppressed, 
 and he himself dies of grief on the same day. 
 
 Within two years Sir Richard had to follow his noble 
 brother. In 1541 Sir Richard's infirmities compel him to 
 surrender to Sir John Baker his office of Under-Treasurer 
 of England, 1 2Oth January 1541-42. It is remembered 
 before Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, that Sir R. Weston, 
 Sub-Treasurer of England, ob senectutem debilltatam et con- 
 tinuam infirmitatem, resigns his office with a pension of 
 jioo a year, payable to him by Sir John. 2 
 
 In the year following, his long and busy life was over. 
 He died yth August 1542, it would appear about the age 
 of seventy-five. His will was proved in November of 
 that year, and in the Inquisitiones Post Mortem (34 Henry 
 VIII.) he was found to hold lands in Somerset, in Surrey, 
 in Hampshire, in Dorset, and in Berkshire. 
 
 He was buried in the family vault in the Parish Church 
 of the Trinity in Guildford, in the chapel which he built 
 for the purpose ; but all traces of his burial and his tomb 
 have perished in the destruction and rebuilding of the 
 church. By his will, made the i6th day of May 1541 
 (always the month of May is an epoch in the Weston 
 calendar), he describes himself as Sir Richard Weston of 
 Sutton, in the County of Surrey, Knight. He appoints 
 as his executors " my Lorde Pryve Scale," that is, Lord 
 Southampton, formerly Sir W. Fitzwilliam, his old col- 
 
 1 Record Office, 32 Henry VIII., Rot. 7. 
 
 2 Hilary Term, 32 Henry VIII., R. O. Memoranda Roll, Records, L. 
 Treasurer Remiss., L.T.R. Sir Richard's style in Latin runs thus " Miles 
 pro corpore, Magister Wardorum, Thesaurarius Calisiae, et Sub-Thesaurarius 
 Angliae."
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 77 
 
 league, and the builder of Cowdray Castle, "my Lorde 
 Admirall, Lorde Russell," i.e. Sir John Russell, the founder 
 of the ducal house, his wife Anne, and Sir Christopher 
 More, Knight, the founder of the house of Loseley, to 
 be overseer, with legacies of ^20 to each of those named. 
 
 Sir Richard dies as a good Catholic. 1 He bequeaths 
 " his soul to Almighty God and to his blessed mother our 
 Lady Saint Mary and to all the holy company of Heaven " j 
 and he wills that " there may be said immediately after 
 his decease fifteen trentals of masses for his soul and his 
 father's soul and his mother's soul." He bequeaths to 
 Lady Kingston " the Pownse Cupp with the cover which 
 Mr. Wyngfield gave me." 2 Lady Kingston was the 
 widow of Sir W. Kingston, the Constable of the Tower, 
 who had been the jailor of Anne Boleyn and of Francis 
 Weston. It was, as we now know, solely through the 
 report made by Kingston to Cromwell that young 
 Weston had been implicated. No doubt both kept their 
 own counsel, and the father never knew the whole story. 
 Sir W. Kingston and Sir R. Wyngfield were two of the 
 four " sad and ancient Knights " who entered the 
 King's Privy Chamber in 1519 along with Weston and 
 Jerningham. 
 
 The will of Sir Richard is short and simple. He be- 
 queaths to Anne, his wife, all his lands for life, and then 
 to Henry Weston, his grandson, the only child of Sir 
 Francis (then aged six years), in default of which the lands 
 were to go to the sons of his daughters, Lady Dennys 
 
 1 Lady Weston, the widow, seems to have been in 1542 and 1543 an 
 adherent of the Princess Mary. Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary, by 
 Sir Harris Nicolas, pp. 33, 34, no. 
 
 - Pounce cup was a cup with holes to sprinkle pounded sugar, said to 
 come from pumcx, pumice, quasi tpumex, pouncet box, box with holes for 
 scent.
 
 78 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 and Lady Rogers. To his wife he bequeaths his personal 
 goods, furniture, and household stuff for her life, and 
 then to Henry Weston. And after some gifts to servants, 
 he gives the residue of his estate to Anne, his wife, to 
 dispose of "for the health of our souls and our friends' 
 souls and of all Christian souls." Truly the venerable 
 knight made a pious end of his life. If there were no 
 recording angel, he was indeed an honourable man. 
 
 The will was proved 22nd November 1542, A.D. MD 
 " quadragesimo secundo." For the proof of the will an 
 inventory was prepared which remained in the archives 
 of Loseley Hall until it was recently presented by the 
 late Mr. More-Molyneux to F. H. Salvin, the owner of 
 Sutton Place. It will be described when we are speaking 
 of the house (chap, viii.) The executors deposited with 
 Sir W. Gresham as banker the sum of ^363 : 55. in 
 specie and gold chain. " The cheyne of fyne gold with 
 a cross," weighing 68 ounces, was valued at ^107 : 6s. 
 This must have been a grand jewel, as it would now 
 amount to ^1280 alone. 
 
 The inventory gives a list of furniture, stores, and 
 goods suitable for a house of the kind, tapestries for the 
 great hall, " and a grete carpet to the table there " ; "a 
 gret carpet in the parlour agreable to the table there : a 
 turkey carpet in the wadrobe : a grete carpete to lay 
 under the kyngs fete : also xxv carpetts for wyndows in 
 sundry chambers (no doubt carpets for the oriels), besyds 
 the seyd xxv carpetts iii verder peces to lay in wyndows." 
 This profuse use of carpets was unusual luxury in 1530. 
 Verdures were tapestries of scenery. 
 
 There is the priest's chamber, and the fool's chamber, 
 and the lads of the kitchen, Sir John Rogers's chamber 
 (his son-in-law), a chapel, and chapel stuff. In the
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 79 
 
 armoury are 102 pairs of harness, 102 sallats 1 and 
 gorgeats, 2 88 paire of 4 ' spleatts," 3 38 bows, and 54 sheaves 
 of arrows with their cases, 25 bills and I battle-axe, and a 
 pavilion (tent) and a hall. Of plate there are twojgilt 
 basons and ewers, 2 white silver basons and 2 ewers parcel 
 gilt, 8 silver pots and 4 silver flagons, 18 chased goblets, 4 
 standing cups and 7 cruises, 6 dishes of silver, 24 trencher 
 plates of silver, " 18 silver spoons of the apostles upon the 
 knobs." Let us trust these were real " antique " and not 
 made up at Birmingham or Antwerp. There are also 8 
 silver spoons of another sort, a chafing bason, and chafing 
 dish, etc. In all, the plate is priced at ^164 : 2 : 6 = 
 about ^2000. There are 400 sheep, 100 beasts, and 60 
 horses. It must have been a stately mansion, well stocked 
 and mounted. 
 
 So Sir Richard Weston was gathered to his fathers 
 
 . ' 
 and little Henry Weston, his grandson, became his heir 
 
 and successor. 
 
 Lady Weston, his wife, survived him at least a few 
 years, though she must have been of venerable age. 
 A Mrs. Weston, most probably the same, had been a lady 
 in the service of Queen Elizabeth of York in 1502 ; and 
 in 1510, thirty- two years before her husband's death, she 
 was gentlewoman to the Queen, Catherine of Aragon, 
 was the wife of Sir Richard, and guardian of a young 
 ward. Her family of Sandys or Sands was a branch of 
 the family of Rotenby, St. Bees, in Cumberland, whence 
 her father, William Sandys, came. Her brother was 
 
 1 Sallats or sellatt were helmets, engraved or chased, said to come from 
 ctflata, chased. So Shakespeare : " But for a sallet, my brain-pan had been 
 cleft with a brown bill " (2 Henry VI., Act IV., Scene 10). 
 
 - Pieces for the throat. 
 
 3 " Sfleats " = splents were little plates which protected the arm, garde de 
 bras, Palsgrave (Halliwell, Diet, of Archaic Words, ii. 786).
 
 8o ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Oliver Sandys of Shere, in Dorking, and she was doubt- 
 less of the family of William, Lord Sandys. 1 She proved 
 the will of Sir Richard, and possibly had much to do with 
 the bringing up of the young heir of Sutton Place, then 
 a boy of seven or eight. She seems to have attached her- 
 self to the party of Mary and her Catholic friends. We 
 have frequent notices of her in the Privy Purse Expenses 
 of Princess Mary^ ed. Sir H. Nicolas. 2 
 
 During the years from 1537 until 1544 money is 
 entered for the servants of Lady Weston for bringing 
 presents of pudding and artichokes for the Princess Mary 
 when at Guildford ; and again we have her sending to 
 the Princess "Peacocks, herons, and swete baggs" (sachets). 
 Mary was born in 1516, and Lady Weston may have 
 been gentlewoman to the Queen Catherine at her birth. 
 
 Besides the only son, Francis, Sir Richard and Lady 
 Weston had two daughters. 
 
 Margaret, the wife of Sir Walter Dennys, the eldest 
 son of Sir William Dennys, of Dyrham, County of 
 Gloucester, by Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Maurice, 
 Lord Berkeley. There is in the painted glass in the hall 
 (lower north bay, No. 7) an emblem or rebus for her 
 a Marguerite growing out of a tun ; and in the lower 
 south-west window (No. X. 3) is a magnificent coat of 
 arms of Sir Walter Dennys, quartering the coat of 
 Berkeley in right of his mother. She afterwards married 
 Richard Stafferton. 
 
 The second daughter, Katherine, named, of course, 
 after the Queen (her mother being Lady of the Chamber), 
 was married to Sir John Rogers, son of Sir John Rogers 
 of Brianston, Dorset (see Hutchins' Dorset^ i. 250, 3rd 
 ed., 1861). One of the rooms at Sutton was called in 
 
 1 Manning and Bray, ii. 671. " Pp. 33, 34, no.
 
 Ill 
 
 SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 
 
 81 
 
 the inventory " Sir John Rogers's room." In the time 
 of James I. the Herald's Visitation for Surrey records as 
 being in the hall the arms of Rogers ; but they are no 
 longer visible. 1 Both Lady Dennys and Lady Rogers 
 had sons named Richard, after their grandfather. They 
 are mentioned in the old knight's will on failure of heirs 
 of Sir Henry Weston. 
 
 1 On the tomb of Sir John Rogers of Brianston the arms are given thus 
 i and 4, Argent on a chief or, a fleur-de-lys gules, in base a mullet, 
 pierced sable. 2 and 3, Argent, fretty sable, a chief gules. 
 
 Sir Richard Rogers, grandson of Sir Richard Weston, married Cecilia 
 Lutterel, and died 1604. Their grandchild, Elizabeth Rogers, in the fifth 
 generation, married Charles Stuart, sixth Duke of Lennox and third Duke of 
 Richmond. He died September 1672. Burke, Dormant Peerages, p. 513.
 
 PART III. WESTONS, KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN 
 
 As the Lord Prior of St. John's Order in England, Sir 
 William Weston, the brother of Sir Richard, was so 
 closely associated with him throughout life, some account 
 must here be given of the Westons of St. John. 
 
 The Westons had a long connection with the martial 
 order, whose true style is The Knights Hospitallers of 
 the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, commonly called the 
 Knights of Malta, after their establishment there in the 
 year 1530, or the Knights of Rhodes, down to the 
 capture of the island by the Turks in I522. 1 
 
 1 There are various histories of this Order by Sutherland and others, one 
 of the more recent being that by Major-General W. Porter, revised edition, 
 1883. It contains lists of the priors, and a full account of the glorious 
 defence of Rhodes. Other information has been supplied from the Records 
 of the Order by Mr. E. Waterton, in a paper communicated to F. H. Salvin, 
 Esq.
 
 CH. in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 83 
 
 The illustrious Order of St. John, founded in 1118, 
 never shone so nobly as during the sixteenth century, 
 when they, almost unaided, maintained the honour of 
 Christendom against the Turks. They were established 
 at Rhodes in 1311 ; and on the loss of that island they 
 were settled by the Emperor Charles V. at Malta, which 
 they held down to the present century. They had 
 various houses in England, of which that of St. John's at 
 Clerkenwell was the centre. The Order was governed 
 by a Grand Master, who usually resided at Rhodes, or 
 afterwards at Malta. The head of the English branch 
 was called Lord Prior of St. John's in England, and his 
 headquarters were at the house in Clerkenwell, suppressed 
 at the Reformation in 1540, remains of which existed 
 until our own day. The Lord Prior of St. John's was 
 entered as first of the lay barons in the Roll of Peers, 
 coming next after viscounts. Selden, in his Table Talk^ 
 says " The Prior of St. John's was primus Baro Anglies^ 
 because, being last of the spiritual barons, he chose to be 
 the first of the temporal. He was a kind of otter, a 
 knight half spiritual, half temporal." 
 
 Not to speak of a certain William Weston who, as 
 Knight of the Order, witnessed two charters in 1280 
 and 1281, or of a Thomas Weston who was made 
 Commander of the Commanderies of Dingley and of 
 Copmanthorpe in 1420 and 1422, we have two uncles 
 of Sir Richard and Sir William Weston mentioned as 
 knights in the fifteenth century. Sir William Weston, 
 the elder, was brother of Sir John Weston, the prior, 
 and was Knight of the Order in 1471. 
 
 His brother, Sir John Weston, was the son of Peter 
 Weston of Boston, in Lincolnshire, by Agnes, daughter 
 of John Daunay of Eskrigg, County York, and she was
 
 84 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 a sister of Sir William Daunay, the Turkopolier of the 
 Order, an official usually regarded as lieutenant, and 
 second to the Grand Master. Peter Weston was grand- 
 father of Sir Richard, who thus had four Knights of 
 St. John amongst his near relations viz. three uncles 
 and a brother, his brother and one uncle being Lords 
 Prior, and two of his uncles Turkopoliers of the Order. 
 
 Sir John Weston, the uncle, was at one time General 
 of the Galleys of the Order, and was Turkopolier in 
 1471 ; and in 1476 (24th July), by a Bull of the Grand 
 Master, Peter d'Aubusson, dated from Rhodes, Sir John 
 Weston, Turkopolier and Commander of Balsal and 
 Newland, was appointed Lord Prior in England. 
 
 It was the custom of the first Tudors often to employ 
 the Lord Prior of St. John's on embassies ; and as we 
 have already seen above, he was named as Commissioner 
 on Embassies to the King of Scotland in 1486, and to 
 the King of Spain in 1488. He died in 1489, having 
 lived to see his elder brother, Edmund, Governor of 
 Guernsey, and Edmund's sons, afterwards Sir Richard and 
 Sir William, young men of promise and ambition. 
 
 The third Weston, Knight of St. John, of this par- 
 ticular house, was Sir William Weston, the brother of 
 Sir Richard. He was the second son of Edmund Weston 
 of Boston, of whom we have spoken above (p. 43). On 
 27th September 1510 certain rights of anciennete were 
 granted to him in Rhodes. The knight was then about 
 forty ; his brother Richard was already high in favour at 
 Court, and Governor of Guernsey, as their father Edmund 
 had been. Sir William is summoned to a chapter at 
 Rhodes in June 1515. (Sir Richard, the brother, was 
 then Knight of the Bath, and attending Mary Tudor on 
 her marriage to the King of France.) He was appointed
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 85 
 
 Turkopolier, apparently before the great siege of Rhodes 
 (July to December 1522). At this he distinguished him- 
 self greatly, was wounded, and for his services he received 
 the next year special honours. In July 1523 a Bull from 
 Baiae, near Naples, granted to Sir William Weston, 
 Turkopolier, with the universal consent of the English 
 knights, right of anciennete and succession to the priories 
 of England and Ireland. The defence of Rhodes against 
 Solyman is one of the most glorious and moving episodes 
 in modern history, as Villiers de Lisle-Adam, the Grand 
 Master, who conducted it, was one of the most perfect 
 types of the hero in courage, piety, endurance, and 
 dignity of nature fit to stand beside even Godfrey de 
 Bouillon. To have earned the trust of such a man was 
 the glory of a life. 
 
 On 2yth June 1527 a Bull of the Grand Master, 
 Villiers de Lisle- Adam, from Corneto, appoints Sir 
 William Lord Prior of England, and three days later 
 Sir William notifies his appointment to the King. He 
 shortly after returned to England and took his seat in 
 the House of Lords as Premier Lay Baron. In 1532 it 
 seems that, as Prior of St. John's, he exchanged the 
 Manor of Hampton Court for the Priory of Stanesgate, 
 in Essex {Calendar V. No. 627, xviii.) He spells badly, 
 and like a German, for joint patentee becomes jund pattend 
 (Calendar V. No. 417). 
 
 There is evidence that the Lord Prior did not belong 
 to the party of Thomas Cromwell and the Boleyns. He 
 was not employed by Henry VIII. On the contrary, 
 there is every evidence that he opposed the Reformation 
 and the anti-papal policy of Henry, and held by the 
 claims of Mary Tudor. Morette, the ambassador of 
 Francis I. in England, then actively opposing the party
 
 86 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 of Anne, " gave a great dinner party, at which the Dukes 
 of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir William Weston, Prior of 
 St. John's, Lord Abergavenny, and other influential 
 adherents of the papacy were present. Palamede Gontier 
 told them of the auto da fe at Paris lately, when Francis 
 himself with his sons had marched in the procession and 
 had watched the torturing and burning of a good number 
 of Protestants. The English lords were delighted to 
 hear of this, and praised Francis for what he had done." l 
 Sir William Weston was apparently in opposition, 
 and soon withdrew from public life. The Calendars 
 contain a few letters from him to Lord Lisle, Cromwell, 
 etc., and various references. From the Journals of the 
 House of Lords, vol. i. 103, the name of the Prior of 
 St. John of Jerusalem appears regularly as a daily attendant 
 at Parliament in the 25 Henry VIII., 1533. He comes 
 next after Viscount Lisle, the junior viscount, and above 
 Lord Burgavenny, the senior baron, ancestor of the 
 Marquis of Abergavenny. The Lord Prior also appears 
 as a regular attendant in the Parliament of 28 Henry 
 VIII., 1536. He does not appear in the Parliament of 
 31 Henry VIII., 1539, although the abbots of the great 
 monasteries do j and his name never occurs again in the 
 Roll of Parliament. We have a letter of the Prior, written 
 in French, yth September 1537, from Sutton, superscribed 
 " to me neve Sir Thomas Dyngle." This is his nephew, 
 Sir T. Dingley, a Catholic martyr, who was executed for 
 denying the supremacy in 1539. In the year 1539 Sir 
 William Weston, continues devexatus infirmitatibus^ ap- 
 points Lord Latymer and Lord Windsor as his proctors. 
 
 1 Friedmann, ii. 54, citing a despatch of Gontier himself. See the 
 despatch abstracted, Calendar IX. (1535), No. 174, Gontier to Chabot, where 
 the name is spelt Ovation.
 
 in SIR RICHARD WESTON THE ELDER 87 
 
 The old knight was borne down by illness and yet 
 more by grief. 
 
 On yth May 1540 his Order was dissolved in 
 England. By the Act of Dissolution he was secured a 
 pension of ^1000 a year. "But," says Weever, "he 
 never received a penny of it ; for it so fortuned that 
 upon the seventh day of May 1 540, being Ascension Day, 
 and the same day of the Dissolution of the House, he 
 was dissolved by death, which strooke him to the heart 
 at the first time when he heard of the Dissolution of the 
 Order." l And Fuller quaintly remarks, " His Hospital 
 and earthly tabernacle were buried together, and gold, 
 though a great cordial, could not cure a broken heart." 2 
 
 The venerable knight was buried with great state and 
 laid in a noble tomb in the Church of St. James, at 
 Clerkenwell. An account of this tomb, now destroyed, 
 may be seen in the History of Clerkenwell^ by W. I. Pinks, 
 London, 8vo, 1865 ; new edition by Edward J. Wood, 
 London, 1881, from which the following notes are taken. 
 
 The Priory of the Knights of St. John was retained 
 by Henry VIII. in his own hand, and was preserved from 
 destruction by being used as a royal store. The church 
 was destroyed by the Protector Somerset. In the reign 
 of James I. what remained of the priory became private 
 property. It was destroyed in the last century (1788). 
 John Weever, who was buried in the church, describes 
 the monument of Weston as he saw it about 1640. " In 
 the North wall of the Chancel is a fair marble tomb, with 
 the portraiture of a dead man lying upon his shroud, the 
 most artificially cut in stone that ever man beheld." 3 
 
 1 J. Weever, Funeral Monuments, 1631, p. 430. 
 
 2 Fuller, Memoirs, folio, p. 574. 
 3 Weever, Funeral Monuments, p. 430.
 
 88 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. in 
 
 Above it was a canopy with escutcheons, arms, and crests, 
 and above the recumbent figure, apparently, were two 
 kneeling figures and the objects of their adoration. In 
 the centre of the canopy was the achievement of the 
 Lord Prior in stone, above which, on a helmet, is the 
 Saracen's head, affronte or full-faced, wreathed argent and 
 azure. The arms are the same as those of Sir Richard 
 at Sutton, quarterly, Weston and Cornell^ with the Cross 
 of St. John in chief. Underneath is the motto, which 
 seems to read ANY BORO. 
 
 When the old church was removed in 1788 this noble 
 monument was destroyed. The skeleton measured exactly 
 5 feet 1 1 inches, and Pennant, in 1 793, saw fragments of 
 it in the garden. The effigy remained in the church, 
 and was afterwards removed to the gatehouse. That is 
 the last remnant of a gallant man. 
 
 Sir William was a great seaman as well as soldier, and 
 commanded the first ironclad recorded in history. She 
 was called the Great Carrack. She was sheathed with 
 metal and perfectly cannon-proof. She had room for 500 
 men and provisions for six months. A picture of this 
 famous ship is in the Royal Collections at Windsor. 
 
 i) " I " '111 1 .J I A- 'I L^ ...,1
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON AND HEIR 
 
 THE only son of Sir Richard Weston, the 
 founder of Sutton, must have been a boy 
 when his father received his grant of the 
 manor and built the house. He entered 
 the King's service as page in his teens, 
 was a spoiled favourite, first of Henry, 
 and then of Anne Boleyn, and was sud- 
 denly beheaded about his twenty-fifth year 
 in the lifetime of his father. It does not 
 appear in what year precisely he was born ; 
 but he did not obtain livery of the lands 
 to which he was entitled in right of his 
 wife until 24th June I532, 1 although he 
 was married to her in 1530. It is highly 
 probable that this gives the date of his 
 majority, as his father would certainly 
 have secured him in possession of the 
 vast estates he had obtained by marriage 
 at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 Again, in 1533, Sir Richard procured 
 the grant of the office of Governor of 
 
 1 Calendar, Henry VIII., v. No. 1207 (4).
 
 90 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Guernsey in survivorship to himself and his son Francis. 1 
 In the same year Anne Boleyn was married, and Francis 
 Weston was created Knight of the Bath during the 
 ceremonies, 3ist May 1533. It is hardly conceivable 
 that such an office as the governorship of Guernsey, or 
 such an honour as the knightship of the Bath, could have 
 been conferred on a youth still under age ; and it is almost 
 as unlikely that, in his position, livery of the lands of 
 his wife should have been withheld from him after he 
 was of age. 
 
 The only circumstances on the other side are, first, 
 his name Francis, and his being treated as a child, found 
 in clothes, and mentioned with Patch, the Fool, down to 
 his marriage, and always spoken of as " young Weston." 
 Francis is a name that never occurs in the Weston pedi- 
 gree either before or since ; 2 it is not the name of any 
 royal or eminent Englishman of that age, and until 1515, 
 we may say, was a most uncommon name in England. 3 
 Francis, Duke of Angouleme, and heir-presumptive under 
 Louis XII., did not come to the French throne until 
 ist January 1515. After that date there was every reason 
 why a courtier of Henry VIII. who attended the marriage 
 of Mary Tudor to Louis XII. and followed his king to 
 the Field of the Cloth of Gold should have named his 
 son after the French king. But before ist January 1515 
 it was a most uncourtierlike thing to do. But it must 
 be remembered that the Westons were a family with 
 wide foreign connections. In 1502 Richard Weston is 
 paid ^4 : IDS. for "gyrdelles" "brought for the Queen 
 beyond the sea," and in 1510 he had license to freight a 
 
 1 Calendar V. No. 1481, p. 596. 
 
 2 The present owner of the house is Francis H. Salvin. 
 
 3 Miss Yonge, Christian Names (Francis), vol. ii. p. 198.
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 91 
 
 ship to trade through the straits of " Marrok." Francis 
 was a name common enough in Italy and France. How- 
 ever, if Francis Weston were not born until 1515, he 
 must have been married at fifteen, and made governor 
 and knight at eighteen, and executed at twenty-one. 
 
 The more probable view is that he was born in 1511, 
 and named Francis after the Duke or some other foreign 
 prince. His father was then about forty-five, was high 
 in favour, had served in Spain, and held several offices. 
 Even then Francis Weston would be a most precocious 
 youth j but the dates of his career are intelligible enough. 
 He was brought to Court and made page (fstat. fifteen). 
 He beats the King at tennis, playing for heavy stakes 
 (cetat. nineteen). He could hardly have beaten Henry, 
 who was so great a tennis player, until about that age, 
 and had he been some years older, an ambitious courtier 
 would hardly have been so ill-advised as to beat his king 
 at all. The spoiled lad is married (<stat. nineteen) ; 
 comes of age, and is made Knight of the Bath (tstat. 
 twenty-one) ; is made Governor of Guernsey and Gentle- 
 man of the Queen's Chamber (#tat. twenty-two) ; his 
 only son is born (tetat. twenty-four) ; he is executed for 
 high treason (tetat. twenty-five). Truly a brief, rapid, 
 and brilliant career, even in those days. 
 
 The name of Francis Weston first occurs in 1526, 
 when the Records inform us that " young Weston " was 
 appointed to be the King's page. 1 In the Chronicles of 
 Calais z and the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII? 
 we have constant mention of young Weston as a spoiled 
 minion of the King and reckless gambler. In May 1530 
 (<stat. nineteen) 35. are paid for Master Weston's shirts, 
 
 1 Calendar IV. p. 86 1. 2 Chronicles of Calais, edited by J. Gough Nichols. 
 3 Privy Purse Expenses, edited by Sir Harris Nicolas.
 
 92 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 155. for three pair of hosen, 2os., "the King's reward at 
 Easter" (equivalent say to 12). Then we have 6 
 paid to Lord Rochford for Weston for four games of 
 tennis which he won of the King at 4 angels apiece. 
 This is high play, ^72 for four games. 
 
 In May 1530 the sum of 6 : 13 : 4 is paid to Master 
 Weston at his marriage. 1 In the same year is an entry 
 for "hose for Master Weston, Mark, and Patche, the 
 King's fool." Mark, of course, is Mark Smeaton, Anne 
 Boleyn's musician, who was executed along with Weston 
 and the rest. In 1531 the King's "reward" has risen 
 to ^2 =^24, for the minion is now a married man and 
 has a wife to keep, and is not let into possession of her 
 estates. The King loses ^4 to Weston at tennis at 405. 
 a game ; he loses ^4 : i os. to Weston at Eltham at bowls 
 at 4 angels the game. The King lends " young Weston " 
 20 ; that is 240. He pays him 46 ( =55), " f r 
 that he wonne of the King at Dyce at Langley, C C 
 (200) corons" (crowns), and soon after 6 : 33. (=^75), 
 "wonne of the King at Imperiall." In 1532 ^46 : I : 4 
 ( = ^560) is paid to Master Weston, " wyune of the King 
 at Dyce at Calys"; again ^18 was lost by the King 
 to Weston "at popes July's game"; then ^3 at the 
 same ; then 50 crowns (^150) is lost at cards and dyce 
 to Bryan and Weston ; 43. is paid to a servant " who 
 brings brawn and pudding from Lady Weston (his 
 mother) to the King"; and 45. for a present of wild 
 fowl. " Tips " and " vails " were in those days substan- 
 tial things. Fifty shillings " to drink y r honour's health " 
 to the footman who brings a parcel of brawn and pudding 
 is a truly royal pourboire. In 1532 "young Weston's" 
 reward against Christmas has risen to ^5 (=j6o); 
 
 1 Calendar V. pp. 750, 757, 759.
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 93 
 
 Henry did things handsomely, even if he did cut off 
 heads. 1 
 
 But young Weston is now of age ; and in 1532 2 he 
 is appointed as Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, the 
 office with which his father began his career, twenty 
 years before, and he is ordered to serve six weeks in the 
 Privy Chamber along with Sir N. Carew, Sir John 
 Russell, Browne, Page, Bryan, and Knevitt. These 
 men, who live on the canvas or cartoons of Holbein, are 
 all members of the innermost circle of Henry's favourites. 
 Browne is the half-brother and successor of Fitzwilliam, 
 Earl of Southampton. Sir Nicholas Carew was a con- 
 stant agent of Henry, a Knight of the Garter, and one 
 of Anne Boleyn's enemies. Sir John Russell, afterwards 
 Lord Russell, was one of Sir Richard Weston 's executors. 
 Sir Richard Page was arrested with Francis Weston in 
 1536, but allowed to escape. Sir Francis Bryan was a 
 frequent envoy of Henry ; he was cousin of Anne Boleyn, 
 and brought news of her condemnation to Jane Seymour. 
 Gardiner called Bryan "the vicar of Hell." 3 The gentle- 
 men of the King's Privy Chamber in 1532 were not 
 burdened with scruples or indifferent to promotion. 
 
 Henry had privately married Anne Boleyn on 25th 
 
 1 Among various entries in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII. from 
 1529-32, edited by Sir Harris Nicolas (1527), are the following " Hose for 
 Weston, 153.," p. 15; "6 at Tennis," p. 37; "203. reward at Easter," 
 p. 37 j "reward for keeping a young hound, 153." (no doubt at Sutton Place), 
 p. 50. "A servant for bringing two bucks, 6s. 8d." ; in 1532 "the Kyng 
 lost at Pope Julius game to my lady marques, master Bryan, and Master 
 Weston, 9:6:8." Again at Greenwich, the same game and same 
 players, 18 : 12 : 4 ; again, the same game and same players without Bryan, 
 3:12:8. The "lady marques" here is obviously Anne Boleyn, created 
 in 1532 Marchioness of Pembroke. Weston, a lad barely of age, is one 
 of the royal minions at the intimate parties of play. 
 
 2 Calendar V. No. 927. 3 Friedmann, ii. 185, 302-9.
 
 94 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 January 1533, and in April he publicly appeared with 
 her as his wife. The coronation in Westminster Abbey 
 took place on 1st June following ; on 3151 May she 
 went in state from the Tower to Westminster, according 
 to the custom at coronations down to James II. On 
 that day Francis Weston was made Knight of the Bath, 
 and his name and arms are enrolled accordingly in the 
 MS. already cited as in the British Museum (Claudius 
 
 cm. xiv. E.) 
 
 At the coronation of Anne, says the historian, 1 " The 
 people remained silent. There was none of the en- 
 thusiasm with which in all ages Englishmen have greeted 
 a popular queen." It was not easy to find her an adequate 
 escort. So it appears that the young Court favourite, 
 now just twenty-two, was promoted to be Knight of the 
 Bath. " Among the friends of Anne there was a young 
 courtier named Sir Francis Weston, the son of Richard 
 Weston, Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer. He had 
 first been a royal page, but had risen to the rank of 
 Groom of the Privy Chamber, and was now one of the 
 gentlemen of it. For the last eighteen years, by reason 
 of his office, he had resided constantly at Court, and he 
 had obtained a good many grants and pensions. 2 In May 
 1530 he had married Ann, the daughter and heiress of 
 Sir Christopher Pickering, and having thus become a man 
 of considerable property, he was created at the coronation 
 of Anne a Knight of the Bath." 3 
 
 An account of the family of Pickering of Westmor- 
 
 1 Friedmann, i. 205. 
 
 2 This is a slip of the very accurate Mr. Friedmann. Francis Weston had 
 been seven years only at Court, 1526-33 (tttat. fifteen to twenty-two); he 
 does not seem to have had any pension but his salary. He is apparently 
 confused with his father. 3 Friedmann, ii. 248.
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 95 
 
 land and Cumberland proves that the heiress was of 
 ancient race and large possessions. 1 The estate of 
 Killington, in Kirby Kendal, had been granted to William 
 de Pickering, 44 Henry III. (1259). His descendant, 
 Sir James Pickering, married the heiress of Moresby, 
 Cumberland. Sir James's son, Sir Christopher Pickering, 
 had an only daughter, Ann, who ultimately inherited 
 the Pickering and Moresby estates. She was made the 
 ward of Sir Richard Weston on the death of her father, 
 Sir Christopher, in 1519 ; and eleven years later she was 
 married by her judicious guardian to his son, Francis, 
 then apparently about nineteen. She brought into his 
 family shield the quarterings of Pickering, Threlkeld, 
 Lassels of Eskrigg, Moresby, Fenwick, Tyliol, Longue- 
 villiers, Etton, and Lewkenor. 2 
 
 Their son (and only child), afterwards Sir Henry 
 Weston, was born in 1535. The next year Ann was a 
 widow. She then married Sir Henry Knyvett of East 
 Horsley, Surrey ; and her third husband (for heiresses 
 then never long remained single) was John Vaughan, 
 whom she outlived. She died in 1582, fifty-two years 
 after her first marriage, and nearly fifty years after the 
 great tragedy of her life. She is not mentioned in Sir 
 Richard's will, as she was then Lady Knyvett. By her 
 will she directed that her body should be buried, not near 
 that of any of her three husbands, but beside that of her 
 father-in-law, Sir Richard Weston, who had been laid in 
 Trinity Church, Guildford, just forty years before. 3 
 
 1 Nicholson and Burn, Westmorland, 410, 1777, vol. i. p. 261. 
 
 2 The arms of Pickering : Ermine, a lion rampant sable, crowned or, are 
 given by Benolt in the Visitation of Surrey, collection of arms with their 
 quarterings. They can no longer be seen at Button Place. 
 
 3 Manning and Bray, ii. 640.
 
 96 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 History knows nothing more serious of Sir Francis 
 Weston than his gambling escapades and tennis-playing 
 until the great tragedy in which he had a brief, humble, 
 but cruel share. This is not the place wherein to tell 
 again the oft-told tale of the judicial murder of Anne 
 Boleyn. It has lately been restudied and written afresh 
 by a learned student, who has ransacked the archives of 
 this and of foreign countries with great success. 1 
 
 So far as Weston was concerned the story is this. 
 It was in April 1536 that the first steps were taken 
 towards the execution of Anne Boleyn. On the 24th 
 the King signed a secret Commission authorising certain 
 persons named and nine judges to inquire into every kind 
 of treason and to try the offenders. Besides certain great 
 officials there were named Lord Sandys, Thomas Crom- 
 well, Fitzwilliam, and Paulet. The Commission met 
 avowedly to find evidence which might convict Anne of 
 guilt. " Her courtiers," we are told, " soon found out 
 that the surest road to her favour was either to tell her 
 that other men were in love with her, or to pretend that 
 they were in love with her themselves. She was extremely 
 coarse, and lived at a most dissolute court ; so that the 
 flattery she asked^ for was offered in no very modest 
 terms." 2 
 
 On the 30th April Mark Smeaton, a Groom of the 
 Chamber and player on the lute, was arrested, and either 
 torture, fear, or hope led him to confess that he had been 
 guilty of criminal acts. On ist May Noreys was 
 arrested ; on 2nd May Anne was taken to the Tower, 
 
 1 Anne Boleyn, a Chapter of English History, 1527-36, by Paul Friedmann, 
 2 vols., 8vo, Macmillan, 1884. It has also been told by Mr. Froude in his 
 slipshod and partisan style, Divorce of Catherine of Slragon, 1891. 
 
 * Friedmann, ii. 247.
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 97 
 
 and her brother, Lord Rochford, followed. The Queen 
 was put into the custody of Sir William Kingston, the 
 Constable (one of the "sad and ancient Knights" with 
 Sir Richard Weston in 1519), and of Lady Kingston, 
 to whom the old knight by his will bequeathed "the 
 Pownse Cupp with the cover." Fitzwilliam, Paulet, 
 and the Kingstons, with Lord Sandys, were foremost 
 amongst the enemies of the Queen. They were also all 
 old friends and colleagues of Sir Richard Weston. 
 
 In the Tower Anne began to talk to her attendants 
 in a state of hysterical excitement, and every word she 
 uttered was carried to Kingston and his wife. The 
 Queen talked of Noreys and then of Francis Weston. 
 Noreys was engaged to Margaret Shelton, Anne's cousin, 
 and one of her attendants. The Queen thought Francis 
 Weston was making love to the girl, neglecting his 
 young wife, who remained away from Court. She had 
 upbraided him, she said, with making love to Margaret 
 and for not loving his wife. The young man, perhaps 
 knowing her appetite for flattery, had answered that he 
 loved someone in her house more than either his wife or 
 Madge. Anne asked who was that, and Weston replied 
 it was herself, She professed to be very angry, it is said 
 slapped his face, rebuked him for his impudence, and told 
 him to go home to his own wife. Weston continued his 
 flirtation, and said that Noreys, like himself, came to her 
 chamber more for her sake than that of Madge. The 
 original account runs thus : 
 
 Sir William Kingston to Cromwell "Sir, syns the makynge 
 of thys letter the Quene spake of Wes[ton, saying that she] 
 had spoke to hym bycause he did love hyr kynswoman (Mrs. 
 Shelton and) said he loved not hys wyf, and he made ansere to 
 hyr [again that h]e loved wone in hyr howse better then them 
 
 H
 
 98 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 bothe. And [the Queen said who is] that ? It ys yourself. 
 And then she defyed hym, as [she said to me]. 
 
 "WILL'M KYNGSTON." 
 
 All this pitiful cackle the half-crazy Queen repeated 
 in the silly strain of the courts in which she had lived 
 from childhood, and under the influence of unnerved 
 anxiety and excitement. Every word of it was repeated 
 to Lady Kingston, and reported by Sir William to 
 Cromwell. An old copy of his report may be read 
 to-day in the British Museum. 1 That day Sir Francis 
 Weston was arrested and placed in the Tower. 
 
 The prisoners of the Queen's household were tried on 
 1 2th May, the Duke of Norfolk presiding, Henry and 
 Cromwell in secret arranging every detail. Smeaton 
 pleaded guilty, Weston and the rest not guilty, to all the 
 charges. For the grand jury twelve knights were sworn. 
 They were all officials, justices, sheriffs, and men trusted 
 by the Crown. A verdict of guilty was pronounced, and 
 they were all condemned to the horrible punishment 
 reserved by the old law for the crime of high treason. 
 " An attempt was made to save Sir Francis Weston, 
 whose family was powerful and rich, and had generally 
 sided with the Boleyns." 2 He was a very beautiful young 
 man, another historian relates, and his mother and wife 
 had offered a sum of 100,000 crowns for his life. 3 Even 
 
 1 Kingston to Cromwell, 3rd May 1536, Cotton MSS., Otho, C. x. fol. 
 225, British Museum j Ellis, ist series, ii. 53 ; Singer's Cavendish, ii. 217 j 
 Calendar X. No. 882. 
 
 2 Friedmann, ii. 283. 
 
 3 Miss Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. iv. 264. Mr. 
 Hepworth Dixon boldly says (Two Queens, iv. 321), "The young man's 
 mother, dressed in the deepest mourning, flung herself at the King's feet and 
 prayed for a reprieve. His young wife offered to give up everything they had 
 in the world land, houses, and manorial rights, the appanage of a baron if
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 99 
 
 the French king, whose name he bore, and perhaps whose 
 godson he was, seems to have interceded on his behalf. 
 "Quelque instance quaye faicte levesque de Tarbes 
 ambassadeur ordinaire de France et le Seigneur de 
 Tinteville lequel arryva yci avant hier pour en saulver 
 ung nomme Vaston." l He is also called " Master Ubaston 
 who used to lie with the king." On i6th May the con- 
 demned were told to prepare for execution. They 
 confessed, made out lists of their debts, wrote farewell 
 letters to their families, whom they were not suffered to see. 
 The letter of Sir Francis may be seen in the Record Office. 2 
 
 " Father and mother and wyfe, I shall humbly desyre you 
 for the salvacyon of my sowle to dyschardge me of thys byll, 
 and for to forgyve me of all the offences that I have done to 
 you. And in especyall to my wyfe, whiche I desyre for the 
 love of God to forgive me, and to pray for me, for I beleve 
 prayer wyll do me good. Goddys blessing have my chylderne 
 and meyne. By me a great offender to God. 
 
 " Endorsed detts to divers by S r Francis Weston." 
 
 The poor lad saw the truth at last. 
 
 The list of his debts at the end of which his letter was 
 written amounts to the sum of ^925 : 7 : 2, owing to 
 about fifty different persons. 
 
 the King would spare his life. But Henry wanted a confession, not a sum of 
 money, and he answered the broken-hearted women, ' Let him hang, let him 
 hang ! ' " But Mr. Dixon gives no authority for this somewhat melodramatic 
 scene ; nor does he give any for his assertion (p. 253) that Weston was near ot 
 kin to the Queen. We can hardly take either statement on the authority 
 of MSS.fenes Dixon. T-wo Queens, iii. 360 j iv. 253, 32 1, and Tower of London. 
 J. Husee to Lord Lisle, letter of I3th May, " If any escape, it will be young 
 Weston, for whom importunate suit is made." Calendar X. No. 865. 
 
 1 Chapuis to Charles V., igth May 1536, Calendar X. No. 908 ; also 
 quoted by Friedmann. It may be noted that Dinteville is no doubt the 
 ambassador in Holbein's famous picture lately added to the National Gallery. 
 
 a Henry VIII., 1536-37, x. No. 869.
 
 ioo ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 The lad owes " my cousin Dingley with my father " 
 30. He owes 6 to " Barnarde my father's Coke " ; to 
 "Browne, the draper," 50 ; to " Genenes, the page of 
 the chamber," 6:13:4; to " my lorde of Wylshyre," 
 Anne Boleyn's father, and one of his own judges, 40 in 
 angels j to "Bridges, my taylor," 26; to "parson 
 Robynson " 66 j " item to a pooer woman at the Tennes 
 play for bawles I cannot tell howe muche ! " to Mr. 
 Bryan, "the vicar of Hell" aforesaid, j6 in angels ; to 
 the Kynges Hyghnes 46 ; and to Marke Smeaton 
 73 -6: J. These of course are gambling debts. But 
 as the King had the boy's head, he would hardly ask for 
 the 46. He owes his shoemaker 4.6 (=S5 2 ) J to 
 Sir Richard Gresham 41 ; to " Lady Mosgrave " 56, 
 for which she held a pledge of plate ; and to Secheper 
 (? Shakespeare) that pleythe at the dyce, 30 crowns. 
 
 The total of the debt (925) might amount, say 
 roughly, to about 12,000 of our money, and was equal to 
 about ten times his yearly salary as Gentleman of the 
 Chamber. 1 It was a goodly list for a young man of twenty- 
 five. It was nearly three times the amount at which, 
 five years later, his father's whole personal estate was 
 proved by the executors. 
 
 By royal order the scaffold was prepared, not at 
 Tyburn, but on Tower Hill ; and instead of being 
 hanged, disembowelled, and quartered, the prisoners were 
 simply beheaded. They were allowed to address the 
 people who had come in great numbers to witness their 
 execution. They did not confess their guilt ; but as was 
 usual, and indeed necessary for the sake of their families 
 and possessions, they made no vehement protestations of 
 
 1 The salary of the Lord Chancellor was 200, and the revenues of the 
 Priory of St. John at the Dissolution were 282.
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 101 
 
 innocence. It was part of the terrible game that was 
 played by courtiers and politicians that if they spoke at 
 all they would not attack the government or their judges, 
 for ample means remained of bringing them to retribution. 1 
 So Weston, like the others, confessed that he was a sinner, 
 but said nothing which could be tortured into evidence 
 against the Queen. According to Constantine, in his 
 letter to Cromwell, Weston said : " I had thought to live 
 in abomination yet this twenty and thirty years, and then 
 to have made amends ; I little thought I would have come 
 to this. 2 
 
 So on Wednesday, the ijth of May, Sir Francis 
 Weston was executed on Tower Hill j and all the eye- 
 witnesses relate that he died with courage. " They died 
 very charitably," writes John Husee to Lord Lisle, igth 
 May (Calendar X. No. 919). 
 
 Nothing in life became him like the leaving it ; but like 
 the sovereign whom his great-grandson served in the next 
 century 
 
 " He nothing common did or mean 
 Upon that memorable scene, 
 But with his keener eye 
 The axe's edge did try ; 
 Nor called the Gods, with vulgar spite, 
 To vindicate his helpless right ; 
 But bowed his comely head 
 Down, as upon a bed." 3 
 
 1 In the Excerpta Historica, p. 260, is given a translation of a letter from 
 a Portuguese gentleman, probably an eye-witness of the execution of Anne 
 Boleyn and Weston, whom he calls Monsire Nestorn, "the which said no more 
 than that they besought the bystanders to pray for them, and that they yielded 
 themselves to death with joy and exceeding gladness of heart." 
 
 2 Friedmann, ii. 285 ; State Trials, i. 425 ; Wriothesley, Chrcn. Camden 
 Soc. 1875, pp. 36, 39 ; Hall, Henry fill., 214. 
 
 3 A. Marvell, Horatian Ode.
 
 102 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 The body with the head was placed in a simple shell, 
 and thrown into a grave with that of Noreys in the 
 churchyard of St. Peter's in the Tower. 1 
 
 The Queen was beheaded within the Tower on igth 
 May. She had undoubtedly caused the death of the poor 
 lad by her frenzied talk, as she had encouraged him to 
 continue with her a coarse and unmeaning flirtation. 
 There is not the slightest reason to assume any kind of 
 criminality between them worse than gross folly and 
 shameless indecorum. Anne was now a woman of thirty- 
 four, who had lost her health, her looks, and her spirit, 
 already on the verge of disgrace and repudiation, and 
 known to be surrounded by deadly enemies and unscrupu- 
 lous rivals. The wild lad was merely a butterfly casually 
 crushed between the fierce millstones of ambitious intrigue ; 
 and clearly he was a mere accidental object of Cromwell's 
 plot. The whole thing was as sudden as lightning. Sir 
 Francis, a gay and popular courtier, was arrested suddenly 
 on the 4th of May, and on the ijth he was a headless 
 corpse. This ijth of May was the same day of the same 
 month on which his father had helped in the execution of 
 Buckingham, and also that on which he had received the 
 princely gift of Sutton. 
 
 The judicial murder of his only son does not appear to 
 have made any difference in the official position of Sir 
 Richard Weston. The son was attainted, and all his goods 
 and estates were confiscated to the King, the list of debts 
 and request that they might be paid was an ordinary and 
 necessary form. The father's estate, offices, and favour 
 
 1 Camden Soc., Wriothesley's CAron. vol. i. p. 36 ; Hep. Dixon, Story of 
 T-wo i^uccnt ; Tower of London ; Doyne-Bell, The Tower ,- Miss Strickland, 
 Life of Anne Boleyn ; Weever, Memorials, p. 514 j Froude, Di-vorce of Catherine 
 of Ar agon, 1891.
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 103 
 
 were not touched by this disaster. In the days when 
 desperate games were played at Court, wherein the stakes 
 were heads, it was a point of honour with the gamblers 
 to pay the forfeit with a good grace and bear no malice. 
 The Earl of Wiltshire (Sir Thomas Boleyn) was duly 
 summoned to the Court which condemned his own son 
 and daughter to death ; and the Duke of Norfolk, the 
 hero of Flodden, with tears in his eyes condemned the 
 Duke of Buckingham to the scaffold. 
 
 Sir Richard bore his bereavement like a man, retained 
 the King's good graces, saw the childhood of the grand- 
 son who survived to inherit Sutton, and was appointed 
 by Henry and by Cromwell, the two murderers of his 
 only son, to attend the ceremonies and funeral of 
 Jane Seymour, the baptism of Edward VI., and the 
 state reception of Anne of Cleves, Henry's fourth 
 wife. 
 
 The young widow in due course married Sir Henry 
 Kny vett, one of the comrades and fellow-courtiers of her 
 first husband, and doubtless forgot her brilliant young 
 spouse, of whom she had seen so little. 
 
 There is a curious and interesting account of Francis 
 Weston and his execution in Crapelet's Lettres de Henri 
 VIII. (2nd ed., Paris, 1835, p. 185). It is in the form 
 of a poem, in French, composed in London, 2nd June 
 1536. Weston, it says, was young, of high and ancient 
 lineage, of good manners, and exceeding all in elegance ; 
 in jousts, in the dance, and in leaping a perfect athlete, 
 and in tennis excelling the most skilful players of the 
 nation. None dared intercede for him but his mother, 
 who, oppressed with grief, humbly petitioned the King, 
 and his wife, who offered freely rents and goods (i.e. lands 
 and chattels) for his deliverance. But the King resolves
 
 io 4 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 that the sentence passed at their trial should be carried 
 out. And if money had had any avail for him, the fine 
 would have been 100,000 crowns. 
 The French is : 
 
 " Pauvre Waston qui estoit de jeune aagc 
 Yssu de hault et tres ancien lignage 
 De bonnes meurs et graces tous passant, 
 En lisse, en bal, a saulter, efFa^ant 
 En jeu de paulme en grand perfection 
 Les plus adroitz de cette nation. 
 Et de tous biens en luy tant abondait, 
 Que le pays tout honore rendoit. 
 Nul pour luy n'en osa faire instance 
 Sinon sa mere, en grand dueil oppressee, 
 Qui humblement au Roy s'est adressee ; 
 Sa femme aussi, offrant enticement 
 Rentes et biens pour son delivrement. 
 Mais le Roi veult que soit executee 
 De leur proces la sentence arrestee, 
 Et si 1'argent pour luy eust eu puissance 
 D'escuz cent mil eust fixe la chevance." 
 
 Out of this plain tale Mr. Hepworth Dixon and Mr. 
 Froude have elaborated melodramatic romances of their 
 own. Mr. Dixon tells us that the "mother, dressed in 
 the deepest mourning, flung herself at the King's feet." 
 All we know is that she was " oppressed with grief," and 
 humbly addressed the King, possibly by petition. Mr. 
 Froude says the mother and young wife "appeared in 
 court," meaning before the judge and jury. That would 
 have startled even a Tudor judge, and was quite impos- 
 sible even in that age. Mr. Dixon tells us that Henry 
 answered the broken-hearted women, "Let him hang, 
 let him hang ! " Mr. Froude tells us that Weston was
 
 iv SIR FRANCIS WESTON, THE SON & HEIR 105 
 
 well known in Paris, and had been much liked there. 
 We have not a word recorded of Henry, nor is there a 
 trace of the lad having ever gone to Paris. Next we are 
 told that M. Dinteville came over as his friend. But 
 M. Dinteville was a special ambassador of Francis. And 
 then Mr. Froude quotes the lad's last letter (see above, 
 p. 99), in which, by the way, he inserts three errors of 
 copying, as proof of young Weston's guilt. It is well 
 known that discreet silence in prison and at the scaffold 
 was the price that one paid for being spared torture and 
 confiscation. Mr. Froude's argument would excuse every 
 judicial murder by any Tudor or Stuart sovereign. The 
 idea of Weston's self- proven guilt is as gratuitous 
 an invention as Mr. Dixon's "deepest mourning," 
 "the appanage of a baron," and the King's "Let him 
 hang ! " or Mr. Froude's own introduction of the wife 
 and mother at the trial offering bribes to judge and 
 jury, Weston's Parisian popularity, and M. Dinteville's 
 friendship. 
 
 Assuredly Francis Weston was not a man to be 
 remembered long. The doggerel of the Rhyming 
 Chronicle in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey 1 puts the truth 
 when it runs thus : 
 
 " Weston the wanton, ye shall understand, 
 That wantonly lyved without feare or dreade. 
 
 Beyng but young, and skant out of the shell, 
 I was dayntely noryshed under the king's wyng, 
 Who highly favored me and loved me so well 
 That I had all my will and lust in everything." 
 
 1 Cavendish, Life ofFPohey, by Singer, vol. ii. p. 30.
 
 io6 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. iv. 
 
 A wanton and a worthless youth ! But youth, beauty, 
 high courage, and splendid station, suddenly cut off in 
 blood amidst the whirl of a great historical tragedy, 
 command our sympathies, we know not why, and 
 however little reason for sorrow that we find in sober 
 reflection. 
 
 1111 '' 'iiillim.ilWIlIflllF'l'llllV. 'Ml in:, 1 ..!' 1 i -
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SIR HENRY WESTON 
 
 HENRY WESTON, the only child of Francis, who was the 
 only son of Sir Richard, was an infant in his first year 
 at the date of his father's bloody death, and a boy of 
 seven when by the death of his grandfather he succeeded 
 under the will as devisee of all Sir Richard's lands. He 
 could not of course inherit through his father, whose 
 attainder involved "corruption of blood." It appears 
 by the inquisition taken after the death of Sir Richard l 
 that Henry, the only son of the attainted Sir Francis, 
 was born in 1535, and that his aunts, Margaret, Lady 
 Dennys, and Catherine, Lady Rogers, were alive. 
 
 Young Henry was bred to arms, not to courts. 
 
 1 R. Off. Inquhit. Post Mortem, 33-34 Henry VIII., Berkshire.
 
 io8 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 During the stormy times which closed the reign of 
 Henry VIII., and which followed on the reigns of 
 young Edward and Mary, the heir of Sutton was a 
 youth in his teens. He came of age in the fourth year 
 of Mary's reign, in the height of her effort to restore the 
 Catholic faith by force. 
 
 The young soldier distinguished himself in the war 
 with France, which broke out when he was but twenty- 
 two ; and at the age of twenty - three he was greatly 
 honoured for the gallant stand he made when Calais was 
 lost for ever to the English crown, to the inexpressible 
 grief of Queen Mary, as we all know, and the incalcul- 
 able advantage of the English people. Mary, as we are 
 told, died of grief within a few months of this memor- 
 able feat of arms. 
 
 At the accession of Elizabeth, in 1558, the young 
 hero of Calais stood high in favour. As a minor he had 
 taken no part in politics or in the great religious revolu- 
 tions of the last twenty years. His father died on the 
 scaffold during the judicial murder of Elizabeth's mother, 
 and had undoubtedly fallen a sacrifice to her mother's 
 imprudent conduct, and to the bitter animosity of her 
 mother's enemies. He himself had married a lady of the 
 noblest blood, who was a cousin of Elizabeth herself, and 
 who, like her husband, had lost a father on the scaffold. 
 
 Accordingly, at the coronation of Elizabeth, January 
 1559, Sir Henry Weston was created Knight of the 
 Bath, and his name and arms are duly entered in the 
 MS. volume already cited, 1 as had been those of his 
 father and grandfather. 
 
 1 Cotton MSS., Claudius CIII. XIV. E. The arms given are quarterly of 
 six i. Wtaon. 2. Camell, as before, chap. iii. 3. Pickering: Ermine, a lion 
 rampant table, armed gules, ducally crowned or. .4. Lascelles of Eskrigg :
 
 v SIR HENRY WESTON 109 
 
 In the year 1550, second to third year of Edward VI. 
 cap. 6, by Act of Parliament, he had obtained restitution 
 in blood after the attainder of his father, and possession 
 of all estates which he had inherited through his father. 
 And in the same year the estates at Clan don were 
 confirmed to him which had been leased for sixty years 
 to Sir Richard in 1532 (Pat. 2 Eliz., Treas. Remembr.) 
 Sir Henry was thus a man of large possessions, being in 
 enjoyment of the lands of his grandfather, Sir Richard, 
 and entitled in remainder to the lands of his mother, the 
 heiress of Pickering. She died in 1582. 
 
 Sir Henry Weston married in 1559 Dorothy, 1 daughter 
 of Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour, also, like Sir Francis 
 Weston, one of the Knights of the Bath at the corona- 
 tion of Anne Boleyn, and also beheaded for treason 
 (1552) as one of the partisans of the Protector Somerset, 
 on the fall of the haughty Seymour. Her mother, 
 Margaret Howard, sister of Catherine Howard, the 
 fifth wife of Henry VIII., was the elder daughter of 
 Lord Edmund Howard, Marshal of the Horse at the 
 battle of Flodden, and granddaughter of the second 
 Duke of Norfolk, the famous commander in that battle. 
 
 Argent, three chaplets gules. 5. Moresby (Cumberland) : Sable, a cross 
 argent, in the first quarter a cinquefoil or. 6. Femvick (Northumberland) : 
 Perfesse, gules and argent, six martlets counter-changed. Crest : A camel 
 table, spotted argent, collared and hoofed or. 
 
 1 This lady is named Margaret in Segar's great pedigree of Weston in the 
 British Museum, and this has been followed by Manning, Hoare, Collins, 
 and others. It appears from a very fine old pedigree of the Arundells and 
 from family deeds, now in the possession of Lord Arundell and Wardour at 
 Wardour Castle, Wilts, that her only name was Dorothy. So also in the 
 parish register of West Clan don, Surrey, the birth of her sons is thus 
 registered, e.g. "1561, I3th October, was baptized Henry, son of Sir H. 
 Weston, knight, and Dorothy, his wife." It throws some suspicion over 
 the accuracy of Segar's pompous pedigree, with its roots traced back to Adam, 
 when we find him in error on so important a name.
 
 no ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Through her mother, Margaret Howard, Lady Weston 
 was thus allied to the royal house and to the noblest 
 families of the age. Her family history is so charac- 
 teristic of the times, and is stained with bloodshed so 
 often and so continuously, that it may be of interest to 
 follow it. 
 
 Lady Weston's father, Sir Thomas Arundell, of an 
 ancient family in the west, obtained from his father, Sir 
 John Arundell, the grant of Wardour Castle, in Wilt- 
 shire, formerly a royal possession. His mother was 
 Eleanor, youngest daughter of Thomas Grey, second 
 Marquis of Dorset. Her three brothers, Henry, Duke 
 of Suffolk, Thomas, and Leonard, were all beheaded. 
 Eleanor's nieces were Lady Jane Grey, who married 
 Guildford Dudley, and Catherine, who married Lord 
 Hertford, and died of her cruel confinement in the 
 Tower in 1567. Henry, Duke of Suffolk, who was 
 beheaded in 1554, married Frances, eldest daughter and 
 co -heiress of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by 
 Mary, sister of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas Arundell, 
 by his wife, Margaret Howard, became the grandfather 
 of Sir Thomas Arundell, the hero of the battle of 
 Gran, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, 1595, and 
 first Baron Arundell, 1605. 
 
 Sir Thomas Arundell, father of Lady Weston, and 
 his wife, Margaret Howard, were both committed to the 
 Tower, and he was executed in the desperate duel 
 between the Protector Somerset and Dudley, Duke 
 of Northumberland, in I552. 1 
 
 Margaret Howard, mother of Dorothy, Lady Weston 
 (temp. Queen Elizabeth), was by her father's side grand- 
 daughter of the second Duke of Norfolk, attainted in 
 
 1 Machyn'g Diary, pp. 10, 15.
 
 v SIR HENRY WESTON in 
 
 1485, but eventually restored, and great-granddaughter 
 of the first Duke of Norfolk, the Jockey of Norfolk, 
 who lost his life on the field of Bos worth. Her uncle, 
 the third Duke of Norfolk, was attainted in 1546 ; her 
 cousin, the Earl of Surrey, was beheaded in 1547 ; the 
 Earl's son, fourth Duke of Norfolk, was beheaded in 
 1572 ; and his son Philip, Earl of Arundel, was attainted 
 and died in the Tower, 1594. Margaret Howard's 
 sister was Catherine Howard, whom, on sufficient 
 proof of her adultery and vice, Henry beheaded in 
 1542. Margaret Howard's aunt was Elizabeth, the 
 wife of Thomas Boleyn, Lord Rochford and Earl of 
 Wiltshire, whose daughter was Anne Boleyn, and whose 
 son was Lord Rochford, both beheaded in 1536, as was 
 also Lady Rochford in 1542. 
 
 Dorothy Arundell, Lady Weston, whose portrait 
 smiles so gracefully from the walls of the hall where 
 she entertained Elizabeth, was thus a lady endowed 
 with a somewhat interesting family tree, full of splendid 
 alliances and of blood-stained records. She was the 
 cousin of four queens, of Catherine Howard, Anne 
 Boleyn, Elizabeth, and Lady Jane Grey. Her father's 
 uncle, her mother's sister and cousin, had all three 
 married into the royal house of Tudor, the first being 
 the husband of Henry VIII. 's niece, and the two latter 
 being wives of Henry himself. The heralds must have 
 drawn up her genealogical tree with unusual expectation 
 of reward and no little professional unction j for it is 
 freely studded with dukes, duchesses, princesses, kings, 
 and queens. And as these illustrious personages really 
 have a place in the history of England, the tree is not 
 nearly so imaginative as is too often the case with the 
 heraldic glories of that age.
 
 ii2 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 But if the tree is full of splendid alliances, it is also 
 as full of bloody memories. It is at once comical and 
 shocking to note how a person of distinguished lineage 
 in that sixteenth century could make out a list of rela- 
 tions by blood or marriage who had all suffered death 
 on the scaffold or had been attainted as " traitors." In 
 fact, in Tudor times to be attainted as traitor was nearly 
 equivalent to the modern phrase of "going out of 
 office " ; and to be gently born at all, it was almost 
 essential that at least one member of your family 
 should have been condemned to be hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered. 
 
 The following chronological table may represent the 
 havoc which politics had made in the family of Dorothy 
 Weston nee Arundell : 
 
 ATTAINTED RELATIONS OF DOROTHY ARUNDELL, WIFE OF 
 SIR HENRY WESTON, I 560. 
 
 Father's side. 
 
 1. Her father, Sir T. Arundell . . beheaded 1552 
 
 2. Father-in-law, Sir Francis Weston . 1536 
 
 3. Father's uncle, Henry, Duke of Suffolk 1554 
 
 4. Thomas, Lord Grey . 1554 
 
 5. Leonard, Lord Grey . 1541 
 
 6. Father's first cousin, Lady Jane Grey . 1554 
 
 7. Lady Jane's husband, Guildford Dudley 1554 
 
 8. Lady Jane's brother-in-law, Francis Dudley 1554 
 
 9. Lady Jane's father-in-law, Duke of Northumber- 
 
 land, beheaded 1554 
 
 10. Father's first cousin, Catherine Seymour, died 
 
 prisoner in the Tower 1567
 
 v SIR HENRY WESTON 113 
 
 Mother's side. 
 
 11. Her mother, Lady Arundell, attainted but not 
 
 beheaded . . . . . . -1552 
 
 12. Mother's sister, Catherine Howard, beheaded . 1542 
 
 13. Mother's first cousin, Anne Boleyn, beheaded . 1536 
 
 14. Mother's first cousin, Earl of Surrey, beheaded . 1547 
 
 15. Mother's first cousin by marriage, Lady Rochford, 
 
 beheaded 1542 
 
 16. Mother's cousin, fourth Duke of Norfolk, beheaded 1 572 
 
 17. Mother's sister-in-law, Ann Howard, attainted . 1542 
 
 1 8. Uncle, third Duke of Norfolk, attainted . . 1546 
 
 19. Grandfather, second Duke of Norfolk, attainted . 1485 
 
 20. Great-grandfather, first Duke of Norfolk, killed in 
 
 civil war ....... 1485 
 
 21. Cousin, Earl of Arundel, died in the Tower, at- 
 
 tainted ........ 1594 
 
 22. Great-uncle, Lord Thomas Howard, attainted, died 
 
 in the Tower . . . . . -1536 
 
 She must have been a fine lady. The noble portrait 
 in the hall reputed to be by Federigo Zucchero re- 
 presents her as she stood there in the heyday of her 
 dignity and grace. She is attired in the Venetian laces 
 and brocades, with frill, ruff, head-dress, in the style so 
 familiar to us as that of Elizabeth. The embroideries 
 are superb, and she is covered with jewels, in the fashion 
 of that time, holding a feather fan in her hand. The 
 picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 
 Burlington House in 1884, and was described as by 
 Zucchero, full length, canvas 71 by 40 inches. 
 Zucchero, who was born in 1543, and worked much 
 in Flanders, came to England in 1574, where he stayed 
 until 1578, painting the Queen, her courtiers, and 
 
 I
 
 H4 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 ministers, amongst others Lord Howard of Effingham, 
 who was at once a cousin and neighbour of Lady 
 Weston. The date of the picture was about 1575, when 
 she was about thirty-five. But, of course, the experts 
 refer the portrait to some other hand. There is also a 
 portrait of her about fifteen years later, in which we see the 
 same features, somewhat dimmed by the advance of years. 
 Sir Henry Weston was Sheriff of Surrey in 1569 and 
 in 1 57 1, and he represented the county in the Parliament 
 of 1 57 1. 1 He entertained Elizabeth at Sutton Place 
 on several occasions. 2 The first occasion was in the 
 beginning of her reign, in her second year, when the 
 Protestant religion was being officially re-established. 
 Sir Henry, who had been recently knighted and married, 
 was but twenty-five years of age, and was in the first 
 spring of his youthful fame and splendour. On that 
 occasion a fire took place in the house, the exact effect 
 of which is not quite apparent. In Machyn's Diary 
 ( Camden Society Publications^ p. 241 ) we read : " The 
 vij day of August was Suttun bornyd, wher the Quen's 
 grase dyd ly iij nyghtes afor, that was master Westun's 
 plase." Again Elizabeth was certainly there in Septem- 
 ber 1591, on her way from Farnham to Richmond, and 
 we have a letter of hers to Sir H. Unton, ambassador 
 in France, "given under our signet at Sutton near 
 Guildford," nth November I59I. 3 
 
 1 Loseley MSS., by Rev. A. J. Kempe, 1835. In order to fill his public 
 office of sheriff Sir Henry was compelled to conform to the Elizabethan 
 regimen, and accordingly we find that he made a declaration of "obedience 
 to the Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer and Observance of the 
 Sacraments." Calendar, Elizabeth, 1547-80, p. 348, the date being 28th 
 November 1569. 
 
 2 Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, chap. i. p. 86, and chap. iii. 
 p. 121. 3 Rymer, Feed. chap. xvi. p. 122.
 
 v SIR HENRY WESTON 115 
 
 At the second visit Sir Henry must have been a man 
 of fifty-six, and Elizabeth was two years older. Many 
 things had happened in the interval. Mary Queen of 
 Scots had been executed just three years, and the Armada 
 had been destroyed just two years before. The tremend- 
 ous struggle between the two religions was at its height, 
 and the times were dark and terrible, especially to 
 Englishmen who were not willing to worship in the 
 forms prescribed by the imperious daughter of the first 
 Defender of the Faith. Sir Henry may have retained 
 the personal goodwill of his sovereign, but he holds no 
 office now. He is employed neither in war nor in peace. 
 He no longer serves in Parliament ; he receives neither 
 grant nor honour. The Reformation is established, and 
 the Westons of Sutton Place have henceforward no part 
 with princes, courts, and office ; and they drop quietly 
 from the pages of English history, well content if they 
 can preserve their heads, their liberty, and the remnant 
 of their estates from the grasp of a government wherein 
 they have no share. 
 
 Sir Henry Weston is frequently referred to in the 
 Loseley papers abstracted by the Historical Manuscripts 
 Commission^ vol. vii. He is at Loseley (p. 649 a] ; Lord 
 Howard of Effingham writes to Sir W. More (5th April 
 1591) begging Sir William's good offices to obtain elec- 
 tion of Lord Howard's " cousin," Sir H. Weston, to the 
 vacant office of Verderer of Windsor Forest. In another 
 letter (p. 661 b] Lord Howard speaks of Sir Henry "as 
 his good friend and kinsman." Sir Henry asks for the 
 support of Sir W. More in his election, 1558-59. There 
 is a letter (lyth November 1569) from Thomas Copley to 
 Sir H. Weston begging for reasonable time to consult his 
 conscience (p. 622 a]. In the Calendars^ 1547-80, there are
 
 n6 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 many notices of his acting as magistrate in formal 
 matters. 
 
 It seems almost certain that Sir Henry Weston was a 
 secret supporter of the old faith. In 1569 a letter is 
 addressed to Sir Henry, then High-Sheriff for Surrey, by 
 one Sir Thomas Copley of Gatton, who signs himself 
 "your loving neighbour and assured pore friend," 1 in 
 which Sir Thomas begs his loving neighbour's protection 
 and help under the persecution to which he was exposed. 
 Now this Sir Thomas Copley was a " Popish recusant " 
 of the most pronounced kind, most dangerous to 
 Elizabeth's government ; he retired to the Spanish 
 Netherlands, and ultimately joining the Spanish arms, 
 served in war against his country and Queen, and died 
 in 1584. Letters of marque were granted to him by 
 Requesens, Philip's viceroy, in which he is styled Don 
 Thomas Copleus. It was the great-granddaughter of 
 Sir Thomas, Mary Copley, who ultimately brought the 
 estates of Gatton to the Westons, when she married, in 
 1637, John Weston, the great-grandson of Sir Henry. 
 
 It is melancholy that no evidence can be found that 
 Sir Henry drew or offered his sword in the great struggle 
 which Elizabeth waged with the foreign powers for her 
 life and nation, 1584-88. There is rather evidence to 
 the contrary. Sir Henry was not more than fifty, and 
 had yet seven years of life. At the end of May 1584, 
 whilst the murder of Elizabeth and invasion was im- 
 minent, just one month before the assassination of the 
 great William of Orange, it was ordered, 315! May, that 
 1000 men should be raised in Surrey, and the following 
 captains of 250 men each were named Sir Henry 
 Weston, Sir T. Carew, Sir T. Browne, Sir George 
 
 1 Loseley MSS., 1835, pp. 241, 243.
 
 v SIR HENRY WESTON 117 
 
 More ; but it is recorded that " Sir Henry Weston, 
 having great occasion to be in the North this summer, 
 desires to be discharged as captain^ and W. Gresham was 
 appointed in his room " (Manning, iii. p. 666). Sir H. 
 Weston's name does not after this appear in the official 
 records of Surrey, nor is he mentioned in the story of the 
 Armada, 1588. 
 
 Again in 1 59 1 l there is recorded an order to search Sutton 
 House for concealed priests, and to find one Morgan, be- 
 lieved to be there concealed under a false name. 2 
 
 Sir Henry Weston died nth April 1592, at the age 
 of fifty-seven, having made his will the year preceding, 
 which was duly proved, i6th May 1592. In it there is 
 no trace of the Catholic profession so obvious in the will 
 of Sir Richard. The Queen is named as Defender of 
 the Faith. The knight is described as of Sutton, in the 
 parish of Woking, and goes on : " First I commend 
 my soul to Almighty God and to His Son Jesus Christ, 
 my Saviour and Redeemer, and to the Holy Ghost, 
 Three Persons and one God ; most humbly beseeching 
 the most Holy and blessed Trinity to have mercy on my 
 soul, and to pardon and forgive my sins and offences ; 
 that I may after this mutable life ende with the Elect, 
 and have the life and fruition of the Godhead by the 
 death and passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 
 This is evidently the writing of a man who has before his 
 eyes the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the service- 
 book of Edward VI., as now by law was established. It 
 is the language of the Judicious Hooker, nay, almost it 
 might seem of Jeremy Taylor or John Milton. 
 
 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. vii. 649. 
 
 2 In the will of Sir Henry is the gift of a mourning ring to " his cozen 
 Morgan."
 
 ii8 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 There is not the slightest reason to suppose that this 
 edifying and somewhat Calvinistic formula was at all the 
 composition of the gallant knight himself. He is as little 
 responsible for the sonorous benedictions as he is for the 
 legal verbiage of the bequests that follow. In 1590 it 
 would have been most dangerous to deny that the Queen 
 was Defender of the Faith. And a man who was known 
 as "the loving neighbour" of Sir Thomas Copley, the 
 recusant, rebel, and traitor, and whose house had just 
 been searched for a concealed priest, might naturally leave 
 the drafting of his will to the learned doctors of the Court 
 of Arches, whose business it was. His own last words 
 can be as little taken literally as those of his father on the 
 scaffold. 
 
 The will directed that the testator should be buried in 
 the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, where his grandfather 
 had been laid exactly fifty years before, which had opened 
 for his own mother just ten years before. There were 
 gifts to the poor of Guildford and Woking, West Clandon 
 and Merrow, Send and Ockham. 
 
 He gives to his wife various chattels, sheep, cattle, 
 horses, " and one coach which was my Lady, rny mother's, 
 with all the furniture therewith belonging," and two 
 coach-horses, six feather beds, " whereof one of them to 
 be the bed that I now lie on." He gives to his wife one 
 half of his plate, and the jugs of ivory bound with ribs 
 of silver, and the one half of his linen, and the furniture 
 of the chamber " known as my Lord of Leicester's 
 Chamber," and he gives to his wife for her life all the 
 furniture of his house at Clandon. There are numerous 
 gifts to servants, a gift of personalty at Sutton to his son 
 Richard, legacies to his half-brothers, Sir Henry Knyvett 
 and Thomas Knyvett, and to his half-sister Lady Dacres.
 
 SIR HENRY WESTON 
 
 119 
 
 He gives to his daughter Jane the residue of the personalty 
 at Pirford and Ockham, and he appoints his daughter 
 Jane sole executrix. There are legacies to Sir W. More 
 (of Loseley), his cousin Morgan, E. Slyfield, his cousin 
 Stoughton ; and then he directs that the estates, manors, 
 lands, tenements, and hereditaments shall go according to 
 the terms of a series of settlements made in the same year, 
 John Weston the younger being therein described as of 
 Ockham. 
 
 So the gallant Sir Henry, having made his disposition 
 of his goods, and having commended his soul to God, 
 was buried in Trinity Church, Guildford, and was 
 succeeded in the estate of Sutton by his son, Richard.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SIR RICHARD WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST, 1613-52 
 
 SIR HENRY WESTON, the heroic knight and defender of 
 Calais, in which fortress his grandfather had so long held 
 office, was succeeded by his son, the second Sir Richard, 
 who was born 1564, and who was knighted by James I. 
 on his accession at Whitehall, 23rd July I6O3- 1 He 
 married Jane, daughter of John Dister of Bergholt, Essex, 
 2yth May 1583.2 He died September 1613, and was 
 interred in Trinity Church, Guildford, his wife surviving 
 him until 1625 ; she was buried at West Clandon. His 
 life seems to have been absolutely uneventful, both in the 
 history of his country and of his own family. He was 
 succeeded by his eldest son, the third Richard, fourth in 
 
 1 Nichols's Progresses of Jama /., vol. i. 215. As is well known, James I. 
 made knighthood compulsory on all gentlemen of an adequate estate j and in 
 his canny way treated it as a source of royal revenue. 
 
 * Parish Register of West Clandon, Surrey.
 
 CH.VI SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 121 
 
 descent from the founder, who was born in 1591, and 
 was thus twenty-two on his accession to the estate. 
 
 The third Sir Richard was a man of enterprise, who 
 passed much of his life abroad in Flanders, where it is 
 said that, as a Catholic, he was educated. He introduced 
 many agricultural and industrial improvements into 
 England. In 1622 he was knighted at Guildford by 
 James I. 1 In 1641, doubtless to carry on his canal 
 scheme, he sold Temple Court Farm, at Merrow, with 
 the mansion at West Clandon, to Sir Richard Onslow, 
 M.P. for Surrey in the Long Parliament, and a stout 
 Parliamentarian. This was the origin of the Clandon 
 estates of the Earls of Onslow. 2 
 
 In 1645, the year of the battle of Naseby, in the 
 midst of the civil wars, Sir Richard Weston published 
 anonymously a very remarkable book on agriculture, in 
 which he detailed a system that effected a practical 
 
 1 Manning and Bray, iii. p. 89. 
 
 2 During the absence of Sir Richard Weston abroad it is said that Sutton 
 Place was occupied by Ann, Countess of Arundel, widow of Philip Howard, 
 eldest son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded in 1572. 
 Philip, Earl of Arundel, was attainted in 1590, and died in the Tower, it is 
 thought by poison, in 1 594. A few years ago, in making some alterations 
 in Sutton Place, a deed was found concealed, executed by " Anne, Countesse 
 Dowager of Arundell," dated I3th April 1621. The south bay window 
 (light 3) has the arms of Fitzalan, seventeenth Earl of Arundel, quartering 
 Widville, Clun, Maltravers. Obviously this is a simple coincidence, and 
 was long before the time of Ann, widow of Philip Howard, in 1621. It 
 appears from the Coke MSS., in the possession of Lord Cowper at Melbourne 
 Hall, that in 1619 the Countess sent for a physician from London to attend 
 her grandchild, Charles Howard, who was seized, as it would seem, with 
 peritonitis, and who died at Sutton Place. The aged Countess wrote from 
 thence : " I beseech you send with speed the best doctor may be had." The 
 physician who came down, and who attended the child and conducted the 
 post-mortem, was the illustrious William Harvey, then at the height of his 
 reputation. We must count the immortal discoverer of the circulation of 
 the blood as amongst the historical persons who have stayed in the house.
 
 122 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 revolution in British farming. In the valuable historical 
 sketch prefixed to the article on " Agriculture " in the 
 Encyclopaedia Brltannlca^ vol. i. p. 297 (gth edition), Mr. 
 J. Wilson, the eminent authority on farming, declares 
 that Sir Richard's little volume marks " the dawn of the 
 vast improvements which have since been effected in 
 Britain." Mr. Wilson makes the natural mistake of 
 confounding our Sir Richard with Sir Richard Weston, 
 his kinsman, the ambassador, and afterwards minister as 
 Earl of Portland ; but he speaks of him as having the 
 merit of being " the first to introduce the c great clover,' 
 as it was then called, into English agriculture about 
 1645, and, probably, turnips also. His directions for the 
 cultivation of clover are better than was to be expected." 
 The result was astonishing. In less than ten years after 
 its introduction, says Mr. Wilson, " the cultivation of 
 clover, exactly according to the present method, seems 
 to have been well known in England." It is interesting 
 to the present writer, as he pens these words, to note in 
 the high " Manor Field," by the Chapel of St. Edward, 
 one of the most magnificent crops of red clover in blossom 
 to be seen in the county. After 400 years of stormy 
 history the deserted and ruinous manor for which Roger 
 Bigod and his peers had contended was to be the nursery 
 of scientific agriculture in Great Britain. 
 
 Sir Richard introduced into England from his foreign 
 experiences other grasses, and also the systematic cultiva- 
 tion of turnips. He was the first, we are told, to cultivate 
 turnips as a cattle crop. The importance of this cannot 
 be over-estimated. As Mr. Wilson says (Ency. Brit. i. 
 297), "the introduction of turnips as a field crop consti- 
 tutes one of the most marked epochs in British agri- 
 culture." Sir Richard was an enthusiast for agriculture,
 
 vi SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 123 
 
 and his little book has a curious bibliographical as well 
 as historical interest. It was frequently reprinted, but 
 remained without a name, and was never directly 
 acknowledged or even published by its author. It is 
 extremely rare ; but it may be seen in various forms in 
 the British Museum. It was first published in 1645, 
 without name, by Samuel Hartlib, Milton's friend and 
 correspondent, a busy Puritan pamphleteer and editor. 
 In 1651 Hartlib published, in small quarto size, what he 
 calls an Enlargement of the Discourse of Husbandry used in 
 Brabant and Flanders Sir Richard lesion's Legacy to 
 his Sons. To that edition Hartlib prefixes a preface of 
 his own, in which he says that the author of the discourse 
 which he formerly published was unknown to him, but 
 having lighted on a more perfect copy he offers it to the 
 public in a second edition. Hartlib prints two letters of 
 his own, dated 2nd May and loth October 1651, to Sir 
 Richard Weston, begging him to revise and republish 
 the book, but he seems to have had no answer at all from 
 the knight, who died in 1652, at the age of sixty-one. 
 And then Hartlib published in 1652 an edition, corrected 
 and enlarged, entitled A Discourse of Husbandry used In 
 Brabant and Flanders : showing the wonderful improve- 
 ment of land there ; and serving as a pattern for our 
 practice in this commonwealth. It is preceded by a long 
 and flowery Scriptural appeal to the Council of State by 
 Hartlib himself. The garrulous Puritan continued to 
 publish other works on husbandry, to which he added 
 little, having no practical knowledge of his own. 
 
 Sir Richard's own work is curious and instructive, and, 
 as being exactly contemporary with Milton's famous 
 tractates, it has a certain literary interest. The earnest- 
 ness, the solemnity, the involved sentences, the occasional
 
 i2 4 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 dignity of its rhythm remind one of a tiro whose ideal 
 was the epistle to Mr. Hartlib on education. It is a real 
 testament or last will. It opens thus : " My sonnes, I 
 have left this short ensuing Treatise to you as a Legacy ; 
 if I shall not live my selfe, to show you (what therein is 
 written) by examples, which I know instruct far more 
 then precepts ; yet precepts from a dying father, 
 instructing of his children what he hath seen and known 
 and received information of from witnesses free from all 
 exceptions, should make such an impression on them, as 
 at least to believe their father writ what he thought was 
 true ; and therefore suppose those things worthy to be 
 put in practice by them, which he himself would have 
 done, if it had pleased God to have granted him Life and 
 Liberty " and five or six lines more before the verbose 
 old knight can end his sentence. 
 
 He then goes on to show how his method will 
 improve barren and heathy land by ways commonly 
 practised in Brabant and Flanders, but unknown in 
 England, and lead to a noble augmentation of an estate. 
 " That man is worthy of praise and honour, who being 
 possessor of a large and barren demesne constrains it by his 
 labour and industry to produce extraordinary fruit, which 
 redounds not only to his own particular profit, but also 
 to the public benefit. Cato saith, it is a great shame 
 to a man, not to leave his inheritance greater to his 
 successors than he received it from his predecessors." 
 
 He says the object of all men is to get land and to 
 cultivate it. He waxes eloquent, if not extravagant, like 
 all projectors, over the vast profits to be made by his 
 system. " By this little Treatise you shall learn how to 
 do more than treble your principal in one year's compass ; 
 and you shall see how an industrious man in Brabant and
 
 vi SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 125 
 
 Flanders would bring 500 acres of barren and heathy 
 land that was not worth at the most about 5 a year to 
 be worth ^7000 a year in less time than seven years." 
 Land worth ^14 an acre, or at modern computation of 
 money, about jo per annum ! Truly the knight is an 
 enthusiast. The estate of Sutton has no very rich soil at 
 all : the water meadows are fairly good, but the upper 
 lands are of the Bagshot sand, with patches of clay. 
 Some of the land is exceedingly poor j and it is interesting 
 to find one of the great revolutions in British agriculture 
 made on one of the poorer soils. 
 
 "You must not expect," says the knight, "either 
 eloquence or method in this ensuing treatise, but a true 
 story plainly set forth in the last will and testament of 
 your father, which he would have you execute ; but 
 before all things to be sure you lay the foundation of 
 your husbandry upon the blessing of Almighty God, 
 continually imploring His Divine aid and assistance in all 
 your labours ; for it is God that gives the increase, and 
 believing this as the quintessence and soul of Husbandry, 
 Primum qu<erite Regnum Dei, et postea hcec omnla 
 adjicientur vobis : These things being briefly premised, 
 I will leave the rest to this short ensuing treatise, and 
 commit you all with a father's blessing to the Protection 
 and Providence of Almighty God." All this, except for 
 the use of the Vulgate instead of the Authorised Version, 
 might have come from Milton, Hartlib, or any other 
 Puritan ; and it is curious as written in the height of the 
 Civil War by a Catholic Royalist. 
 
 Sir Richard tells us that he went abroad, after thirty 
 years' experience in husbandry (that is, in the first year 
 of the Civil Wars), having improved his land as much as 
 any man in this kingdom hath done both by fire and
 
 iz6 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 water, but found he was to learn a new lesson in Brabant 
 and Flanders. This Arthur Young, or rather Coke of 
 Holkham, of the seventeenth century, tells us how he 
 landed at Dunkirk, went thence to Bridges (Bruges), a 
 distance of 40 miles ; thence to Gaunt (Ghent), 24 
 miles distant, and so to Antwerp. He found the cultiva- 
 tion of flax the wealth of Flanders, and he describes his 
 talk with " the Bores^ so they term their farmers " (Boers). 
 " One acre of good flax," he says, " is worth four or five 
 acres of the best corn." He carefully studies the raising 
 of flax, clover-grass, and turnips. He declares that clover 
 is worth ji2 per acre, and he insists on the enormous 
 profit to be made by cultivating clover-grass, turnips, and 
 flax. " Regina Pecunia ! " he cries to his children, 
 "Monie is the Queen that commands all." This was 
 no doubt the root idea of the founder of the Weston 
 family ; but what a change in the hundred years which 
 separate the third Sir Richard from his grandfather, the 
 gallant soldier of Calais, Sir Henry, and his great-grand- 
 father, the wild courtier, Sir Francis ! 
 
 But the knight is a genuine enthusiast ; and he closes 
 his testament thus : " Besides the excessive profit you 
 will reap by sowing these commodities, imagine what a 
 pleasure it will be to your eyes and scent to see the 
 russet heath turned into greenest grass ; which doth 
 produce most sweet and pleasant Honeysuckles ; and 
 what praise and reputation you will gain by your 
 examples, first introducing that into your country, which 
 being followed by others, must needs redound to the 
 general benefit of the whole commonwealth. I do by 
 my Will command you for to execute no more than 
 what I would myself to-morrow put in practice, if I had 
 Liberty : you should then learn these things I have set
 
 vi SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 127 
 
 down by examples, which I am enforced to leave to you 
 as a father's precepts, and with a Father's blessing to you 
 all, desiring God Almighty to guide you and direct you 
 in all your actions, I will leave you to His Divine 
 protection and providence." Then after this sonorous 
 conclusion there follows, with delicious naivete^ a sort of 
 codicil to his will in these words "Note, that the 
 Clover- grass seed will be ripe about a month after it 
 appeareth in the husk." 
 
 The little treatise itself is only of twenty-seven small 
 quarto pages, but it contains much careful practical 
 advice, and is the work of a thorough man of business. 
 No doubt Sir Richard's example was of far greater value 
 than his book. It would seem indeed that his estate 
 was seized and put under sequestration by the Common- 
 wealth, which accounts for the form of his "Legacie." 
 He lives seven years after its date, and does not seem to 
 have been incapacitated by disease, nor is it clear why he 
 should speak of himself as a dying father ; but he was 
 evidently not free to work his estate himself; and he 
 seems to have pushed his industrial schemes with the aid 
 of influential Puritans ; nor is there in his little treatise 
 one word that betrays any kind of political or religious 
 party spirit. It gives us a new insight into English life 
 to find that, in the ten years that separate the battle of 
 Edgehill from the battle of Worcester, a Royalist gentle- 
 man of wealth and rank in Surrey could devote himself to 
 an industrial revolution, and write very popular pamphlets, 
 as Hartlib tells us, on agriculture. 
 
 Sir Richard Weston was not only the first to introduce 
 into British farming the systematic culture of grasses and 
 of roots, but he was also the first to popularise in England 
 the method of canalisation by locks. These he studied in
 
 iz8 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Holland, where we are told that he travelled in his youth. 
 He finally resolved to introduce the invention into his 
 own property. He began by making a cut from the 
 river Wey near Stoke Mill for the purpose of watering 
 some of his meadows, and he carried it some 3 miles, 
 greatly improving his property. 1 He made a lock at 
 Stoke, and formed the idea of making the river navigable 
 from Guildford to Weybridge. He entered into agree- 
 ments with most of the proprietors through whose lands 
 the canal was to pass ; and so early as 1635 he had been 
 named one of the Royal Commissioners for the scheme. 
 
 Before the work had proceeded far the Civil War began 
 (1642) ; and as Sir Richard Weston joined the Royalist 
 party, his estate was seized, and he was not allowed to 
 compound as many had been. Accordingly, he looked 
 out for a coadjutor on the Parliamentary side, and he 
 found him in James Pitson, a major in the Parliamentary 
 army, and a Commissioner for Surrey in 1649. Pitson 
 entered into an agreement to solicit the discharge of Sir 
 Richard's sequestration, and to apply for an Act of 
 Parliament to authorise the navigation. The petition 
 was presented in the name of the Corporation of Guild- 
 ford, Pitson, and another, and Acts were passed in 1650 
 and 1651 by the Long Parliament. The capital was 
 j6ooo, of which Sir Richard found ^3000. 
 
 Thereupon Sir Richard went to work with extra- 
 ordinary energy. He employed 200 men at a time, and 
 pressed on the operations with such rapidity that in nine 
 months he had finished 10 out of 14 miles of the canalised 
 river (the new cuttings do not exceed more than i or 2 
 miles). In doing this he expended ^4000 of his own 
 
 1 This account is abridged from Manning, iii. Appendices LIV.-LVI., 
 who had access to documents and deeds in possession of the family.
 
 vi SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 129 
 
 money, and used timber of his own to the value of ^2000. 
 He had thus expended ^6000 (which may be equal to 
 about ^30,000), and he agreed to raise another ^1000. 
 But in the midst of his labours he died, in May 1652, 
 aged sixty-one. After the death of Sir Richard his 
 younger son, George, finished it as far as the last lock, 
 within i mile of its termination. But it was then taken 
 out of their hands by Pitson, who finished the remaining 
 part ; and the navigation was opened in November 1653, 
 just as the Protectorate of Oliver was about to succeed 
 the Long Parliament. 
 
 The canalised Wey from Guildford to Weybridge was 
 now open for some 14 miles. It had ten locks, four 
 tumbling bays (weirs), and twelve bridges. Its utility 
 was immediately proved, for it soon produced a revenue 
 of ^1500 per annum, which on a capital of ^10,000 was 
 15 per cent. But the landowners were still unpaid, and 
 a long course of litigation ensued, which lasted nearly 
 twenty years, and practically ruined the family of the 
 projector himself, although in 1662, at the Restoration, 
 a Committee of the House decided that Sir Richard 
 Weston was the designer of the navigation. In 1670 
 John Weston, the heir of Sir Richard, submitted to 
 arbitration, and was released from the incumbrances 
 created on his estate, and in 1671 a new Act was passed 
 which settled the claims of the various litigants. 
 
 "Thus," says the historian of the county, "after all 
 the labour, expense, and vexation incurred by Sir Richard 
 Weston and his family, all the recompense they obtained 
 was to be discharged of the incumbrances incurred in 
 prosecuting the work, and the trifling privilege of lading 
 and unlading their own goods on that land which they 
 had dedicated to the public service." It is the usual fate 
 
 K
 
 130 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 of inventors. The canal proved of great public utility, 
 and is still in use, the first of all the canals in our kingdom. 
 Sir Richard's dreams of wealth were cruelly disappointed. 
 The practical advices of his legacy were sounder than 
 his cry of Regina Pecunia ! He left his estate greatly 
 reduced and burdened to his children ; but he left to his 
 country lessons in husbandry of priceless value, and the 
 first-fruits of an industrial revolution which, down to the 
 age of steam locomotives, was the source of untold wealth 
 and progress. 
 
 According to Aubrey (Surrey^ iii. p. 228), it was about 
 1 643 that Sir Richard introduced the grass called Nonesuch 
 into the parish of Worplesdon, part of the Sutton estate, 
 along with the first clover -grass out of Brabant and 
 Flanders, "at which time he also brought over the 
 contrivance of locks, turnpikes, and tumbling bays for 
 rivers. He began the making of the new river in 1650 
 or 1651, but he lived not to finish it, dying 7th May 
 1652." Sir Richard, indeed, appears to have been occupied 
 for a large part of his life with the scheme of the canal, 
 and it seriously encumbered his estates and impoverished 
 himself. In 1635, during the ministry of Laud, he was 
 named member of the Royal Commission for the con- 
 sideration of the project, but the Act was not obtained 
 until 1650, under the Commonwealth. A second Act 
 was passed in 1651. By this, navigation was effected 
 from London to Guildford. The canal was not completed 
 in Sir Richard's lifetime. It is a singular example of 
 devotion to industrial improvement that the knight, 
 belonging to a Catholic and Royalist family, should have 
 spent seventeen years in carrying through the Wey canal- 
 isation scheme, and should have had sufficient credit to 
 obtain official sanction for it first from Charles I. in the
 
 vi SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 131 
 
 crisis of Strafford's policy, and then from the Common- 
 wealth after the execution of the King. 1 
 
 Sir Richard had as his contemporary another famous 
 Sir Richard Weston, created Lord Weston of Neyland 
 1628, and Earl of Portland in 1632, the unpopular 
 minister of Charles I., who died in i635. 2 The Earl of 
 Portknd was descended from Humphrey Weston, a 
 common ancestor of himself and of Sir Richard Weston, 
 the founder. From Dorothy, the sister of the Earl, who 
 married Sir Edward Pincheon of Writtle, the family of 
 Webbe- Weston and of the present owner, F. H. Salvin, 
 are descended. The last male descendant of the Earl of 
 Portland died in 1688, when the title became extinct. 
 
 But though Sir Richard Weston of Sutton belonged 
 to a Catholic and Royalist family, and was a cousin and 
 neighbour of his namesake, the anti-popular minister of 
 Charles and colleague of Strafford, the Westons of Sutton 
 took no great part in the Civil War, nor does the house 
 ever seem to have been the scene of any act whatever in 
 the great struggle which tore England in pieces between 
 1640 and 1650. During all this time Sir Richard, now 
 a man of between fifty and sixty, seems to have kept 
 himself tolerably aloof from politics. He was denounced 
 as a recusant, and apparently arrested. On i6th May 
 1650 an order was issued for Richard Weston to be sent 
 in safe custody for holding correspondence with the 
 
 1 The editor of Camden's Britannia (Suth-rey) says that the navigation 
 of the Wey brings in great profits to this part of the country, and speaks of 
 Sir R. Weston, " to whom the whole shire is obliged as for this, so for several 
 other improvements, particularly clover and saintfoine." 
 
 2 See Gardiner, Hist, of England, 1603-42 (1628-29). "Weston, the 
 Lord Treasurer, was as unpopular at Court as he was in the country." 
 Clarendon, in his trenchant way, calls him " a man of big looks and of a 
 mean and abject spirit."
 
 132 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 enemies of the Commonwealth ; but he escaped absolute 
 ruin after his sequestration, for which he did not com- 
 pound. 1 But two of the family have their names mentioned 
 in the records of the troubles ; nor does the slightest 
 injury seem to have befallen the house. The hall with 
 its painted glass, crowded with crowns, mitres, and garters, 
 and the devices of royal personages, Catholic bishops, and 
 "malignant" peers, with the arms and quarterings of 
 Fitzalans, Paulets, Howards, Stanleys, Copleys, and 
 Bourchiers, the emblems of Catherine of Aragon and 
 Bishop Gardiner, of Mary Tudor and Philip of Spain, 
 and a portrait of a king, said to be Charles I., remains 
 untouched, although it is within a day's ride of Basing 
 House, and the scene of many a combat in Hampshire 
 and Berkshire. 
 
 The account here given on the authority of Manning, 
 who had access to family papers, may be supplemented 
 by the recent Calendar of the Committee for the Compound- 
 ing , 1643-60, Rolls Series, 5 vols., 1889-92. From the 
 records of this Committee, now for the first time given 
 to the world, it appears that the Westons of Sutton Place 
 were obstinate delinquents. William Copley's estates 
 were sequestered in 1650 as a recusant, as were those of 
 his two daughters, his heirs, married to Sir R. Weston's 
 two sons, also recusants. In 1651 Sir R. Weston is re- 
 ported to be a Papist, a recusant, and delinquent. In 
 June 1651 his whole estate is sequestered as a Papist and 
 delinquent, allowing one-fifth to his wife and children. 
 In 1652 an order was made to permit Sir Richard to 
 enjoy two-thirds of his estate, if he can prove that he has 
 
 1 The Catalogue of the Lords, Knights, and Gentlemen ioho have compounded 
 for their Estates, Th. Dringe, London, 1655, and reprinted, Chester, 1733, 
 does not give any Weston of Sutton Place.
 
 vi SIR R. WESTON, THE AGRICULTURIST 133 
 
 committed no act of delinquency since 1648 ; and this 
 he did in April of that year. But, 8th July 1652, it is 
 certified that he is dead ; and, his widow refusing the 
 oath of abjuration, two-thirds of her jointure is to be 
 sequestered. John Weston, the son, seems to have borne 
 arms for the King, as also did his brother George, and to 
 have been taken prisoner at Colchester. 
 
 The house was no doubt spared because, lying wholly 
 within the sphere of the Parliament's power, and close to 
 Guildford, a stronghold of the Puritan party, no oppor- 
 tunity was left to the owners of Sutton to raise the royal 
 standard. Being an utterly indefensible private mansion, 
 and not castellated, it could not be regarded by either 
 side as a military post. Certain it is that during the 
 whole of the Civil Wars the Westons of Sutton busied 
 themselves with their estates, their improvements, canal 
 navigation, and clover-grass ; they sold broad acres and 
 acquired broad acres ; they were married and given in 
 marriage ; and never meddled or appeared in any public 
 part whatever, whether civil or military, except as obsti- 
 nate delinquents. Sir Richard Weston, the agricultur- 
 ist and scientific landowner, was in possession of the 
 estates for nearly forty years, and died quietly at the age 
 of sixty-one, in 1652, during the crisis which led to the 
 Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, and was buried with 
 his ancestors in Trinity Church, Guildford. His wife, 
 Grace, daughter of John Harper of Cheshunt, Herts, 
 survived him many years, and lived well into the Restora- 
 tion of Charles II., until 1669. She was buried at 
 Guildford, 28th February in that year. And at last the 
 manor and hall of Sutton finally pass out of all touch 
 with the history and progress of England, and sink into 
 the simple routine of an ordinary county estate.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FROM THE CIVIL WARS TO THE PRESENT TIME 
 
 THE 247 years which have glided by since the death of 
 the famous agriculturist until to-day need not occupy 
 many pages. They recount nothing but the even tenor 
 of an ordinary Catholic family. As Richard, the fourth 
 of that name, the eldest son of Sir Richard, the agri- 
 culturist, died in infancy, the estate was inherited by the 
 second son, John, who in 1637 had married Mary, 
 daughter and heiress of William Copley of Gatton, near 
 Reigate, on whom with her sister Anne had descended 
 the considerable estates of the Copleys in Surrey and 
 Sussex, together with some very ancient quarterings in 
 which the Copleys seem to have taken no small pride. 1 
 
 1 It was in anticipation of marriage, perhaps, that the portentous pedigree 
 of the Westons, now in the British Museum, was prepared by Garter King
 
 CH.VIX FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 135 
 
 The pedigree of the Copleys of Gatton, in Surrey, and 
 of Roffey or Roughey, in Sussex, may be read in full in 
 Berry's Sussex Genealogies, 296, and also in Horsfield's 
 Sussex, ii. 263. William Copley was a grandson of Sir 
 Thomas Copley, the exile and rebel in Elizabeth's time 
 who had married Katherine, daughter and heiress of Sir 
 Thomas Luttrell. Sir Thomas Copley was himself son 
 and grandson of two successive Sir Roger Copleys, high- 
 sheriffs of Surrey in 1529 and 1514, and traced his descent 
 to Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, the Chief-Justice Sir William 
 Shelley, Thomas, Lord Hoo of Hastings, Lord Beau- 
 champ of Bletsoe, Sir R. Waterton, and Leo, Lord 
 Welles. 
 
 Thus it comes that the hall and house are full of the 
 arms of the Copleys and the families whom they claimed 
 to quarter in their coats. Everywhere we observe argent, 
 a cross moline sable, a crescent for difference, for Copley ; 
 or, a lion rampant double-queued sable, for Welles ; sable, 
 a fess engrailed between three whelk-shells, or, for Shelley ,- 
 and so forth. In the west and east staircases are three 
 painted escutcheons with the arms of Sir Thomas Copley 
 dated 1567 and 1568. In these and in the windows 
 may be seen the arms of Welles, Hastings of Hoo, Water- 
 ton, Engaine, Shelley, Luttrell, Belknap, Havercamp. 
 
 Mary Copley, who was apparently only seventeen at 
 her marriage, brought wealth to the family ; and she 
 seems to have kept her husband and his kinsmen well out 
 of civil war and treason, which had caused the ruin of 
 her own great-grandfather. It may be assumed that 
 much of the woodwork, panelling, etc., which we now 
 
 of Arms in 1632. The original vellum roll measures nearly 27 feet in length 
 by 5 in breadth, and was imposing enough to convince even Copley of Gatton 
 that Weston of Sutton was by no means nwus homo.
 
 136 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 see was executed about this time, or at least during the 
 long possession of Sir Richard Weston, 1613-52 ; and in 
 all probability the glasswork of the hall was repaired, re- 
 newed, and altered, and the numerous lights with Copley 
 coats of arms were inserted. These were, no doubt, 
 brought from Gatton or Roffey, for many of them, and 
 also the escutcheons on panel, are obviously of sixteenth, 
 and not of seventeenth century work. It is plain that 
 the coat in the panelled hall over the fireplace there (see 
 chap, x.), showing the arms of Weston impaling Copley, 
 is of the date of the marriage, 1637. This was also, no 
 doubt, the period of the building of the second or western 
 quadrangle, which is certainly no part of the original 
 design of 1521. 
 
 It is worth noting that during this period the royal 
 mansion of Woking on the Wey was pulled down by 
 the Zouch family, to whom it had been granted by 
 James I. in 1620 ; and it has been suggested that some 
 of the older fragments of painted glass, especially the 
 royal devices in the two bays, may have been brought 
 from Woking about this time. As to the coats of the 
 Copleys with their quarterings, some of which are evi- 
 dently fine early work (e.g. window VI. 2), it is quite as 
 probable that they record some visit or other connection 
 with Sir Roger Copley of Gatton, the sheriff of the 
 county about the date of the foundation of the house. 
 However, the three escutcheons on panel, with the 
 monogram T.C., could only have been brought in after 
 1637 by the heiress of the Copleys, and some of the glass 
 has doubtless the same origin. It will be noticed that 
 there are in the hall windows alone no less than eight 
 Copley coats with their quarterings. 
 
 With the Copley alliance, the sale of the estate and
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 137 
 
 mansion at Clandon, and the completion of the Wey 
 canal, the Westons of Sutton seem to have taken a new 
 departure. In 1654 John Weston and Mary his wife 
 sold the estate of Gatton (Manning, ii. 231). The old 
 house at Sutton became their only seat, and was com- 
 pletely renovated and altered. The eastern wing, which 
 the destruction of the gatehouse by fire had made more 
 or less inaccessible, except through the great hall, was 
 probably abandoned as a residence. The western wing, 
 in the original plan the offices, was now converted into 
 the residential part of the quadrangle ; and a new quad- 
 rangle was built out on the west of it, between the 
 original house and the garden, to serve as offices. The 
 coat of arms which Aubrey saw " in the parlor " about 
 1673 was tiH lately m tne panelled hall, which was thus 
 in the western wing of the house. It is now placed over 
 the broad staircase ; and perhaps the three crosses moline 
 on the parapet of the south side of the house were of this 
 date, and were rudely inserted in the Tudor ogee niche. 
 
 A portrait, stated to be that of John, the husband of 
 Mary Copley, is in the hall, together with that of 
 William Copley, his wife's grandfather, a picture dated 
 " 1620, estatis su<e^ 55." (William Copley, the elder, 
 was born in 1565.) John, to judge by his portrait, was 
 a very mild and inoffensive person, who looks as if he 
 would rather not be asked to make up his mind. He 
 was in possession of the estate, like his father before him, 
 for nearly forty years, all through the Protectorates of 
 Oliver and of Richard Cromwell, the Restoration of 
 Charles II., the reign of James II., and the Revolution 
 of 1689. Whatever John thought, history knows nothing 
 of what John did. He paid his dues quietly, and kept 
 his estate together. He was gathered to his fathers in
 
 138 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Trinity Church, Guildford, in the reign of William and 
 Mary in 1690, as was his wife, Mary Copley, in 1694, 
 she being seventy-four. 
 
 Thus in the 170 years since the grant of the estate 
 there had been only five owners in possession, with an 
 average tenure of thirty-four years. What tremendous 
 changes had taken place in England in those 170 years : 
 the change of religion, the disappeaiance of feudalism, 
 new manners, fresh modes of life. 1 1 1520 there were 
 living men who had fought in the \ /ars of the Roses. 
 In 1690 Newton, Addison, and Swift were in active 
 career ; and yet the old place of Button was scarcely 
 changed, either within or without. The quadrangle 
 stood untouched, just as the contemporaries of Holbein 
 and Trevisano had fashioned it in the age of Francis I. 
 The owners of Sutton clung to the old religion, and 
 maintained the mass in their ancient chapel ; and amidst 
 the revolutionary fervour of Jacobites and Orangemen 
 they gazed silently on the helmets, the halberds, and 
 escutcheons in the hall, where Catherine, the daughter of 
 Ferdinand, the Catholic, had been entertained, where 
 Henry VIII. had conferred with Wolsey and Cromwell. 
 The house and its belongings remained a solid bit of 
 Catholic and feudal England in the midst of Protestant 
 and Whig. 
 
 John's son by Mary Copley was Richard, fifth and 
 last of that name, of whom we know even less than of 
 John, his father. He married Melior, daughter of William 
 Nevill of Holt, Leicestershire ; and dying in 1701, after 
 a tenure of only eleven years, was buried at Guildford, 
 25th April. He left the estate to his only son, John. 
 
 John, the second of that name, and the last heir male 
 of the blood of the founder, was in possession for nearly
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 139 
 
 thirty years, from 1701-30. He married Elizabeth, sister 
 of Thomas, the first Viscount Gage. She was a daughter 
 of Joseph Gage by Elizabeth Penruddock, heiress and 
 great-granddaughter of Colonel Penruddock, who had 
 attempted insurrection under the Protectorate, and was 
 beheaded by Cromwell in 1655. John Weston himself 
 was fined ^939 1 for refusing to take the oaths to King 
 George. 
 
 But John Weston managed to restore and repair the 
 house. He refitted the upper part of the eastern wing, 
 which had been in a dilapidated state since the fire of 
 1561, and, it is said, formed it into a long gallery. In 
 the window (VIII. 3) is a rude memorandum cut with a 
 diamond that John Weston " putt in this painted glass, 
 August ye 28, 1724." This, then, may be taken as the 
 date of the principal eighteenth-century restorations in 
 the house, especially of the more recent insertions and 
 confusions in the painted glass, the panelling in the 
 dining-room, staircases, and part of the eastern long 
 gallery. 
 
 It seems to be now at last ascertained that the lady on 
 whose behalf Pope interested himself so fiercely in his 
 youth, and out of whose case he invented the tragic story 
 on which his famous lines To an Unfortunate Lady were 
 based, was no other than Melior Gage, the wife of John 
 Weston (2) of Sutton Place. This Mrs. Weston is 
 evidently the lady to whom one of Pope's letters is 
 addressed (Elwin and Courthope's Pope 3 Works^ x. 259). 
 See an account of her, vol. v. 132, and in Athenceum, I5th 
 July 1854. Pope, in an undated letter, addresses the lady 
 in grandiose and devoted language. " Your own guardian 
 angels cannot be more constant, nor more silent." Pope 
 
 1 J. Robinson, Names of the Roman Catholic Non-jurors, 1745.
 
 140 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 writes to Caryll, 25th June 1711 : " I am just informed 
 that the tyrant [John Weston] is determined instantly 
 to remove his daughter from the lady. I wish to God 
 it could be put off by Sir W. G[oring]'s mediation, for I 
 am heartily afraid it will prove of very ill consequence to 
 her." The child was Melior Mary, the last descendant 
 of the founder, then aged eight. Pope himself was only 
 twenty-three when he rushed into this domestic quarrel. 
 He tells Caryll, 2nd August 1711, that it was her "ill 
 fate to be cast as a pearl before swine," i.e. John Weston. 
 Pope writes frequently on Mrs. Weston's behalf, and even 
 quarrelled with his own relations because they did not 
 take up the lady's part with sufficient eagerness. The 
 youthful poet met the proverbial fate of those who 
 interfere in quarrels matrimonial. He writes to Caryll in 
 the year following, 8th November 1712. " Mr. W[eston] 
 is gloomy upon the matter the tyrant meditates revenge ; 
 nay, the distressed dame herself has been taught to suspect 
 I served her but by halves, and without prudence." Very 
 likely, indeed ! and one cannot but feel that the distressed 
 dame may have been the more prudent of the two. 
 
 But Pope's passion seems to have outlived the lady's 
 coolness. For, five years later, I3th September 1717, he 
 writes to Martha Blount with this curious outburst of ill- 
 humour. He speaks of a journey " having fled from the 
 face (I wish I could say the horned face) of Moses [in 
 the original it stood Mr. Weston], who dined that day 
 at my brother's." 
 
 The young poet's devotion to the lady must have been 
 one of the few romances of his life. We can hardly doubt 
 that he had known the husband and wife before the 
 quarrel, and there is every probability that he had been 
 a visitor at Sutton Place. It is hardly fanciful to imagine
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 141 
 
 that the author of The Rape of the Lock once meditated 
 couplets in Lady Weston's Walk, where young Sir 
 Francis once flirted with the beauties of Anne Boleyn's 
 court, and where Elizabeth may have listened to the 
 flatteries of Raleigh. 
 
 It seems clear from a note of Pope's appended to his 
 letter to Mrs. Weston that she was the original of the 
 Unfortunate Lady. The story of the poem was pure 
 imagination. Mrs. Weston was separated from her 
 husband, but she returned, and lived in peace. She did 
 not die abroad, friendless, and by suicide, but in the bosom 
 of her family, by natural causes, and in her own home. 
 She was, in fact, buried in the family vault in Guildford in 
 1724, eleven years after Pope's outburst. But when we 
 recall the tragedies that have befallen the Westons of 
 Sutton Place, there is a new meaning in the curse which 
 the poet pours out (verses 30-46) 
 
 " On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, 
 Thus unlamented pass the proud away." 
 
 Certain it is that Melior Mary, daughter and sole heir of 
 John Weston, was the last of her race. She gave her 
 ancestral estate to another family of Weston : they also 
 are extinct in the male line. 
 
 John Weston died in June 1730, having lived well 
 into the reign of George II. ; his wife had died in 1724. 
 Both were buried in Guildford. He left the estate to his 
 daughter, Melior Mary, then aged twenty-seven. A very 
 pleasing portrait of this lady at a rather earlier date hangs 
 in the hall. Its date is 1723, when she was aged twenty. 
 And, though she had beauty as well as acres, and, accord- 
 ing to her monument, "superior understanding and 
 distinguished virtues," she lived and died unmarried and
 
 142 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 in solitary possession of her ancient patrimony for fifty- 
 two years. The lady, as masses of family papers testify, 
 was a most energetic, industrious woman of business, and 
 seems to have been constantly engaged in complicated 
 litigation. She apparently did nothing to alter and hardly 
 anything to repair her mansion, in which she seems to 
 have lived in great retirement. She died in June 1782 at 
 the age of seventy-nine, and was buried in Trinity Church, 
 Guildford, where a monument with an elaborate record 
 of her merits was placed by her grateful successor. 
 
 Melior Mary was the last survivor of the blood of the 
 founder. Her aunt, Frances Weston, whose portrait, in 
 the Lely style (about 1700), hangs in the hall, had married 
 William Wolffe of Great Haseley, who was a son of John 
 Wolffe of Great Haseley by Ann, daughter and co-heiress 
 of John, son of Sir Edward Pincheon of Writtle, by his 
 wife, Dorothy, sister of the first Earl of Portland. The 
 Wolffes of Great Haseley were thus descended from Sir 
 Richard Weston, the founder, through Frances, the sister 
 of John Weston, the last male Weston of Sutton ; l and 
 they were also descended from the Westons of Essex, the 
 senior branch of the Westons of Prested Hall, both 
 families, like the Westons of Sutton, claiming descent 
 from Hamon de Weston of Weston under Lizzard, temp. 
 Henry II. 
 
 The Wolffes, then, during the middle of the last 
 
 1 Frances, the youngest sister of John Weston, married William Wolffe 
 about 1700. It is curious that T. Benolt, Clarencieux King of Arms, found 
 at an earlier date the arms of Wolffe in the hall of Sutton all the more that 
 they are not the arms of Wolffe as quartered by John Webbe-Weston (H. 7, 
 College of Arms, Suthery and Isle of Wight). As given by Benolt, the arms 
 display neither wolves nor wolves' heads erased, as all the many variations of 
 Wolffe do ; but are quarterly, first and fourth (without tinctures), six mullets, 
 three, two, and one.
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 143 
 
 century were evidently regarded as the eventual heirs of 
 Sutton, since Melior Mary was now a confirmed old 
 maid. And portraits of William Wolffe by Hussey, and 
 also of John Wolffe, his grandson, also by Hussey, and 
 dated 1754 (eetat. eleven), may be seen in the hall. But 
 William Wolffe died in 1739, and his grandsons, John 
 Wolffe, in 1758, Charles Wolffe, in 1768, and William 
 Cosmos Wolffe, in 1766. Whatever females there were 
 of the house were nuns. Thus, at the decease of Melior 
 Mary Weston in 1782, the blood of the founder, both in 
 the male and female lines, was exhausted. As her tomb- 
 stone records, Miss Weston was " the last immediate 
 descendant of an illustrious Family which flourished in 
 this county for many successive generations." She stood, 
 in fact, in the eighth generation from Sir Richard, the 
 grantee of 1521. Melior Mary at her death had the 
 absolute disposition of all her estates, and was without any 
 blood relations whatever nearer than her mother's nephew, 
 the second Viscount Gage, and John Webbe, third in 
 descent from John Wolffe of Great Haseley, whose son 
 had married Frances Weston, and fifth in descent from 
 Dorothy Weston, sister of the first Earl of Portland. . 
 
 Accordingly, Melior Mary Weston, very naturally 
 passing over her cousins, the Gages, on her mother's 
 side, resolved to devise her estates to John Webbe as 
 descended from the sister of William Wolffe, the husband 
 of her paternal aunt, Frances, and also as descended from 
 the Westons of Prested Hall, Essex, and of West Horsley, 
 in Surrey. By her will, then, Melior Mary devised her 
 Sutton estate to John Webbe, on the condition of his 
 taking the name and arms of Weston. 1 
 
 1 In Trinity Church, Guildford, may be seen a handsome monument to 
 Melior Mary Weston. It reads thus
 
 144 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 This within a few weeks he did j and on 6th July 
 1782 a proper license was granted and duly recorded by 
 Garter and the rest of his posse comitatus, authorising 
 John Webbe to take and bear the name and arms of 
 Weston. He was thenceforward styled John Webbe- 
 Weston of Sutton Place ; the arms of Weston being thus 
 blazoned "Arms: Ermine, on a chief azure, five 
 bezants. Crest : on a wreath of the colours, a Saracen's 
 head couped at the shoulder, the tongue hanging out 
 proper, wreathed about the temples, argent and azure, to 
 be borne singly or quarterly with Webbe ; being gules, 
 a cross between four falcons, or. Motto : Ani bora " 
 (College of Arms, Norfolk, i. 124). 
 
 John Webbe- Weston possessed the estate for forty-one 
 years ; and during his tenure many changes were made 
 
 To the Memory 
 
 of 
 
 Melior Mary Weston 
 of Sutton Place in the county of Surrey, Spinster 
 
 This Marble was erected 
 as a tribute of sincere respect and gratitude by 
 
 John Webbe Weston 
 of Sarnesfield Court in the county of Hereford, Esq. 
 
 Who 
 
 in pursuance of her last will and bequest 
 succeeded to her name and estates 
 
 She 
 was the last immediate descendant 
 
 of an illustrious Family 
 
 which flourished in this county 
 
 for many successive generations, and 
 
 with the ample possessions of their ancestors 
 
 inherited 
 their superior understanding 
 
 and distinguished virtues 
 
 obiit, 10 Junii, MDCCLXXXII, zt. 79. 
 
 R.I.P.
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 145 
 
 in the house, but fortunately many others which he had 
 projected were abandoned. Mr. Weston at once pro- 
 ceeded to pull down the ruinous gatehouse and the 
 whole building that connected the east with the west 
 wing on the north side of the quadrangle. This was 
 accomplished in 1782, as the bills of the contractor, 
 William Brooks of London, 1 show. There can be no 
 question that the house gains in comfort by opening the 
 quadrangle to the north. A quadrangle only 81 feet 
 square and 35 feet high, with a tower of about 50 or 60 
 feet on one side and a vast roof on the other, never could 
 have been quite airy or light. 2 The removal of the 
 north tower and wing greatly improved the comfort and 
 convenience of the house ; though there is a tradition in 
 the family that George III., when returning from a stag- 
 hunt, was shown over the house in the absence of the 
 owner, and then said, "Very bad, very bad ! tell Air. 
 Weston the King says he must build it up again ! " If 
 
 1 Voluminous bills, documents, specifications, and estimates relating to 
 the works are still in the possession of F. H. Salvin. 
 
 3 The elevation of the north wing and gatehouse as seen from within is 
 exactly reproduced in a careful architectural drawing, signed and dated 
 " Front of Sutton in com. Surry as it stood, Jan. 22, 1750, John Wolffe 
 delin. 17 Feb. 1750." "Front of Sutton towards the Court as it stood Jan. 
 22, 1750, the little pillars 67^ high, 5 ft. diam. The Court 81.3 square 
 exclusive of the base." These drawings show that the quadrangle was 
 perfectly symmetrical ; one gives the northern (outside) view of the gate- 
 house, and one gives the southern (inside) view of the same. The hexagonal 
 turrets were precisely the same as those now standing on the south wing, 
 which are also 67^ feet high, 5 feet diameter. The arch of the gateway into 
 the court seems circular. The gatehouse had three stories, the lower 
 window of eight lights, the two upper windows of four lights. On each side 
 of the gateway were three windows uniform with the east and west wings. 
 The drawing is evidently by John Wolffe, first cousin of Melior Mary, the 
 then owner, who may have been contemplating the removal of the ruined 
 wing. 
 
 L
 
 146 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 His Majesty saw the gatehouse in course of demolition, 
 his remark was natural ; but if he meant that the gate- 
 house and north wing added convenience to the house, 
 we cannot admire the royal taste. Mr. Weston spent 
 between 2000 and ^3000 in repairs, restorations, and 
 renewal of the house ; and these were finished in 1784. 
 Fortunately he did not carry out the monstrous pro- 
 posal of Bonomi, an Italian architect of repute in the 
 last century, who prepared a design to transmute the 
 house in a modern bastard Italian style. He wanted to 
 introduce classical columns, pediments, and the like, and 
 to convert the hall into a two-storied suite of modern 
 chambers. Mr. Weston was happily deterred by the 
 formidable estimate of his advisers, and Sutton Place 
 escaped a greater danger than it had ever run, even in 
 the fire of 1561, or in all the commotions of the Civil 
 War and the Revolution. The designs for the " improve- 
 ments" these truly atrocious monuments of Vandalism 
 are now in the possession of F. H. Salvin. 
 
 Mr. Webbe-Weston inherited in 1794, on the death 
 of his cousin, Anne Monington, the estate of Sarnesfield 
 Court, in Herefordshire. He himself died suddenly at 
 Hereford in 1823, kavi n g by his wife, Elizabeth, only 
 daughter of John, the third son of Sir John Lawson, 
 Bart., of Brough Hall, York, a numerous family. Eliza- 
 beth Weston died in 1791, and is buried in Trinity 
 Church, Guildford. The present owner of Sutton, 
 Francis H. Salvin, is the son of Anna Maria (daughter 
 of John Webbe-Weston and Elizabeth Lawson), who in 
 1800 married William Thomas Salvin of Croxdale, in 
 Durham. 1 
 
 1 It is rather remarkable that in the 302 years which separate the grant 
 of 1521 from the death of J. Webbe-Weston the estate had been held in
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 147 
 
 John Webbe- Western, whose first wife died in 1791, 
 at the age of thirty- four, 1 married secondly, in 1794, 
 Mary, eldest daughter of William Haggerstone Constable, 
 of Everingham, County York, by whom he had no 
 issue. On his death, in 1823 (he is buried in Sarnesfield 
 Church, County Hereford), he was succeeded by his 
 eldest son, John Joseph Webbe- Weston, who in 1811 
 had married Caroline Graham, only daughter of Charles 
 Graham. Charles Graham was great-grandson of Sir 
 George Graham of Usk, and grandson of Sir Reginald 
 Graham of Norton - Conyers. Caroline Graham, Mrs. 
 John J. W. Weston, was thus a cousin of Sir James 
 Graham, the statesman who died in 1861. 
 
 On the death of John Joseph Webbe- Weston, in 
 1840, he was succeeded by his only son, John Joseph 
 Webbe-Weston, the second of that name, a captain in 
 the imperial Austrian service. He in 1847 married Lady 
 Horatia Elizabeth Waldegrave, daughter of John James, 
 sixth Earl Waldegrave. Captain Weston served in the 
 war between Austria and Hungary in 1848-49. Both 
 he and his wife were taken prisoners by the Hungarian 
 national troops, and detained in captivity some time. 
 Captain Weston died s.p. of cholera during the siege 
 of Comorn, on the Danube, 24th September 1849. 
 Lady Horatia Weston, his widow, was in possession 
 of the Sutton estates until her re-marriage. On 28th 
 November 1854 she married John Wardlaw, brother 
 of General Wardlaw. She died in June 1884. 
 
 possession by no more than nine owners, giving an average tenure of more 
 than thirty-three years apiece. In the 400 years separating Domesday from 
 the battle of Bosworth there had been about fifty owners with an average of 
 eight years. 
 
 1 See monument in Trinity Church, Guildford.
 
 148 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Upon her second marriage the Sutton estates passed 
 to Thomas Monington Webbe - Weston, 1 uncle of the 
 late Captain Weston, for his life. He married Mary 
 Wright, and died without issue in 1857. Thereupon 
 the male descendants of John Webbe -Weston were 
 exhausted ; and by the will of Captain J. J. W. Weston 
 the estates passed to his cousin, the present owner, 
 Francis Henry Salvin of Croxdale, County Durham, a 
 grandson of John Webbe, the devisee from Melior Mary 
 in 1782. 
 
 The windows with painted glass and coats of arms in 
 the east and west staircases, on the south front, were 
 placed by F. H. Salvin in 1857, fr m tne designs of 
 Charles Buckler. Those in the east window give the 
 names and dates and arms of the six owners of the estate 
 after Sir Henry Weston, who died in 1591. Those in 
 the west window give the names, dates, and arms of the 
 five owners since the estate passed to the Webbe-Westons 
 in 1782. In each case they impale the arms of their 
 respective wives. Hence we find the coats of Dister 
 (married 1583) ; Harper (died 1669) ; Copley (married 
 1637); Nevill (about 1701); Gage (1730); Lawson 
 (married 1778) ; Constable (married 1795) ; Graham 
 (married 1811); Waldegrave (married 1847)5 Wright 
 (about 1854) ; (Salvin 1857). 
 
 There are pictures in the house of the following 
 members of the family Dorothy Arundell^ Lady Weston, 
 1575 and 1590; William Copley^ 1620; John Weston^ 
 1634, who married William Copley's granddaughter in 
 1637 ; William Wolffe of Haseley, died 1739 portrait 
 by Giles Hussey ; Frances Weston^ his wife (about 
 
 1 The Webbe-Westons inherited the Sarnesfield estate from Anne, 
 surviving daughter and heiress of John Monington of Sarnesfield.
 
 vii FROM CIVIL WARS TO PRESENT TIME 149 
 
 1720) ; John Wolffe^ their eldest grandson (eetat. eleven, 
 1754), by Giles Hussey ; Thomas Webbe (died 1780); 
 Anne Tancred^ his wife ; John Webbe-Weston, their son, 
 devisee of estates in 1782, and grandfather of F. H. 
 Salvin. This picture is a pastel by Russell, R.A., of 
 Guildford. It represents Mr. Webbe as a very young 
 man : it was exhibited with many of Russell's works at 
 Guildford in 1887. 
 
 Francis H. Salvin, on coming into possession of the 
 estate, made no structural alterations in the house, except 
 the insertion of two six-light windows with stone mullions, 
 filled with painted glass, in the eastern and western stair- 
 cases facing south. The eastern wing in its lower story 
 had apparently been unused since the fire of 1561. But 
 a portion of the upper story was fitted up as a chapel. 
 In 1876 the Chapel of St. Edward was built on the site, 
 it is believed, of the original mansion and castle of St. 
 Edward. It was founded by the late Miss Salvin, who 
 is there buried. 1 
 
 The house stands thus very nearly the same on the 
 outside as it was when raised by Sir Richard in 1525. 
 It is indeed now far more like its original form since the 
 twelve mullioned windows, destroyed in the last century, 
 have been replaced. Of very few houses in England in 
 the course of 370 years have the external walls been so 
 little altered. That which has been so ruinous to the 
 fortunes of the family has been the salvation of their 
 
 1 At the same time the long gallery was restored, and the terra-cotta 
 mullions of the windows were replaced from castings of the originals. The 
 present drawing-room, formerly the kitchen, was arranged, and the dividing 
 wall and chimney-stack removed under the plans of Norman Shaw, R.A., 
 by Frederick Harrison, then lessee of the house. He died there in 1881, and 
 the house has since been in the occupation of his widow and of his sons, 
 Lawrence and Sidney Harrison.
 
 150 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH.VU 
 
 house. As a Catholic family, constantly and stubbornly 
 opposed to the Elizabethan, Parliamentarian, Crom- 
 wellian, Orange, and Hanoverian governments, the 
 Westons were excluded from public life in England, 
 and were constantly and heavily mulcted in their estates 
 under the Test and Penal laws of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. They thus had no resources where- 
 with to modernise their family mansion, or to vie with 
 their Protestant neighbours in converting Gothic or 
 Jacobean piles into the style of Wren, Vanbrugh, or 
 Soane the ruthless destroyers of many a fine old court. 
 A succession of very long tenures by some very quiet 
 country gentlemen and that excellent old maid, Melior 
 Mary, and since then a series of fortunate accidents, have 
 prevented the owners of Sutton from destroying, as so 
 many squires throughout the country have done, the 
 venerable home of their forefathers. To touch it now, 
 to add to it, to " restore " it, would be a social crime. 
 Let us keep its bricks, its tiles, and. its painted windows 
 together as best we can, until the miserable day shall 
 come when the elements shall have to themselves the 
 proud house of Wolsey's " most humble servant," and 
 the hall where Sir Richard was so careful of the " grete 
 carpete to lay under the Kyng's fete."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE HOUSE 
 
 THERE is reason to think that the house 
 was built about 1523-25. The date is 
 given by Manning (vol. i. p. 136) as 1529 
 or 1530 ; by Aubrey (vol. iii. p. 228) as 
 1521. It is exceedingly improbable that 
 the house was built so late as 1529, the 
 year of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, 
 since her device of a pomegranate appears 
 in the spandrels of the arched chimney- 
 piece in the great hall, and again in that 
 of the panelled hall, and her arms are 
 found in the hall (window north-east, 
 VI. i) impaled with the arms of England. 
 As Catherine had lost the favour of 
 Henry VIII. in 1527, it is hardly con- 
 ceivable that her emblems and arms were 
 placed at any later date in the hall of 
 one of the King's ministers. 1 The better 
 
 1 There are other things which also suggest the 
 earlier date. The great bell, which is now removed to 
 St. Edward's Chapel, would not have been erected till 
 the whole pile was complete. It bears the legend 
 Pierre Baude ma faicte 1530. Also in the hall are the
 
 152 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 conclusion seems to be that the house was erected between 
 the date of the grant of the manor (1521) and 1527 ; 
 probably on the return of Sir Richard Weston from the 
 war in France in 1523. 
 
 The present house was built about a quarter of a mile 
 from the site of the previous manor-house, which stood 
 on the hill now occupied by St. Edward's Chapel and 
 Vine Cottage. Here, it is said, originally was the 
 hunting -lodge used by Edward the Confessor, when 
 Lord of the Manors of Woking and of Sutton, and the 
 mansion-house of Sutton subsequently took its place. 
 The survey taken at the death of Philip Basset, the Lord 
 of the Manor, in 1270, gives it as "a tenement, contain- 
 ing about one acre of land, of the yearly value of is."; 
 in the surveys of 1329 and of 1410 it is spoken of as "a 
 ruinous messuage, value ^o : : O." Traces of the old 
 house have been found in the field south of the present 
 chapel. A clump of birch trees marks the site of the old 
 well, of which the remains have been recently examined. 
 This very ancient well under the clump of birch trees 
 has always been called St. Edward's Well. Old encaustic 
 tiles have been there found. The field is still called the 
 Manor Field. The decay of the village of Sutton, now 
 only represented by a few cottages on Sutton Green, 
 probably followed the removal of the manor-house east- 
 wards to the banks of the Wey and the extension of the 
 estates towards Clandon and Merrow, on the building of 
 the new Sutton Place by Sir Richard Weston, say in 1525. 
 
 arms of second Lord Derby, died 1522 ; and second Duke of Norfolk, died 
 1524; also of Nicolas Lepton, the vicar of St. Nicholas, Guildford, who 
 died 1527. Manning's date of 1529 could only refer to the final completion 
 of an edifice which would require several years to erect and then to adorn 
 with woodwork and glass.
 
 vm THE HOUSE 153 
 
 The house, as originally built, consisted of a principal 
 quadrangle, enclosing a space of 81 feet on each side, ana 
 fronted by an arched gateway with a tower flanked by 
 lofty hexagonal turrets. On the western side is now 
 also an inner quadrangle, enclosing a space of about 50 
 by 40 feet, with stabling and offices beyond. Careful 
 examination shows that the smaller quadrangle on the 
 west side is not part of the original edifice. The brick- 
 work and terra-cotta moulding of the base are traceable 
 all round the western wing, and the wall of the smaller 
 quadrangle is merely built up to and on it, and is not 
 worked in with the original brickwork, as is the case 
 with the angle of the main quadrangle. This is observ- 
 able both within the smaller quadrangle, at its north-east 
 junction with the older building, as well as without. In 
 the old pen-and-ink drawing in the possession of Mr. 
 Salvin there is no second quadrangle. The whole house 
 is built of brick and terra-cotta, no stone whatever having 
 been used in the construction or ornamentation. This 
 use of terra-cotta is one highly characteristic of the 
 builder's age ; it is found in one or two other contem- 
 porary examples, 1 but it was shortly afterwards abandoned, 
 and did not reappear until very recent times. 
 
 Sutton is one of the very earliest existing specimens of 
 the purely domestic mansion-house, entirely planned and 
 constructed in an era when no purpose of defence was 
 thought of, and when modern ideas of domestic economy 
 had been fully developed. With Layer Marney Towers, 
 in Essex, and Compton Winyates, in Warwickshire, 
 both built about 1520, Sutton Place remains the earliest 
 example of a non-castellated domestic residence. In all 
 the examples of houses built before the sixteenth century, 
 
 1 In particular, East Barsham, Norfolk, and Layer Marney, Essex.
 
 154 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 of which Haddon Hall is a familiar instance, either an 
 existing castellated work was adapted or incorporated 
 with the house, or the house itself was planned with a 
 view to military defence. 1 Down to the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, mansion-houses consisted mainly of a great hall used 
 for common purposes, and a few separate chambers for 
 the master and his family, the rest of the edifice consist- 
 ing of kitchen, buttery, guard-room, bakehouse, brewery, 
 and other outbuildings. At this date the rooms were not 
 regularly connected with each other. Access to them 
 was only possible by passing across the quadrangle, and 
 the stories were reached by a succession of winding stairs 
 in turrets and projecting angles. So in Thornbury 
 Castle and Sudeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, and other 
 mansions of the fifteenth century. At Sutton Place we 
 find a house planned with all the apartments recognised 
 by modern habits, some forty in number, large, sym- 
 metrical, and unguarded windows, and all the chambers 
 reached by passages and staircases, and not by circular 
 stairs in turrets. The large staircases, however, are 
 obviously more recent ; and there are traces of circular 
 staircases in the original work on the north wing only. 
 It is accordingly an example of the modern mansion- 
 house of the class of which Hatfield House and Longleat 
 are splendid specimens. But it is much earlier in date, 
 and of an order of architecture differing radically from 
 any Elizabethan or Jacobean work. It is one of the very 
 few extant complete examples of the Gothic Renascence 
 style of the age of Henry VIII. and Francis I. 
 
 The revolution in habits and ideas implied in the 
 
 1 Hever Castle, built by Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, Lord Mayor of London, 
 and great-grandfather of Queen Anne Boleyn, and completed by her father, 
 was strongly fortified.
 
 vin THE HOUSE 155 
 
 building of a first-rate mansion on purely pacific prin- 
 ciples, without any defensive character at all, is one of 
 the most important in the history of manners. For five 
 centuries perhaps no man of mark had ever built a 
 residence in the country without providing for the case 
 of its needing to be defended at least against an armed 
 mob. Sir R. Weston, who was himself a soldier of 
 experience and could remember the battle of Bosworth, 
 builds a house in which no trace of war appears, even by 
 way of ornament. The forty years of Tudor sovereignty 
 had done their work. The "King's peace" was so 
 perfectly a habit, that the minister of Henry VIII. 
 takes no more heed of defending his house than would 
 a minister of Victoria. 
 
 Every separate work of this age was the distinct 
 creation of some particular artist. The charm of the 
 Renascence in France especially is that each product of 
 it is unique. At Sutton Place this blending of the 
 Gothic and Renascence elements is treated in a way 
 special to itself. In this age of transition each artist 
 selected the parts of each style for himself, and himself 
 devised the spirit in which they should combine. 
 
 In the house before us the elements of the Gothic and 
 the Renascence are combined in a way that is perhaps 
 without any exact counterpart. Was the designer of 
 this house working under English, French, or Italian 
 influence ? Was he consciously undertaking a new 
 method of building ? Was he following a known 
 model ? Did he belong to the masters of the Gothic 
 art or of the Renascence ? 
 
 Seen from a distance, the house appears to be simply 
 Gothic of the early Tudor age. But the details are in 
 many cases purely Renascence, and Italian rather than
 
 156 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 English in style ; whilst there are occasional points of 
 resemblance (arabesque and Raffaellesque) to some of 
 the buildings of the age of Francis I. in France. Sir 
 Francis Weston, the only son of the founder, who was 
 born about 1511, was obviously named after the brilliant 
 French king. He is the only Francis in the family. It 
 was a great building age, and one when England was 
 brought into close relations with the artistic work of 
 France and of Italy. Henry's visit to Francis at the 
 Field of the Cloth of Gold took place in 1520. As we 
 have seen, Sir Richard Weston, the builder of the house, 
 was one of the knights who attended him. In 1518 
 Weston had been one of the embassy sent to Paris to 
 Francis I., and probably saw the chateaux of the Loire 
 recently erected. Leonardo da Vinci was at this time 
 living at Amboise. 
 
 On the other hand, Henry VIII. had employed many 
 Italian workmen, both on the chapel of Henry VII. 
 at Westminster Abbey, and elsewhere. Girolamo da 
 Trevizi was the King's architect, and he is said to 
 have introduced terra-cotta or moulded brickwork for 
 ornaments. Mr. Hayward in his account of Layer 
 Marney l quotes Dallaway in his notes to Walpole 
 thus : 
 
 " Girolamo da Trevizi and Holbein introduced both terra- 
 cotta or moulded brickwork for rich ornaments and medal- 
 lions, or bas-reliefs fixed against the walls, plasterwork laid 
 over the brick wall, and sometimes painted, as at Norwich, 
 and square bricks of two colours, highly glazed and placed in 
 diagonal lines, as at Layer Marney." 
 
 1 "Architectural Notes on Layer Marney Hall, Essex," by Charles 
 Forster Hayward, F.R.I.B.A., 1862, in Transactions of the Essex Arch<go- 
 logical Society, vol. iii. part i.
 
 vni THE HOUSE 157 
 
 All of these devices are found at Sutton Place. And 
 Mr. Hayward then quotes from a communication made 
 to him by Mr. Digby Wyatt as follows : 
 
 "Among other Italians in this country whose taste 
 exercised a powerful influence upon architecture and the 
 application of sculpture and painting to architecture were 
 John of Padua, Torrigiano, Girolamo da Trevizi (often called 
 Trevisano), Tolo dell' Annunciata, a painter, Benedetto da 
 Rovezzano, a very able Florentine sculptor who was associ- 
 ated with Holbein, Zucchero, the painter, Luca Penni. Of 
 these Luca Penni, painter, Tolo dell' Annunciata, painter, 
 and Trevisano, architect and engineer, all pupils or of the 
 school of Raffaelle, were attached to the court of Henry 
 VIII., and at work before Holbein came here. Layer 
 Marney terra-cotta ornaments were very likely executed 
 under the influence of Girolamo da Trevizi, the King's 
 architect, with whom Sir Henry Marney, the founder of 
 the house, must, as Captain of the Guard to Henry VIII., 
 have come into occasional contact." 
 
 Holbein came to England first as a young man in 
 1526. It is more likely that Girolamo or one of the 
 Maiani was the man whose influence gave to Sutton its 
 marked Italian character. 1 
 
 The house, therefore, is probably a work of builders 
 trained in Gothic art, but working under directions of a 
 designer familiar with the new domestic architecture of 
 the Renascence, and possibly with designs for the details 
 or moulds given by a foreign and no doubt Italian artist. 
 There is no improbability in supposing that the general 
 
 1 The famous terra-cotta medallions of the Caesars at Hampton Court were 
 executed by Giovanni Maiano. For these and an account of terra-cotta work 
 by Italians for English palaces see History of Hampton Court Palace in Tudor 
 Times, by Ernest Law, p. 50.
 
 158 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 artistic superintendence and the finer ornamental work 
 was given by Trevisano. 
 
 The parts where the different styles appear may be said 
 to be as follows : 
 
 The general plan of the house is that of the domestic 
 architecture of the first half of the sixteenth century, and 
 in its general outline and main characteristics it is Gothic. 
 It is far more distinctly Gothic than the houses built in 
 the second half of that century. The gateway and tower, 
 the quadrangle, the great hall dividing the two wings 
 with the principal chambers at the upper end, and the 
 kitchen, buttery, and cellars at the lower end, are features 
 invariably found in the centuries preceding, and in Gothic 
 and castellated edifices. The pointed arch distinctly 
 appears over the mullions of the upper lights in all the 
 windows of the ground floor, in the small arcade of the 
 parapet on the facade, and in the heads of the doors, large 
 and small. The use of mullions, transoms, and labels for 
 the windows, the trefoils and quatrefoils, the bays and 
 gables, are essentially Gothic. The irregular disposition 
 of the garden or south front is also essentially English and 
 Perpendicular Gothic. The general disposition of the 
 house, however, is Tudor rather than strictly Gothic, and 
 entirely English in character. 
 
 On the other hand, the use of terra-cotta is almost 
 always traceable to foreign influences, usually Flemish or 
 Italian. The diaper pattern in dark brick is said to have 
 been introduced by Holbein, but was probably earlier. 
 The use of steps in the gables, as seen in the wings on 
 the north end, is said by Mr. J. J. Stevenson l to be 
 
 1 Home Architecture, 1880, vol. i. p. 354. It is a special peculiarity of 
 Scotch architecture, and was there called " corbie steps " the name indicating 
 its foreign origin. It is also seen at Stockbridge Hall, in Westmorland (see
 
 vin THE HOUSE 159 
 
 originally a French artifice, and it is certainly rare in 
 England, though occasionally seen in the Perpendicular 
 style. It is very marked at Layer Marney, as is shown 
 by Mr. Forster Hayward's drawings. Again, the quad- 
 rangle of Sutton shows a symmetry and careful disposition 
 of parts so as to produce a regular facade, which is not 
 characteristic of Gothic work, but is peculiarly a feature 
 of Italian Renascence. The quadrangle would be exactly 
 symmetrical in all its parts were it not that on the 
 western side the windows are not all placed at regular 
 intervals. There is perhaps no known example in 
 England of a house of a date so early having a plan 
 and facade so symmetrical as is the interior of the 
 great quadrangle of Sutton. Nor will it escape notice 
 that the ancient chimneys are carefully kept out of sight 
 from the quadrangle, the fireplaces throughout the house 
 being mostly in the outer and not in the inner walls. 
 Some of the chimney-stacks are obviously more recent 
 additions. 
 
 But the most distinct feature of Renascence work that 
 the house contains will be found in the details of the 
 ornament in terra -cotta. The amorini over the hall 
 doors, north and south, and in the parapet above, the 
 arabesque work in the mullions, the string-courses 
 moulded with the "tun," the baluster ornament, the 
 small arabesque moulding with it, and also the lozenge 
 ornament, are all entirely in the taste of the Renascence, 
 and are apparently of refined Italian design. Nothing in 
 the least like any of them is to be found in Gothic work ; 
 and the perfect freedom and grace with which these 
 Renascence details are adapted to the Gothic work, and 
 
 Parker, Domestic Architecture, vol. iv. 209), and at Hillfielrl, Warwickshire, 
 1560 (see Old Warwickshire Houses, by W. Niven, 1878).
 
 160 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 even applied to pointed arches, is one of the peculiar 
 features of this house. 
 
 Yet whilst many of the details of the ornament are of 
 strictly Renascence character, there is no single example, 
 even the smallest, of classical work. 1 The column, the 
 round arch, the pilaster, the architrave, the cornice and 
 baluster, and the pediment are nowhere seen ; nor, on the 
 other hand, are the broad scrolls, contorted gables, the 
 lattice -work and fantastic parapets of the Elizabethan 
 style proper. The spirit of the work is rather horizontal 
 in its lines than perpendicular, but the number and 
 disposition of the mullions over each other prevent the 
 horizontal lines from being prominent. 2 
 
 The house remains, the unique work of some unknown 
 "Master of 1525," as one of the landmarks in the history 
 of English architecture. It is so far modern that it has 
 all the symmetry of a Palladian design, whilst it has no 
 single classical feature such as occur at every point of a 
 building of Renascence times. The work as a whole is 
 truly Gothic, but Gothic treated with the eye for ornament 
 of an Italian of the age of Raffaelle. The profuse orna- 
 mentation is of the most delicate kind, never obtruding 
 itself, and in singular contrast with the coarse and florid 
 decoration by which the Elizabethan and Jacobean 
 builders sought to obtain effects of shadow and of 
 contrast. It is interesting to speculate what might have 
 been the future of English domestic architecture if it had 
 
 1 The classical style was introduced into England by John Thorpe, at 
 Longleat, in Wiltshire date 1567-97. Every Elizabethan example has 
 classical features : there is not one at Sutton. 
 
 3 A good collection of views of Elizabethan houses is given in a recent 
 work, Architecture of the Renaissance in England, 1560-1630, by J. Alfred 
 Gotch and W. Talbot Brown, London, 1891. It will be seen how greatly 
 all of these differ from Sutton, which remains Gothic.
 
 vin THE HOUSE 161 
 
 sought to adapt and retain the Gothic forms to new 
 uses in the refined and graceful spirit of the builder of 
 Sutton. 
 
 The problem remains who was he, of what nation, of 
 which school ? The solution which seems the more 
 probable is this That the house was erected by English 
 builders in the contemporary English style of domestic 
 Gothic ; that it was planned under the influence of men 
 who had seen the great palaces which had recently risen 
 in Italy and France, and who understood the new require- 
 ments which the modern life of the sixteenth century had 
 introduced ; and that the English builders were assisted 
 in the symmetrical design and in the details of the orna- 
 mentation by Trevisano or some of his countrymen and 
 companions. 
 
 Whatever may be its origin, it is a building of singular 
 interest in the history of art, as well as of a rare and 
 peculiar beauty. It is a significant example of the 
 flexibility of the Gothic architecture, and of the vitality 
 that remained in it just as it was about to be swept away. 
 It is an evidence of the possibility of building a modern 
 house entirely graceful and light without resorting to a 
 single classical expedient. Lastly, it is a wonderful 
 example of the resources and durability of terra- cotta 
 in building. The brickwork and moulded terra- cotta, 
 which was originally prepared in several shades of red and 
 orange, has now been softened by age and exposure into 
 a rich assemblage of different hues : red, brown, russet, 
 chocolate, orange, salmon, and straw colour, but all 
 harmonising with ordinary brick far better than would 
 stone of any shade. The whole of the work, constructive 
 and ornamental, is in brick and terra-cotta. The bases, 
 doorways, windows, string-courses, labels, and other 
 
 M
 
 162 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 dripstones, parapets, angles, cornices, and finials are of 
 moulded clay. 1 
 
 In all, about forty or fifty different moulds appear to 
 have been used. These are combined and arranged with 
 great ingenuity and freedom. An elegant quatrefoil 
 parapet ornament is obtained by uniting above and below 
 two of the trefoil heads of the window lights. Beside 
 this about six other moulded plaques are used in varied 
 combinations. One consists of a lozenge and ball 
 ornament, one is an arabesque balustrade, others are 
 horizontal mouldings and string-courses ; three others 
 contain a "tun," R.W., and a conventional bunch of 
 grapes, being a "rebus" or punning emblem of the 
 builder. 2 The whole of this series of ornaments of the 
 most delicate character is in a wonderful state of preserva- 
 tion. Not a single piece is wanting in the quadrangle ; 
 and after 370 years of exposure it is so sharp and perfect 
 that casts have been recently taken from it and new 
 mullions reproduced. It may be taken as certain that 
 from the date of its erection till our own day those 
 moulded ornaments have never been copied or reproduced, 
 and that every piece now remaining in the building is 
 the original work of Sir R. Weston, except the portions 
 which have been quite recently renewed. In 1875 terra- 
 
 1 I have not been able to discover in the original building a single piece of 
 stone of any kind, except on the tops of the semi-octagonal turrets flanking 
 the north door to the hall. The great gates of the main north gateway were 
 of course hung in stone. Fragments of these sockets remain in front of the 
 central door into the hall. 
 
 2 Of course the vulgar story that the "tun" and the "bunch of hops" show 
 that the builder was a brewer is an idle blunder. The grapes appear as an 
 ornament at Layer Marney, and show a foreign rather than an English 
 designer. The grapes at Layer Marney are certainly as much like " hops " as 
 those at Sutton. One supposes that in Essex they say to this day that Lord 
 Marney, Captain of the Bodyguard, was the King's "brewer."
 
 via THE HOUSE 163 
 
 cotta mullions and frames, taken in moulds from casts of 
 the existing windows, were replaced in windows which 
 had been altered to modern sash windows probably early 
 in the eighteenth century. The new mullions then 
 inserted were the following Four windows in the east 
 wing, at its southern end ; eight windows in the garden 
 front, at its western end ; and two small windows were 
 inserted when repairing the gables of the quadrangle. 
 The terra -cottas for this work were made by Messrs. 
 Blashfield of Stamford in 1875. 
 
 The age in which Sutton Place was built was fruitful 
 in works of domestic architecture. Henry VIII. is called 
 by Harrison (Description of England^ p. 330) "the onlie 
 phoenix of his time for fine and curious masonrie." 
 Cardinal Wolsey was building Hampton Court, Christ 
 Church, Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge ; 
 Edward Stafford, the princely Duke of Buckingham, 
 built Thornbury Castle, in Gloucestershire, between 1511 
 and 1520. Grimsthorp, in Lincolnshire, was built by the 
 Duke of Suffolk ; Kenninghall, in Norfolk, by the Duke 
 of Norfolk ; and Layer Marney Towers, in Essex, by 
 Lord Marney. The latter is the building which comes 
 nearest to Sutton Place in character. It was built by 
 Lord Marney about 1520, and is also remarkable for the 
 use of terra-cotta combined with brick. Like Sutton 
 Place, it is a Perpendicular Gothic building, the windows 
 having mullions, transoms, and labels, pointed arch and 
 fantastic Renascence ornaments in the Italian style. It 
 was probably designed or decorated by Trevisano. 
 
 The points of resemblance between Layer Marney 
 Towers and Sutton Place are these Layer Marney was 
 built about 1520, Sutton about 1525. Both are of brick 
 and terra-cotta, and both are English Perpendicular, with
 
 164 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Italian Renascence details. In both the main brick walls 
 are diapered. They both have in plan a symmetrical 
 courtyard, hexagonal turrets, parapets, and circular stair- 
 cases. But the details of the work at Layer Marney are 
 far more distinctly Renascence than at Sutton ; and this 
 is especially visible in the parapet. There is nothing at 
 Sutton so rococo as the parapet at Layer Marney. 
 
 Layer Marney Towers still exists about 8 miles from 
 Colchester. A good account of it, with drawings by 
 Charles F. Hayward, was published by the Essex Archaeo- 
 logical Society in 1862 ( Transactions of the Essex Archaeo- 
 logical Society^ vol. iii. part i.) An account also appears 
 in the Building News^ igth September 1879. 
 
 Other buildings of the same date are Hengrave Hall, 
 in Suffolk, built by Sir Thomas Kytson, 1525-38, and 
 Boughton Malherbe, Kent, both built by courtiers of 
 Henry VIII. The following are houses nearest in date 
 to Sutton Place East Barsham, Fakenham, Norfolk 
 (temp. Henry VII.), also a brick building. It shows the 
 H.R. and E.R., griffin and greyhound, crown and haw- 
 thorn bush as in the windows at Sutton. Also parts of 
 Haddon Hall, 1545 ; Littlecotes, Wilts; Bramhall Hall, 
 Cheshire (see accounts of this in Ormerod's Cheshire}. 
 Of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, built by Sir Thomas Kytson, 
 1525-38, there is an excellent account (History and 
 Antiquities of Hengrave^ by John Gage, 203, 4to, I822), 1 
 and see Parker's Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages^ 
 and House Architecture^ by J. J. Stevenson, 1882. 
 
 Terra-cotta is used profusely in the following con- 
 temporary buildings Hampton Court, Layer Marney, 
 
 1 Hengrave is built of freestone and white brick, but without terra-cotta. 
 Its plan is not symmetrical, like that of Sutton ; the entrance is not in the 
 middle of the quadrangle.
 
 viii THE HOUSE 165 
 
 East Barsham ; but it seems to have disappeared almost 
 immediately from English work until revived in this 
 generation. 
 
 A plan of a house during the sixteenth century is 
 described in a curious book, A Dyetorle or Regiment of 
 Health^ by Andrew Boorde of Physick Doctor, 1547 
 (edited by F. J. Furnivall, E. E. Text Soc., 1870). In 
 chap. iv. he writes "Make the hall under such a 
 fasshyon that the parler be anexed to the heade of the 
 hall, and the buttery and pantry be at the lower ende of 
 the hall, the seller under the pantry, yette somewhat 
 abase ; the kychen set somewhat a base from the buttry 
 and pantry commyng with an entry by the wall of the 
 buttry, the pastry-house and the larder-howse anexed to 
 the kychen. Then devyde the lodgynge by the cyrceute 
 of the quadryngall courte, and let the gatehouse be 
 opposyt or agaynst the hall-dore (not directly) but the 
 hall-dore standing a base, and the gatehowse in the mydle 
 of the front entry into the place : let the pryve chambre 
 be anexed to the chambre of astate, with other chambres 
 necessary for the buyldynge, so that many of the chambres 
 maye have a prospecte in to the Chapell." And then he 
 goes on to describe the proper position for the stables, the 
 slaughter-house, half a mile from the mansion, also the 
 bakehouse, how to keep the moat clean, the fruit garden, 
 fish-pool, the park " with deer and conyes," butts, and a 
 bowling-alley. 
 
 This is the plan followed at Sutton Place. The hall 
 is in the centre, entirely dividing the east from the west 
 wing, and occupying the height of two stories. 1 The 
 
 1 A feature worthy of notice is that the hall door is precisely in the centre 
 of the quadrangle, and hence in exact line with the gateway in the tower of 
 the north front, and both are also in line with the garden door of the hall.
 
 1 66 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 principal sitting-room was at the east end of the hall. 
 The kitchen was in the west wing, the room now 
 converted into the drawing-room. The principal apart- 
 ments were in the east wing, the buttery and pantry at 
 the west end of the hall, with the cellars underneath. 
 As originally built, the north end of the quadrangle was 
 occupied by a wing communicating across, and having in 
 the middle a lofty tower with gateway. This wing, like 
 the east wing, was externally 27 feet in width. It was, 
 of course, in length exactly the same as the quadrangle, 
 i.e. 8 1 feet. This front appears in three drawings in the 
 possession of the present owner, one being about the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century, say 1600; a 
 second is dated 1750; and the third is 1779. An 
 engraving of the latter was given in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine^ p. 108, February 1779. This tower and side 
 of the quadrangle had long been in a ruinous condition, 
 and it was removed by the then owner in I782. 1 A 
 careful architectural elevation taken previous to that date 
 is now in Mr. Salvin's hands (1750). From these it 
 would appear that the gate-tower rose to a height nearly 
 double the existing house. It had a large gateway, 
 apparently four-centred arch, with three entire stories 
 over the gateway. The central windows were of four 
 lights with transoms, the lowest window of eight lights ; 
 the mullions, labels, cornices, and medallion ornaments in 
 
 This is contrary to the directions given in the Dyetorie and apparently contrary 
 to the universal practice. At least, I can find no plan of a Gothic house 
 where a right line passes true through the external gateway and the inner 
 and outer hall doors, and is at the same time the central axis of the principal 
 court. 
 
 1 The bills of the contractor for the pulling down the tower are now in 
 the possession of Mr. Salvin. They are dated 1782. The receipts for the 
 various works and alterations (2445) are dated 1784.
 
 vin THE HOUSE 167 
 
 terra-cotta, precisely similar to those of the present faade 
 of the quadrangle. Beside the gateway were two turrets, 
 obviously containing staircases, and giving access to the 
 stories above. From the ends of each wing a high wall 
 with a coping is shown in the older drawing (1600), 
 terminating at the corners with hexagonal towers, similar 
 to that one now remaining entire in the garden. Of 
 tkese turrets in the curtilage there are said to have been 
 eight. 
 
 With the exception of the removal of the north side, 
 the quadrangle as seen externally remains in its original 
 form. Whether the hall is internally in its original form, 
 or whether it extended to the west so as to include another 
 winoow, or even another bay, is very doubtful. The 
 present partition at the west end of the hall is slight. 
 We meet inside no solid and thick wall until we reach 
 the west bay ; and the height of the rooms adjoining the 
 minstrels' gallery corresponds with the ceiling of the hall, 
 and not with that of the other rooms. 1 Here stood the 
 pantry and buttery, adjoining the kitchen, and close to 
 the stairs descending on the garden side, under the present 
 
 1 The fact that the west wall of the hall is a slight partition wall is not 
 at all decisive against its being the original end of the hall. Although the 
 hall as it stands might well be longer for its width, it would be highly unusual 
 and inconsistent if the hall door stood anywhere near the middle, instead of 
 the end of the hall. As it is, it occupies a very unusual place, one due 
 probably to the desire of the designer to produce a symmetrical facade. It 
 will be observed that in the inventory of 1542 there is next to the butler's 
 chamber the " litle chambre bi the mydell entre." This must have occupied 
 the site of the present passage which gives access to the hall at its north-west 
 door. The hall, therefore, could not very well be longer than it is now. 
 Besides, with the increase of living rooms in a mansion the great hall was 
 reduced in size. It was no longer the general living and sleeping room of the 
 retainers, as it had been in the thirteenth and fourteenth century (Parker, 
 Dom. Arch. iii. 15).
 
 168 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 staircase, to the cellars and vaults. In houses of this date 
 the sets of rooms round a quadrangle do not communicate. 
 As Mr. J. J. Stevenson says (House Architecture^ ii. p. 34), 
 "the house (of 1500-50) is only a collection of separate 
 houses ; access between them could only be got by going 
 outside." And the fact that there are three doors together 
 makes it evident that this was the plan adopted here. 
 The present opening through the wall at the west angle 
 into the corridor to the great hall is recent. Originally, 
 it is probable that the rooms of the west wing did not 
 communicate with the hall except through the kitchen ; 
 and it is probable that the rooms on the ground floor in 
 the east wing did not communicate with the hall. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that any of the three 
 great staircases as now seen in the house belonged to the 
 original work. They present the character of a later 
 date. The north and east sides of the quadrangle were 
 those chiefly injured by the fire of 1560; and they 
 seem never to have been completely restored or adapted 
 to use. What was the original character of the rooms, 
 and whether the existing party walls were so planned, it 
 seems impossible now to determine. 
 
 The present long gallery occupies the upper floor of 
 the whole east wing. It was restored in its present form 
 in 1878. About half of it had previously been used as 
 a Catholic chapel during this century. Whether the 
 original plan contained a long gallery at all resembling 
 the present may well be doubted. No long gallery of 
 the scale and completely developed character of the 
 present can be found in England so early as 1525. 
 That which we now see resembles the fully formed 
 galleries of the Elizabethan and Jacobean age. It is 
 certain that the gallery, if any such there were, was much
 
 vin THE HOUSE 169 
 
 shorter than the present one ; otherwise it would have 
 had windows on all four sides, and would have been 
 hardly habitable in winter. There are now behind the 
 panelling recesses for four fireplaces, not for one as we 
 now see. They communicate with chimneys in the 
 four double stacks visible in the eastern wall, all part 
 of the original edifice. And it may be doubted if the 
 builders of the early sixteenth century ever designed a 
 single room to be warmed by four fires in place of one 
 large one. In the inventory taken at the death of the 
 builder in 1542 there is no description of a room which 
 would correspond with the long gallery, as " the gret 
 chambre " is undoubtedly the present hall. It is 
 probable that three, if not four rooms, or even more, 
 occupied the place of this gallery. 
 
 In the original plan the private rooms of the master 
 were probably in the south end of the east wing, adjoining 
 the head of the hall, the old solar, in fact. An opening, 
 loft, or gallery may have existed on the upper story, 
 whence the family could see what was going on in 
 the hall after they had left it. The entrance door in 
 the quadrangle to the east wing led to the set of 
 chambers quite distinct from the rest of the house, and 
 the entrance in the quadrangle to the west wing led 
 to the offices and kitchen. The original chapel is said 
 to have been in the western side of the inner court facing 
 the stables, and the priest's room was till lately the low 
 panelled room facing the garden at the extreme south- 
 west angle of the house. This, at least, has been the 
 disposition in the last century, when the family were under 
 the pressure of the anti-Catholic laws. Whether there was 
 any other chapel in the original design is not clear. No 
 traces of it appear, and it may have been in the east wing.
 
 i yo ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH.VIII 
 
 The plan of the house will be made out best by 
 following the inventory. It is possible that was drawn 
 up in this way : beginning with the hall in the centre, it 
 passes into the chambers in the east wing ; so round the 
 east wing to the gateway or northern front, and thence 
 round to the west wing, the kitchen, pantry, offices, and 
 stables. But the original chambers cannot now be 
 identified ; and doubtless the house as planned consisted 
 of four sides of a great quadrangle, each side being practi- 
 cally separate, and having access without and within the 
 quadrangle by separate entrances. Within these four 
 distinct blocks of building, north, east, south, and west, 
 the separate apartments were only divided by very slight, 
 and perhaps variable partitions of panelling, or even 
 screens of tapestry and canvas. The dimensions of the 
 principal halls are as follows The hall is 51 feet 6 
 inches long by 25 feet 6 inches, or between the bays 38 
 feet. It is 30 feet 9 inches high. The long gallery is 
 174 feet long by 23 feet wide, and 15 feet high. 
 
 The account given by Aubrey in his Natural History 
 of Antiquities of Surrey^ iii. 228, is as follows "The place 
 is a noble seat, built of brick, and has a stately gatehouse, 
 with a very high Tower, bearing a turret at each angle. 
 In it is a square court. The windows [? mullions and 
 transoms] are made of baked earth, of whitish yellow 
 colour (like Flanders bricks). The mouldings within 
 the house are adorned with pendants of Fruits and Flowers 
 of the same brick, where is R.W. and the Figure of a 
 Tun, as a rebus of his name. In the hall (of the same 
 sort of work as in King's College, Cambridge, if not 
 by the same hand) is the crest of Weston. In the parlour 
 is his coat of arms."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE QUADRANGLE 
 
 THE quadrangle, in its original form, as completed by 
 the northern wing, measured within (above the moulded 
 base) 8 1 feet 3 inches x 81 feet 3 inches. 1 It is remark- 
 able for two essential features which distinguish it from 
 the English architecture of the period ; the first being 
 its regular and symmetrical character, both in plan and 
 in elevation ; the second, that its scheme of ornament 
 is in the low and delicate relief of the Italian style, rather 
 than of the open cut and linear work of the late Gothic 
 
 1 The exact line of the northern wing, both on its inside and outside walls, 
 is easily traceable, the return of the moulding of the skirting or base being 
 visible both on the east and west wings ; and the foundations have recently 
 been opened and discovered by Mr. Sidney Harrison.
 
 172 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 manner. The quadrangle is in height on the east and 
 west wings 32 feet 6 inches from the ground to the top 
 of the parapet. It is divided into two stories by a string- 
 course, the lower story being 16 feet from the ground to 
 the string-course, the upper story 13 feet, and the parapet 
 itself is 3 feet 6 inches. On the south wing, where the 
 upper story is 2 feet 6 inches higher, the measurement 
 from the ground to the top of the parapet is 35 feet. It 
 appears from the mouldings and the bases on the two 
 entrance doors of the hall north and south, and the two 
 entrance doors in the east and west wings, that the level 
 of the quadrangle is nearly, if not exactly, the original, 
 as is the floor of the hall. 1 It is no doubt one of the 
 peculiarities of the building, perhaps due to the extreme 
 evenness and dry ness of the situation, that the entire 
 ground floor of the whole house in both quadrangles 
 now stands on the exact level of the soil, both on the 
 quadrangle and the garden side ; so that no step of any 
 kind is employed for entering the house on any side, and 
 apparently none was ever designed. 
 
 The entrance doors to the hall and all the windows of 
 the lower story throughout the house are protected by 
 dripstone labels ; the windows of the upper story have 
 none. The windows of the upper story are sufficiently 
 protected by the string-course and dripstone under the 
 parapet, the upper story being 3 feet higher than the 
 lower ; thus the heads of the windows in the upper story 
 come close up to the string-course. The windows of the 
 lower story also have in their upper range of lights four 
 
 1 The surrounding soil must have been raised somewhat in three centuries 
 by the action of earth-worms ; see Charles Darwin on the action of earth- 
 worms, which raise open ground about I foot in each century (The Formation 
 of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, 1881).
 
 ix THE QUADRANGLE 173 
 
 cusps, forming at the top a pointed head. The other 
 lights have two cusps, forming a round head. A base 
 with moulding, at present 2 feet 6 inches from the level 
 of the soil, runs round the building. Over the second 
 story stands a parapet, and the whole building is covered 
 by a high-pitched tiled roof. 
 
 The principal entrance, called in the inventory of 1542 
 "the mydell entre," opening into the west end of the 
 hall, is in the centre of the south side of the quadrangle, 
 and stood in exact line with the gateway in the north 
 tower and wing, now removed. It is also in exact line 
 with the similar entrance to the garden on the south side 
 of the house. Thus the axis through the centre of the 
 quadrangle passed through the centre of the outer gate- 
 way, and also through the two great doors of the hall, 
 north and south. 
 
 At the upper end of the quadrangle in the west and 
 east wings are two similar doorways, exactly facing each 
 other. All of these are n feet high. Nearly in the 
 centre of the west and east wings are two sloped bays, 1 3 
 feet by 3 feet, also facing each other, and in every way 
 identical. North of each bay on the upper story are 
 three windows, and south are two windows ; all of them 
 having six lights. The four windows, identical in design 
 and corresponding with each other, on either side of the 
 two side doors, east and west, have four lights each. 
 The rows of windows on the two stories stand nearly, 
 but not quite, regularly over each other, and are placed 
 nearly, but not quite, at regular intervals. From the old 
 pencil drawing by William Woolfe, signed and dated 
 1750, it would appear that the northern wing, then 
 standing, as seen from the quadrangle, nearly cor- 
 responded with the existing southern wing, and had
 
 174 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 six windows of six lights each on either side of the 
 gateway. The principal entrance door in the south 
 wing is obviously planned with a view to a symmetrical 
 facade, and is hardly the most convenient for the use of 
 the hall itself. The quadrangle itself is an exact square. 
 An arrangement of the quadrangle so symmetrical is 
 quite contrary to all the methods of building adopted in 
 earlier times, or in any building of a castellated kind. 
 It may well be doubted if there is extant in England 
 any earlier example of such a plan, and in any case it 
 was due to foreign influence and reminiscences. It 
 would probably be difficult to find in England a house so 
 early as 1520 where, as at Sutton, the desire of symmetry 
 in the external ele.vation entirely dominated the claims of 
 convenience within. 
 
 The south side of the quadrangle, as seen from within 
 it, is perfectly regular in plan and elevation. It is i\ 
 feet higher than the wings on the side, east and west. 
 The entrance in the centre is flanked by two regular 
 half-octagonal turrets, 3.2 feet in diameter above the 
 base, rising to a height of 48 feet. The string-courses 
 and ornament of the parapet are carried round the 
 turrets. They are completely covered from top to 
 bottom with moulded ornaments, being the terra-cotta 
 plaques with the R.W., the "tun," and the grape 
 patterns set close together. At the top they are now 
 capped with large finials of stone, and they are connected 
 with an ornamental embattled parapet. It seems not 
 improbable, from the way in which the parapet is 
 built on to, and not into, the turrets, that it was a 
 later addition, in spite of the use of the lozenge plaques 
 between the embrasures. The fragments of stone before 
 the main central doorway are probably pieces of the piers
 
 ix THE QUADRANGLE 175 
 
 in which the great outer gates were hung. This is the 
 only instance in the existing building where either stone 
 or battlements are found. Both have been repaired at 
 some unknown date ; but there seems no means of 
 ascertaining if they are precisely according to the 
 original design. The change, if any there be, is very 
 slight. 
 
 Over the entrance are two tiers of amorini^ or winged 
 cupids, handling apparently rosaries, or strings of beads 
 with crosses. They are quite Italian in conception, but 
 crudely executed and somewhat monotonous in arrange- 
 ment, as though English artificers were working out an 
 Italian sketch or suggestion. The amorini appear im- 
 mediately over the entrance door, which is itself a very 
 fair specimen of Tudor Gothic with geometric tracery 
 and quatrefoils in the spandrels. Under the embattled 
 parapet above, the rows of amorini appear again, each in 
 a rather tame and awkward niche of low Gothic pattern, 
 apparently formed by inserting a double cusp. 
 
 The parapet, which runs completely round the quad- 
 rangle, is fanciful and varied. It consists, in alternate 
 spaces of about 10 feet each, arranged without precise 
 regularity, of three distinct sets of ornaments the 
 lozenge pattern, the flat oblong plaque only used here, 
 and the common English quatrefoil pattern, ingeniously 
 contrived by inserting four of the cusps used in the 
 window heads. Neither this nor any other part of the 
 parapet is open or pierced. On the east and west wings 
 the lozenge ornament is found also between the windows 
 under the string-course. On the south wing there is 
 a continuous band of the lozenge ornament over 
 the windows and under the string-course. At the 
 juncture of each of the patterns for the parapet is a
 
 176 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 finial, now much decayed, as it would seem, four finials 
 in each wing. Enough remains of the finials to show 
 that they were formed of plain and solid hexagonal blocks 
 of terra-cotta, about 14 inches high, set on bases formed 
 of hollow blocks of the same form. What now looks 
 like stone is the decayed plaster backing for the hollow 
 pieces of terra-cotta. The parapet above the bays is 
 formed of the lozenge ornament in rows, capped by the 
 coping of toy battlemented work characteristic of English 
 Perpendicular. The finials were probably capped in the 
 same way as the hexagonal turrets now are. 
 
 The north wing appears to have been of the same 
 width as the east wing, viz. 27 feet (externally). A 
 good idea is obtained by the pencil drawings of Mr. W. 
 Woolfe, dated 1750, of its north and south front. The 
 gate tower was about 70 feet high. 1 The large gateway 
 in the centre was a four-centred Tudor arch with deep 
 mouldings. Over this was a flat band of ornamental 
 terra-cotta work, with the amorini similar to that over 
 the entrance doors to the hall inside the quadrangle. 
 Above the gateway were three stories, each lit by a large 
 window, the lower one having transoms and eight lights, 
 the two upper four lights in one row. All three windows 
 were protected by labels. The gate tower was flanked 
 by two large octagonal turrets, apparently 6 or 7 feet in 
 diameter, and have six lights, one above the other, 
 between which, at the top, ran a battlemented parapet. 
 These turrets obviously served as staircases to reach the 
 upper stories. The chimney-stacks are here, as else- 
 where, on the outside, there being few chimneys on the 
 
 1 The ground has been recently opened and trenched by Mr. Sidney 
 Harrison, who has made careful measured plans. From these the exact 
 line of the building can be followed.
 
 ix THE QUADRANGLE 177 
 
 quadrangle side throughout the house. The gateway as 
 shown in several drawings is a Tudor arch with mould- 
 ings and no label. Though it was originally pointed, it 
 is drawn as roughly rounded in the three independent 
 drawings extant. The gateway, and indeed the windows, 
 more nearly resemble those of Layer Marney, also a terra- 
 cotta work of this date, than perhaps any other extant 
 example of Tudor architecture. 
 
 The whole facade of the quadrangle is ornamented 
 profusely with terra-cotta plaques and mouldings. The 
 quoins are all worked with alternate squares of the 
 R.W., "tun," and grape design, the black bricks 
 forming a diaper pattern on the red bricks, and the terra- 
 cotta being in two main colours, one deep brick-red, the 
 other an orange-straw colour, several of the designs 
 appearing alternately in the two colours. The brick- 
 work and terra-cotta have by age acquired an immense 
 variety of different tints, varied by the grays and greens 
 of lichens, mosses, and wallflowers, so that the whole 
 presents an extraordinary assemblage of warm and 
 harmonious hues. 
 
 There seems to be but little attempt to cover brick- 
 work with plaster, as at Layer Marney, the chief examples 
 of this being on the parapet as a backing to the quatrefoil 
 ornament, and again on the parapet on the garden front 
 south of the house. 
 
 The elaborate scheme of ornamentation is confined to 
 the quadrangle. The gateway front to the north, and 
 the external walls of the house east and west, have no 
 ornamental work beyond the mullions of the windows 
 and the moulded base, and no parapet and no string- 
 courses or dripstones. The garden front is of a very 
 different character from the quadrangle. All attempt at 
 
 N
 
 178 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 symmetry is discarded, the parts are grouped in deep 
 and irregular masses, and the chimney-stacks and 
 gables characteristic of Tudor architecture are disposed 
 irregularly. The garden door to the hall on the south 
 side is ornamented similarly to that in the quadrangle on 
 the north side, and the parapet is carried along the south 
 side. No doubt the external south side of the building 
 was protected by an outer wall. 
 
 It may be noted here that the large and ungainly cross 
 moline made of coarse tiles, which is inserted three times 
 under an ogee pattern in this parapet, is almost certainly 
 a late addition, not earlier than 1640. The cross moline 
 is the coat of Copley, whose heiress married John Weston 
 in 1637. There is nothing in the family heraldry to 
 account for the cross moline before the year 1652, when 
 John Weston succeeded. It is plainly not the cross ot 
 St. John, to which Sir Richard Weston could have no 
 claim. And though a cross moline is found in one of the 
 quarters of the coats of Sir Francis and Sir Henry 
 Weston, 1536-92, it is simply for Longuevilliers^ one of 
 the quarterings of Pickering. It could have no meaning 
 as a bearing of Sir Richard Weston. 
 
 The external walls measure 3 feet in thickness ; the 
 north wall of the northern gateway wing measures 4 feet, 
 as the broken return now shows. The roof over the east 
 and west wings, and also that over the south wing, are 
 similar, and form one continuous structure, open through- 
 out, though on rather different levels. The roof is high- 
 pitched and tiled, supported by immense arches of oak 
 fastened by cross pieces, and bound together by huge 
 horizontal transverse beams resting on the walls. There 
 is no evidence that these were ever prepared so as to form 
 an open roof, or that any room or dormitory ever existed
 
 ix THE QUADRANGLE 179 
 
 in the roof; the few and irregular dormer windows are 
 merely to light the roof. Beneath the transverse beams 
 are now flat ceilings of lath and plaster, and the form of 
 the ceiling in the roof, with a coving of about i| feet, is 
 perhaps not far from the original form. The immense 
 beams in the roof that cross the ceiling may easily have 
 supported pendants in the hall, but there is nothing to 
 show that they did. The action of fire is visible in the 
 roof of the northern part of the east wing, as it is in the 
 brickwork of the ground floor of the same wing. The 
 roof of about half the east wing, at the northern end of 
 it, is evidently a later and rather rude restoration. The 
 two small double-light windows in the gables of the east 
 and west wings are still visible on the north end. The 
 mullions seem to have been early removed from the eight 
 windows on the north ends of the east and west wings, 
 as appears from the old pen-and-ink drawing, made 
 apparently in the seventeenth century. 
 
 As originally built, the house appears to have consisted 
 of this quadrangular court, with probably a chapel in the 
 south-west corner, but without the second court on the 
 west. The smaller quadrangle on the west does not 
 contain any terra-cotta whatever. The inventory made 
 on the founder's death mentions about thirty-two rooms. 
 There are now more than this number in the house, 
 without reckoning the north and east wings at all, and 
 few of the existing rooms answer to the " lytell closets," 
 which were merely bits enclosed from other rooms. No 
 partition walls of any solidity appear in the house, except 
 that the walls of the east and west wings are carried 
 along across the south wing at a thickness of 2 feet 6 
 inches. These are probably the only partition walls in 
 the original structure, as in accordance with the practice
 
 180 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 of the times the apartments would be separated only by 
 panelling or other light division. The original staircases, 
 either as external adjuncts or within, cannot now be 
 positively traced. 
 
 There is no doubt that the house, as now and for a 
 long period inhabited, has been completely transposed. 
 The most pleasant part of the house must have been the 
 east and south-east wings. The part of the house 
 reserved for the family was doubtless in the north and 
 east wings, one of which is now removed altogether, and 
 the other practically abandoned as a residence. The west 
 wing, in which the present residence is, was the quarter 
 of the offices ; the present drawing-room was the kitchen 
 until about forty years ago ; the present dining-room was 
 probably once connected with the back buildings, on 
 which it abuts. The west wing measures I foot less in 
 width than the eastern and the north wings. 
 
 It is probable that from the time of Sir H. Weston 
 (temp. Eliz.) down to that of the third Sir R. Weston 
 (temp. Car. I.) Clandon and not Sutton was the principal 
 residence of the family. Their baptisms and marriages 
 are registered at West Clandon, and in existing deeds of 
 the seventeenth century Sir R. Weston is described as of 
 Clandon, not of Sutton. If so, the rooms injured by the 
 fire in the time of Elizabeth, in the north and east wings, 
 may never have been completely refitted and furnished. 
 In 1641 Sir R. Weston sold the Clandon estate and 
 mansion to Sir R. Onslow. It was then, probably, that 
 the house at Sutton was refitted anew, and to this date 
 we may attribute much of the carved panelling and oak 
 doorways and staircases, and the Copley arms a cross 
 moline on the parapet, etc., and in the panelling ; and 
 as Sir R. Weston devoted much of his fortune to the
 
 THE QUADRANGLE 
 
 181 
 
 canal speculation, and ultimately embarrassed his estate, 
 he may have lived at Sutton with less magnificence than 
 did his grandfather, Sir Henry, eighty years before, and 
 thus, after the sale of Clandon, he fitted up for his own 
 residence the west wing. Aubrey calls the panelled hall 
 the " parler," so that in his day (1673) the family 
 apparently lived in the west wing ; and at this epoch 
 it is not improbable that the small quadrangle on the 
 west side of the house was added.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE GREAT AND THE PANELLED HALL 
 
 THE smaller hall in the west wing, abutting on the west 
 entrance from the court, now serves as the general 
 entrance hall to the building. Aubrey, writing in 1673, 
 speaks of it (iii. p. 228) as the "parler." It measures 24 
 feet by 19 feet 6 inches, excluding the bay. It is now 
 completely panelled in old oak wainscotting. The whole 
 of this was until recently covered with layers of old paint, 
 whitewash, and canvas. The room had long been used 
 as a lamp-room. In 1874 the screens and paint were 
 removed and the panelling cleaned. Some pieces from 
 other parts of the house were used in forming recesses 
 and doors, but in general the panelling is in its original 
 condition. These alterations or repairs were made by 
 Frederick Harrison, then in occupation under a lease. 
 The panelled hall has a Tudor four-centred arch for the 
 fireplace of terra-cotta, similar to that in the great hall, 
 and like it ornamented with the pomegranate, the badge 
 of Catherine of Aragon. 1 This would show that the 
 
 1 Ferdinand V. of Spain was engaged in the conquest of Granada, 1483- 
 85, when he received news of the birth of Catherine, and she received the 
 pomegranate (granadai) as her badge, in commemoration of the issue of the
 
 CH.X THE GREAT AND THE PANELLED HALL 183 
 
 fireplace itself was not later than 1527, the year of the 
 disgrace of Catherine ; and it would show that this room, 
 if the fireplace is in situ^ belonged to the more important 
 parts of the house. The fireplace might possibly have 
 been removed and placed here when the carved oak 
 chimney-piece was fitted up, the date of which it is 
 easy to fix. 
 
 Over the fireplace is a panel, and painted on the oak 
 are the arms of Weston, impaling those of Copley. 
 This was the coat borne by John Weston, who married 
 Mary Copley in 1637, and who died 1690. Above this 
 used to stand the large escutcheon of the arms of Sir 
 Thomas Copley, with numerous quarterings. In 1874 
 the paintings and woodwork were restored by Mr. F. H. 
 Salvin, and the escutcheon was removed and placed in the 
 south end of the long gallery in the east wing. The 
 woodwork and fittings of this hall are therefore to be 
 attributed to about the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and the same is perhaps the date of much of the 
 carved oak panelling in the hall and elsewhere in the 
 house. 
 
 In this hall is an old picture of a large house of the 
 Jacobean period, which has not been identified. The 
 painted iron safe is of the same period. Both of these 
 are supposed to have been part of the original furniture. 
 The other pictures and furniture in this hall have no 
 historical connection with the house, and have been 
 recently placed there. This hall in the original plan 
 may have served as a guard-room, armoury, or lower 
 hall. 
 
 campaign. In the spandrels of the arch are the arms of Weston and of 
 Camel, as they were quartered by Sir R. Weston, the founder, and appear in 
 the original glass windows of the great hall.
 
 1 84 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 THE GREAT HALL 
 
 The great hall, which occupies the larger part of the 
 south wing, is a noble apartment, 51 feet 6 inches in 
 length, 25 feet 6 inches in breadth, and nearly 31 feet in 
 height. It has two principal entrances facing each other, 
 the centre of both being now 1 2 feet from the west end 
 of the hall the one on the north opening into the court, 
 the other on the south into the garden. The hall is 
 warmed by an open fireplace on the south side, which, it 
 will be observed, is one of the immense stack of chimneys 
 5 feet thick in the south wall. The other two chimneys 
 in this stack must have belonged to the vaults. The hall 
 occupies both stories, and is lit by the four windows of 
 the two bays, north and south, and by six other windows 
 on the north, and four on the south side. 
 
 The position of the entrance doors is certainly most 
 unusual. Halls of this class usually are entered at their 
 lower end, or if entered by the side, then the entrance is 
 at the extreme end, and is protected by a screen of some 
 kind. Here the main entrance, called in the inventory 
 of 1 542 the " mydell entre," is so far from the end of the 
 hall that the passage running across the two doors cuts 
 off exactly one-third of the whole length of the hall. It 
 is extremely difficult to see how any screen could have 
 crossed the hall without destroying its appearance and 
 obscuring the view of the painted glass in the windows. 
 It is equally difficult to see how the hall could have been 
 either longer or shorter than it is at present. All the win- 
 dows of the hall now have their painted glass, apparently 
 in their original position, and contemporary with the house, 
 at least those in the lower windows are (see the arms of 
 Lord Derby in IV., and of Sir Walter Dennis in X. 3).
 
 x THE GREAT AND THE PANELLED HALL 185 
 
 The inventory of 1542 mentions a room "bi the 
 mydell entre," which could hardly have been so called if 
 the hall were longer. Although an entrance at the side 
 of the hall and so near its centre must always have been 
 inconvenient, it seems to have been so used until the 
 alterations of 1874, though by the removal of the north 
 wing the court is now much more exposed to the 
 weather. The entrance was probably protected by a 
 small screen enclosing a few square feet round the door. 
 Another peculiarity is that there is no trace of any dais in 
 the hall, and the windows of the bays north and south are 
 so near the level of the soil that probably none ever 
 existed. 1 At the east end of the hall a solid party wall 
 2 feet 6 inches thick separates the hall from the east 
 wing. At the lower or west end of the hall no solid 
 partition of any kind is traceable. We find none until 
 we reach the wall continuous with that of the west wing, 
 which is 2 feet 6 inches thick. The cellars below show 
 buttress work, as though designed to support the end of 
 the existing stone floor. 
 
 The ceiling is now a flat plaster roof, which was 
 painted for the owner in 1874. There is no trace of 
 any pendant work, or of any other class of roofing. The 
 beams in the roof over the hall were evidently not 
 constructed to be shown as an open timber roof; they 
 are perfectly equal to support any weight that might be 
 hung from them, but there is no trace of anything of the 
 kind. The dormer windows in the roof are too small 
 and few for any other purpose except just to light the 
 roof, and there is nothing to show that any habitable 
 
 1 There is no dais in the great hall of Hampton Court. The dais was 
 omitted about this period. As to this, and the reduced size of the mediaeval 
 hall, see Parker, Dom. Arch. iii. 15, 78.
 
 1 86 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 rooms ever existed in it. Thus every examination leads 
 to the belief that the hall, as we now see it, is not very 
 far from its original appearance. 
 
 The general disposition of the hall appears to have 
 been as follows At the upper or east end, where the 
 billiard table now is, the high table stood across between 
 the bay windows north and south. Here was the " gret 
 carpet to the table there " in the inventory ; also in the 
 wardrobe prepared for royal visits was the " grete carpete 
 to lay under the Kyngs fete." Below this in the body 
 of the hall stood the " bord in the gret chambre," where 
 sat the officers, retainers, and strangers, for the inventory 
 speaks of " a clothe of dyap for a square borde " ; " xi 
 fyne table clothes for the hawle for strangers." In a 
 house of this kind, in a country at that time so thinly 
 cultivated, something like open house was a necessity of 
 the age. Round the walls were, no doubt, hangings of 
 some kind of tapestry, for the inventory gives in "the 
 gret chambere," " Ffyrst . . . peces of hangyngs of the 
 Story of the Egypcyons." Behind the high table would 
 be the door communicating with the principal rooms of 
 the family in the east wing, and doubtless, as now, a 
 gallery in the upper story from which they could survey 
 the hall after leaving it. At the west end of the hall 
 were the buttery, butler's pantry, and other offices, " the 
 butler's chamb," and the "litle chamb bi the mydell 
 entre." Adjoining the pantry was the staircase leading 
 down to the cellarage, which is no doubt much in its 
 original condition. The kitchen stood farther west, next 
 to the garden, in the part now occupied by the inner 
 drawing-room. This was still the kitchen within the 
 last forty years. On the second floor, at the west end of 
 the hall, stood, as is now to be seen, the minstrels' gallery.
 
 x THE GREAT AND THE PANELLED HALL 187 
 
 The whole of the hall is vaulted underneath with an 
 extensive system of cellars. The arches and jambs of 
 these are made of hard chalk. The huge oak beams and 
 doors are still in many places visible. It would appear 
 that two of the chimneys in the great stack of three 
 in the south wall were intended for these cellars. 
 
 The fireplace is of terra-cotta, and is apparently in its 
 original place and form. It is a four-centre arch with 
 Tudor -Gothic mouldings, the spandrels of the arch 
 showing rudely-worked Saracens' heads, the crest of the 
 Westons, and also branches of pomegranates with fruit 
 and tendrils. As observed in the similar fireplace of 
 the panelled hall, the pomegranate implies a date earlier 
 than 1527, the year when Henry VIII. actively promoted 
 the divorce of Catherine. 
 
 The wainscotting of the hall is no doubt of various 
 dates, perhaps none of it contemporary with the house. 
 No part of it seems earlier than the seventeenth century, 
 the ornamental work over the two large doorways being 
 apparently Jacobean and in its proper place. The carved 
 work over the fireplace is obviously made up of seven- 
 teenth-century fragments, perhaps pieces from the ends 
 of bedsteads or sides of chests ; and it would be unsafe 
 to assign any definite date to this rather artless concoction 
 of stray fragments. The bulk of the panelling in the 
 hall is probably of the seventeenth century, with perhaps 
 some repairs, alterations, and refittings of the eighteenth 
 century. It may be mentioned that the furniture, 
 chandeliers, carved chairs, cabinets and chests, tables and 
 tapestries, both in the hall and in the long gallery, have 
 no historical connection with the house.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LONG GALLERY, TAPESTRIES, PORTRAITS, AND 
 ESCUTCHEONS 
 
 THE east wing of the house, in which with the northern 
 or gateway wing were situated the principal apartments 
 of the original building, was partially destroyed by the 
 fire of yth August 1560. The extent of the fire, which 
 injured about one-third of the east wing on its northern 
 end, can be distinctly traced in the roof, and also in the 
 ground floor. And there is every reason to think that 
 the whole of the east wing was never completely restored. 
 A portion of it was formerly fitted up as a Catholic 
 chapel, and the staircase and much of the woodwork 
 evidently belongs to the last century. 
 
 In the year 1878 the gallery was restored in its present 
 form by Frederick Harrison, the lessee. As now fitted 
 up, somewhat short of the external length of the wing, 
 the gallery measures internally, and including the stair- 
 case, 152 feet by 21 in width. Mr. Harrison replaced 
 the terra- cotta mullions, frames, and mouldings in four 
 of the windows there j reglazed the lights on the 
 windows at the northern part of the gallery, and fitted 
 up the panelling and tapestries. The panels were for
 
 CH. xi THE LONG GALLERY 189 
 
 the most part discovered by the owner, F. H. Salvin, in 
 another house, and were replaced ; the tapestries are the 
 property of Mr. S. Harrison, and form part of the tenant's 
 furniture. The windows, with stone mullions and 
 painted glass arms and quarterings of the Westons, were 
 placed there by F. H. Salvin in 1857. 
 
 It may be taken as certain that the house, as originally 
 built, did not contain any such long gallery as we see. 
 Many points in its construction, as well as the inventory, 
 concur in leading to this conclusion. If the gallery be 
 the original, its great size and early date would make 
 it a more remarkable fact in the history of domestic 
 architecture than anything else in the house ; for thus 
 two sides of the quadrangle of which the house then 
 consisted would have been almost entirely occupied by 
 two very large chambers. The panelling of the gallery 
 is of a composite kind, none of it apparently earlier than 
 the seventeenth century, and most of it of the eighteenth 
 century, with some recent additions. There were not 
 found any traces of ornamental ceilings or painted glass 
 in the windows. 
 
 The Tapestries 
 
 The tapestries have no historical connection with the 
 house, and are the property of Mr. Sidney Harrison. 
 Most of them are very fine Brussels work of the sixteenth 
 century. They bear the well-known marks for Brussels ; 
 also a castle or on a shield gules. Amongst the maker's 
 cyphers are the following for Herselin, a famous Brussels 
 artist, 1530-40 ; for Fra^ois Speering, about 1588. He 
 made the famous tapestry of the Armada in the Houses of 
 Parliament, burnt in the fire of 1834; apparently the 
 mark of Jean Raes. Jean Raes was a famous Brussels
 
 190 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 artist who made the Seven Capital Sins and the Battle of 
 the Virtues and Vices. 
 
 Another may be for W. Pannemaker, who made the 
 History of Abraham, 1548. But the marks in the margin 
 of the pieces are all more or less defaced by injury and 
 repairs. 
 
 The tapestries are not all of the same class, but a pair 
 of them are of the very finest work of the Brussels 
 designers of the best age. The two tapestries repre- 
 senting the story of Joseph are the work of Herselin of 
 Brussels about 1530-40, and must be from the designs of 
 Bernard van Orlay, or some other master of that school. 
 If these are compared with the grand pieces by Bernard 
 van Orlay in Hampton Court, little doubt will exist that 
 the designs are from his hand. The Hercules between 
 Pleasure and Wisdom is almost equally fine in design, 
 and is also possibly a work by Herselin, now in the 
 dining-room. The finer tapestries are thus contemporary 
 with Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. The Brussels pieces 
 have the characteristic border of vines and pomegranates 
 on a blue ground. One or two pieces are verdures, where 
 the landscape is the principal subject. 1 
 
 Window on Eastern Staircase, south 
 
 The two large six-light windows with stone mullions 
 on the staircases east and west of the great hall were 
 placed on the south or garden side of the house by F. H. 
 Salvin in 1857. They had in them painted glass coats 
 of arms from the designs of C. A. Buckler. They give, 
 
 1 See Jacquemart, Old Furniture, English ed. pp. 97-99 ; A. Pinchart, Let 
 Tapisseries dans les Pays-Bas, Bruxelles, 1859-64} Jules Houdoy, Les Tajat- 
 series de Haute Line, Lille, 1871 j J. J. Guiffrey, Hhtolre de la Tafisserie, 
 Tours, 1886.
 
 xi THE LONG GALLERY 191 
 
 with names and dates, the coats of the Westons and 
 their wives from Sir R. Weston the second, died 1611, 
 to Melior Mary, died 1782. In each case but the last 
 the arms of Weston impale those of the wife. They are 
 as follows 
 
 1. Weston^ ermine on a chief azure^ five bezants, 
 impaling Dister^ gules^ a chevron ermine between three 
 eagles displayed argent; for Sir Richard Weston, died 
 1611, married Jane Dister of Bergholt, Essex. 
 
 2. Weston impaling Harper^ sable^ a chevron and 
 canton ermine; for Sir R. Weston, the agricul- 
 turist, married Grace Harper of Cheshunt, Herts, died 
 1652. 
 
 3. Weston impaling Copley^ argent^ a cross moline 
 sable; for John Weston, died 1690, married Mary 
 Copley of Gatton. 
 
 4. Weston impaling Nevill of Holt, gules^ a saltire 
 argent; for Richard Weston, married Melior Nevill of 
 Holt. 
 
 5. Weston impaling Gage^ per saltire azure and argent^ 
 a saltire gules; for John Weston, died 1730, married 
 Elizabeth, sister of Thomas, Viscount Gage. 
 
 6. Melior Mary Weston^ died 1782, the last lineal 
 descendant of the founder. 
 
 Window on Western Staircase^ south 
 
 The window on the south-western staircase, facing 
 garden, has also six coats for the owners of the Webbe- 
 Weston family. 
 
 i. Weston impaling Lawson^ argent^ a chevron between 
 three martlets sable; for John Webbe- Weston, married 
 (1778) Elizabeth Lawson.
 
 192 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 2. Weston impaling Constable, quarterly gules and 
 vaire, over all a bend or ; for John Webbe - Weston, 
 married (1795) Mary Constable. 
 
 3. Weston impaling Graham, or on a bend sable, three 
 escallops of the first ; for John Joshua Webbe- Weston, 
 married (1811) Caroline Graham. 
 
 4. Weston impaling Waldegrave, per pale argent and 
 gules ; for John J. Webbe- Weston, married ( 1 847 ) Lady 
 Horatia Waldegrave. 
 
 5. Weston impaling bright, azure, two bars argent, 
 in chief a leopard's head or; for Thomas Donnington 
 Webbe- Weston, married (1854) Mary Wright. 
 
 6. Salvin, argent on a chief sable, two mullets of the 
 first, a mullet for difference j for Francis Henry Salvin 
 of Croxdale, County Durham, succeeded 1857 ; present 
 owner. 
 
 The Escutcheons 
 
 There are three large ancient escutcheons painted on 
 panel, each about 4x5 feet, forming very complete 
 specimens of the armorial blazonry of the sixteenth 
 century. They are all for Sir Thomas Copley ; one 
 is dated 1568, and two are dated 1567. They were, no 
 doubt, brought to Sutton Place from Gatton some time 
 after the marriage of John Weston with Mary Copley in 
 1637. They consist of elaborate marshalling of the 
 Copley coats and quarterings with arms, mantling, 
 crest, motto, cords, tassels, and the like within a marble 
 colonnade. The three are nearly the same design, and 
 bear the monogram T.C., the dates 1567-68, and for 
 motto Medium tenere beatum. 
 
 The principal escutcheon is now pkced between the 
 windows on the eastern staircase going up to the long
 
 xi THE LONG GALLERY 193 
 
 gallery. It was removed from the panelled hall, where 
 Aubrey saw it. It is thus blazoned in four grand quarters. 
 
 First grand quarter. COPLEY. Argent, a cross 
 moline sable, in the centre of the cross, a crescent or 
 for difference. 
 
 Second grand quarter. WELLES. Or, a lion rampant, 
 double-queued sable quartering gules, a fesse dancettee 
 between six crosses crosslet or. 
 
 This is for Engaine of Essex. 
 
 Third grand quarter. Hoo. Quarterly sable and 
 argent. 
 
 Fourth grand quarter. Waterton. Barry of six, 
 ermine and gules, over all three crescents sable. 
 
 On this shield is an escutcheon of pretence for 
 Luttrell. Or, a bend between six martlets sable. 
 
 Sir Thomas Copley, born 1535, died 1584, married 
 Catherine, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Luttrell. 
 
 Supporters. Lion rampant sable. Swan proper, ducally 
 crowned and gorged or. 
 
 Crest. On a knight's helmet, wreathed sable and 
 argent, a griffin segreant or. 
 
 On separate shields are: (i) Copley impaling Hoo; 
 (2) Copley impaling Shelley, sable, a fesse between three 
 whelks, or ; (3) Hoo impaling Welles ; (4) Hoo impaling 
 St. Leger, azure, fretty argent, a canton gules ; (5) Hoo 
 impaling Scotland, differenced, or, within a tressure flory- 
 counter-flory, a lion rampant gules; (6) Hoo impaling 
 Welles and Waterton quarterly. 
 
 All of these arms occur constantly in the gkss in the 
 hall (see chap, xii.), the arms of Copley and the crest 
 alone in lower north bay No. 8. Also a shield ermine 
 on a chief sable, three crosses crosslet argent, for 
 Wychinghon or Wickingham. 
 
 o
 
 194 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 The two escutcheons or hatchments dated 1567 are 
 at the top of the western staircase. 
 
 Small Escutcheons in Great Hall 
 
 There are also in the great hall several small escut- 
 cheons, apparently modern. 
 
 They are as follows : 
 
 i. Weston. 2. Copley. 3. Luttrell. 4. Engaine of 
 Essex. 5. Barrow^ sable^ two swords in saltire between 
 four fleur de lys or, within a bordure or. William 
 Webbe of Salisbury, temp. Henry VIII., an ancestor 
 of J. Webbe-Weston, married Catherine, daughter and 
 co-heir of John Barrow. 6. Pinchyon of Writtle, County 
 Essex. Per bend argent and sable^ three roundels within 
 a bordure engrailed counter-changed. John Wolffe of 
 Great Haseley married Ann, daughter and co-heir of 
 John, son of Sir Edward Pincheon. Their daughter 
 Bridget married John Webbe, and was by him grand- 
 mother of John Webbe-Weston. 7. JFolffe^ gules^ a 
 chevron between three wolves' heads erased or. 8. 
 Webbe, gules^ a cross between three falcons or. 9. 
 Salvin^ argent^ on a chief sable^ two mullets of the first, 
 a mullet for difference.
 
 xi PORTRAITS 195 
 
 Portraits 
 
 In the two halls are many historical portraits, which 
 have been mainly identified from information supplied by 
 the owner. 
 
 1. HENRY VIII. (on panel) The well-known portrait 
 after Holbein, small half length. 
 
 2. QUEEN ELIZABETH (on panel) The well-known 
 portrait after Zucchero, small half length. 
 
 3. QUEEN MARY (on panel) Full length, about 70 
 by 45 inches ; standing in black robe, holding a miniature 
 in frame, apparently after Antonio More. 
 
 4. DOROTHY ARUNDELL, wife of Sir Henry Weston, 
 said to be by Federigo Zucchero. Exhibited by the 
 Royal Academy at the collection of old masters, 1884. 
 It was described thus in the catalogue " Painted probably 
 about 1575, when Zucchero was in England. Full- 
 length figure standing to right, lace head-dress and collar, 
 rich dress, feather fan in her right hand, the left hand 
 rests on a chair, dark background, canvas 71 by 40 
 inches." 
 
 This very fine portrait gives us the likeness of the 
 noble lady who entertained Queen Elizabeth so frequently 
 at Sutton (see chap. v.). She was cousin of Queen Anne 
 Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Catherine Howard, and 
 Lady Jane Grey j being great-granddaughter of Thomas, 
 second Duke of Norfolk, and of Thomas Grey, Marquis 
 of Dorset. The picture must have been painted by 
 Zucchero about 1575 ; he was in England 1574-78, 
 when he painted, amongst others, the portrait of Lord 
 Howard of Effingham, Lady Weston's cousin and neigh- 
 bour. At that time Lady Weston was about thirty-five ; 
 and her husband, who had been High Sheriff for the
 
 196 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 county in 1569 and M.P. in 1571, was at the height of 
 his splendour and popularity. The expression of noble 
 stateliness and power, with the wonderful mastery over 
 the details of jewellery, lace, embroideries, and brocade, 
 mark this portrait as a characteristic and excellent 
 specimen of the painter's qualities. 
 
 5. WILLIAM COPLEY, with date and inscription 
 
 William Copley, born 1565, died 1643, was tne son f 
 Sir Thomas Copley, whose escutcheons stand on the 
 staircase, by Catherine Luttrell. He married Magdalen 
 Prideaux, and was grandfather of Mary Copley, married 
 John Weston in 1637. The picture, a half-length life 
 size, is perhaps by one of the Janssens (Corneliez Janssens, 
 born 1590, died 1665). 
 
 6. Portrait of DOROTHY ARUNDELL, Lady Weston, 
 in Marie Stuart ruff, about tetat. sixty-five. This now 
 hangs in the great hall. The likeness to the large 
 Zucchero portrait (No. 4) is very marked. 
 
 7. Portrait of JOHN WESTON, husband of Mary 
 Copley, 1637. 
 
 8. Portrait of FRANCES WESTON, youngest sister of 
 John Weston, died 1730, last male descendant of the 
 name and family of the founder. She married William 
 Wolffe of Great Haseley, and their issue became extinct 
 in the second generation. She was aunt of Melior Mary 
 (No. n); painted about 1700 (estat. thirty) in the 
 manner of Kneller (born 1648, died 1723). 
 
 9. WILLIAM WOLFFE of Great Haseley, married 
 Frances Weston, died 1739. He was son of John 
 Wolffe by Ann, granddaughter of Dorothy, sister of 
 Richard Weston, Earl of Portland. Picture by Hussey.
 
 xi PORTRAITS 197 
 
 10. JOHN WOLFFE, died 1758, s.p. ; inscribed on back, 
 Joann Woolfe, eetat. eleven, 1 754. Mgid. Hussey pinxit. 
 Portrait by Hussey. John Wolffe was the grandson of 
 Frances Weston (No. 8) and William Wolffe (No. 9), 
 and was equally descended from the Westons of Sutton 
 and the Westons of Prested Hall. By his death, and 
 that of his brothers, all s.p., the blood of the founder 
 became extinct, with the exception of Melior Mary. 
 
 11. MELIOR MARY WESTON, born 1703, died un- 
 married 1782 j half length, in the style of Kneller, 
 painted about 1723 (tetat. twenty). 
 
 12. THOMAS WEBBE of Fulham, died 1780, father of 
 John Webbe- Weston ; full length, in rich lace coat. 
 
 13. ANNE, his wife, daughter of Thomas Tancred, 
 full length. 
 
 14. JOHN WEBBE - WESTON, devisee of the Sutton 
 estate, 1782, son of Nos. 12 and 13, grandfather of F. H. 
 Salvin. Pastel by J. Russell, R.A., of Guildford, born 
 1774, died 1806, exhibited at the Guildford Exhibition, 
 1879. 
 
 15. On staircase in western wing Portrait of Rev. 
 FATHER LEANDER A ST. MARTINO (J. Jones, D.D.), a 
 Catholic Bishop, 1618, and President of the Benedictine 
 Order 1633-35, died 1635, cetat. sixty-one. He was 
 much esteemed by Queen Henrietta Maria, and was one 
 of her advisers. He was in England during the time of 
 Sir Richard Weston, the agriculturist, who was doubtless 
 his host. 
 
 1 6. Portrait of a young lady, dated 1610, eetat. 
 eighteen. This may be Jane Weston, daughter of Sir 
 Richard Weston the second, and sister of the agriculturist. 
 She married Sir Thomas Bishop, Bart. 
 
 Other historical portraits of ecclesiastics have not been
 
 198 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. xi 
 
 identified. The landscapes and pictures on the staircases 
 and passages seem to be without interest or history. 
 There are a set of old engravings of French and Dutch 
 towns of the age of Sir Richard Weston, the agriculturist, 
 and doubtless brought by him from abroad. 
 
 The pictures in the living-rooms of the family are 
 the property of Mr. Harrison, the lessee, and have no 
 historical connection with the house.
 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE PAINTED GLASS 
 
 THE most interesting feature in the hall is to be found 
 in the fine painted glass with which it abounds. 1 The 
 whole of the fourteen windows, having ninety-two separ- 
 ate lights in all, are adorned with shields and quarries of 
 painted glass, one coat or set of devices in each light. 
 They are of different dates and of various quality, but 
 they seem to belong to about three different epochs, and 
 hardly one of them is without some relation to the founder 
 or his family. Some specimens are of extraordinary 
 beauty and rarity ; in some cases they seem to be older 
 than the house itself, 2 and from the remarkable number 
 
 1 For painted glass refer to Charles Winston, Memoirs on the Art of Glass- 
 Painting (1865), Difference of Style in Ancient Glass- Painting (1847), and his 
 other Memoirs ; also see A. W. Franks (of the Brit. Mus.), Ornamental 
 Glazing Quarries (1849), ani ' Principles of Glass-making (1883), by H. J. 
 Powell, etc. 
 
 2 As Winston tells us, glass-painting in England reached its perfection 
 between 1530-50, and had begun to decline in 1545. Winston, Art of 
 Glass-Painting, p. 248. 
 
 The original glass in the hall is almost exactly of the date 1530. The 
 glass in Henry VII.'s Chapel was begun 1502, finished about 1510 ; the glass
 
 200 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 of royal and historical characters whose arms and devices 
 are shown, they are of unusual interest. If we take the 
 historical associations of the hall itself, and follow up the 
 suggestions of the many heraldic coats and emblems, we 
 are carried into the strange and revolving picture of the 
 sixteenth century in Europe. 
 
 The hall is profusely decorated with emblems of the 
 Roses, both White and Red, the badge of the union of 
 the rival houses of York and Lancaster under the first 
 Tudor king ; it has the arms in full of Richard III. as 
 Duke of Gloucester, and the emblems of the battle of 
 Bosworth. During the fifteenth century the manors of 
 Woking and of Sutton had passed with strange rapidity 
 from one family to another, and had reverted to and been 
 held by every king from Henry IV. down to Henry VIII. 
 The estate was actually won back at the battle of 
 Bosworth to the Red Rose, and Woking was the 
 residence of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, during 
 the latter part of her life. 1 It is most probable that the 
 fine glass of this age anterior to the house was brought 
 either from the earlier house that stood on the same 
 manor, or from the mansion at Woking. 
 
 was so fine that it was taken as a model tor King's College, Cambridge, 
 finished 1516. 
 
 For glass in King's College, Cambridge, see History of Cambridge and its 
 Colleges, by Professor Willis and J. W. Clark, 1880, vol. i. chap. xi. "Glass 
 in King's College, begun by Bernard Flower, the King's glazier, 1515." It 
 contained portcullis, red and white rose, white rose en loleil, hawthorn, H.K., 
 H.E., pomegranate, as seen at Sutton. Bernard Flower died in 1526, and he 
 doubtless executed the pieces anterior to that date. 
 
 1 About 1497 Margaret of Richmond "retired to her patrimony of 
 Woking in Surrey, the manor-house of which had been recently enlarged 
 and repaired by Henry VII. She there fixed her abode, and there she 
 continued to dwell with little intermission for the remainder of her life." 
 Halsted, Life of Margaret Beaufort, p. 195.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 201 
 
 The different epochs at which the glass was designed 
 are as follows : 
 
 1. There are some magnificent specimens of the 
 finest painted glass of the time of Henry VIII. Some 
 of these are identical with pieces still to be found in 
 Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and some others 
 are exactly similar to designs now in the stone or metal 
 work in the chapel. 
 
 2. Much of the original glass placed here by the 
 founder, and of his date, still remains. This is as fine 
 in execution as any extant of the period, and is probably 
 by the same hand or from the same works as the glass in 
 the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. 
 
 3. Another series of heraldic coats and emblems 
 belongs to the Copley family, and was probably brought 
 from their mansions and inserted here about 1637, when 
 other restorations took place. 
 
 4. From time to time additions were made in the 
 upper windows, possibly from neighbouring houses or 
 from dilapidated chapels in Guildford. Many of these 
 are connected with the Onslow and allied families. 
 
 5. Lastly, it appears from inscriptions cut with a 
 diamond in some of the upper windows that the glass 
 was repaired first by John Weston in 1724, and secondly 
 in 1844. 
 
 Amongst the most noteworthy of the coats and 
 emblems in the windows of the hall are the follow- 
 ing : 
 
 i. A series of coats of arms, crowns, crests, and badges 
 for Henry VII., the battle of Bosworth, Sir Reginald 
 Bray, Lord Bourchier, Archbishop Bourchier, the 
 Beaufort portcullis crowned, and the badges of Henry 
 VII. and Elizabeth of York, red and white rose united.
 
 202 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 2. White rose en solell^ and arms of Richard, Duke of 
 Gloucester. 
 
 3. Arms of Henry VIII. impaling those of Catherine 
 of Aragon ; also arms of King Arthur and badge of 
 Catherine. 
 
 4. Arms of Thomas, second Duke of Norfolk, the 
 victor of Flodden ; of Thomas, second Earl of Derby, 
 and Edward, third Earl of Derby ; the arms of William 
 Fitzalan, thirteenth Earl of Arundel, 1524; of Stephen 
 Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Bishop White of 
 Winchester. 
 
 All of these are very fine specimens of the best work 
 of the early sixteenth century. 
 
 5. The arms, crests, and devices of Sir R. Weston, 
 the founder, and others of his family, also of his son-in- 
 law, Sir Walter Dennys, quartering Berkeley all very 
 fine specimens of glass of 1530. 
 
 6. The badge and crown of Jane Seymour (a splendid 
 specimen), the arms of Philip and Mary impaled, and a 
 portrait of Charles II. in painted glass. 
 
 7. A series of coats of the Copley, Cecil, Shirley, 
 Paulet, and Onslow families of the seventeenth century. 
 
 8. A series of Dutch emblems, grotesques, and scenes, 
 scriptural and rustic, of the middle of the seventeenth 
 century. The dates 1630, 1629, and reference to a book 
 published in 1635, occur here. 
 
 The following is an exact account of the glass now 
 found in the hall. For purposes of reference the windows 
 are referred to by a large Roman figure, the lights in each 
 window by a large Arabic numeral. (For convenience, 
 the lights below the transoms are numbered as distinct 
 lights). The numbering of the windows begins from the 
 west end of the upper story of the north side of the hall.
 
 THE PAINTED GLASS 
 
 203 
 
 L, II., III. are the upper windows on the north side 
 from west to east. 
 
 IV., V., VI. are the lower windows on the north side 
 from west to east. 
 
 VII., VIII. are the upper windows on the south side 
 from east to west. 
 
 IX., X. are the lower windows on the south side from 
 east to west. 
 
 The bays are described as north and south bays, 
 upper or lower story. Thus : 
 
 North bay, upper and lower, are the two windows on 
 the side of the court. 
 
 South bay, upper and lower, are the two windows on 
 the side of the garden. 
 
 The lights are numbered 1-6, or in case of the bays, 
 1-8, beginning at the top left-hand corner (as looked at), 
 and passing horizontally in the same way as the quarter- 
 ings in a heraldic shield are read. 
 
 Thus : 
 
 III. 
 
 Accordingly, III. 6 stands for the light in the lower 
 right-hand corner of the upper story window next to the 
 bay on the north side of the hall.
 
 COATS OF ARMS, ETC., IN WINDOWS 
 
 Window No. I 
 
 I. i. HERE was originally the white and red rose united, as 
 in I. 5, II. 1, etc. In the centre the portcullis chained or, 
 for the Beaufort family or Henry VII. In place of coronet 
 or crown is the head of a king crowned in aureole, probably 
 for Edward the Confessor. This is fine old glass of the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century. This piece has been 
 repaired with old fragments representing flowers and other 
 devices, obviously used in quarries in lower windows, but the 
 pieces are all original, if not earlier than the house. In the 
 sides of this piece are two coats of arms, not visible from the 
 floor, and evidently late additions. They are not in full 
 colours, and are apparently intended for the following : 
 
 A. HOLCROFT quartering CULCHETH, County Lancaster, 
 impaling JENNINGS. Sir T. Holcroft, 1538, married daughter 
 and heiress of N. Jennings of Poynton. 
 
 I and 4. Argent, a cross and bordure engrailed sable, for 
 HOLCROFT of Holcroft, County Lancaster. 
 
 2. Argent, an eagle displayed preying on an infant ppr., 
 swaddled gules, banded or, CULCHETH of Lancaster. 
 
 3. Argent, a griffin segreant azure, armed or, CULCHETH of 
 Chester. See Baines's Hist, of Lancashire, iii. 129. HOL- 
 CROFT impales JENNINGS.
 
 CH. xii THE PAINTED GLASS 205 
 
 1 and 4. Argent, on a fesse gules, three bezants, JENNINGS. 
 
 2 and 3. Argent, a bull's head cabossed sable, armed or, for 
 DUNSTON. Same as in II. 1. See J. P. Rylands, Genealogy 
 of Holer oft, 1877. 
 
 B. The second coat appears to be for NICHOLSON quarter- 
 ing FROMONDE. 
 
 1 and 4. Ermine, on a pale sable, three martlets argent. 
 
 2 and 3. Ermine, a chevron between three fleurs de lys or. 
 FROMONDE William Copley, born 1565, whose portrait is 
 
 in the hall, married Margaret Fromonde, and was grandfather 
 of Mary Copley, who married John Weston. 
 
 I. 2. The arms of the See of Winchester impaled with 
 those of JOHN WHITE, Bishop of Winchester, 1557-59, VIZ ' 
 party per chevron, embattled or and gules, three roses counter- 
 changed, slipped vert. On a chief of the second, three 
 hour-glasses, argent, framed of the first. The whole sur- 
 rounded with the Garter. The mitre has been injured and 
 replaced by fragments. These arms were granted by 
 Dethick, Garter King in 1557. 
 
 John White was a Marian Bishop, who resigned on the 
 accession of Elizabeth. Sutton Place is in the diocese of 
 Winchester. 
 
 This piece of glass is very fine, and the date is fixed by 
 the family arms of the Bishop (see R. Bedford, The Blazon 
 of Episcopacy, p. 103, and Warren, Arms of the English 
 Episcopate). 
 
 I. 3. Portcullis chained or, similar to I. 1, and of date of 
 the house. Remains of a Red Rose with fragments from 
 lower windows, flowers and devices from the original quarries, 
 oak leaves, roses, and daisies of same period. Also two 
 shields A and B (not in colours). 
 
 A. Crown and two crosses pattee in pale. 
 
 B. Ermine, a chevron between three fleurs de lys or, 
 FROMONDE. 
 
 In the place of the crown over the portcullis is now the
 
 206 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 head of an angel, corresponding with the crowned head in 
 aureole in I. 1. 
 
 I. 4. Entirely made up of fragments, principally archi- 
 tectural canopies, late Gothic, with some pieces of fleur de 
 lys, Garter, etc., of seventeenth-century work. 
 
 I. 5. A very grand White and Red Rose united with the 
 Crown of Henry VII. This is identical in colour and draw- 
 ing with the similar rose in Henry VII. 's Chapel at West- 
 minster, and may be taken to be from the workshop of 
 Bernard Flower or his successors, 1515-25. Doubtless this 
 specimen, compared with similar united roses in II. 3 and 
 III. 5, gives us a good idea of the original design in the 
 upper windows. 
 
 In one of the lozenge panes below this there is the follow- 
 ing inscription cut with a diamond : 
 
 " This Hall was reglazed by Painter James Cruikshank, Mr. 
 D. Laing of 2 Villiers Street, Strand, London, in April 184.4." 
 
 I. 6. This light contains an elaborate coat with orna- 
 mental mantling, apparently of sixteenth - century work 
 (Elizabethan), and many pieces of different dates, evidently 
 collected from other windows. The most remarkable are 
 four devices of the Crown in Hawthorn Bush, and the 
 initials H. and E. for Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York. 
 These are better seen in the lower south bay, and will be 
 described there. There arc other devices from the original 
 work. Besides there are several coats, A, B, C. 
 
 A. Azure, three sal tires argent in pale, for LANE quarter- 
 ing MALMAYNES, STRETLEY of Northampton, HUSSEY of 
 Dorset. These are as follows : 
 
 1. Azure, three saltires argent in pale, possibly meant for 
 LANE. 
 
 2. Azure, a fesse between six cross crosslets or, possibly 
 also for LANE. 
 
 3. Azure, three sinister gauntlets couped argent, MAL- 
 MAYNES.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 207 
 
 4. Gyronny of eight, or and sable, on a canton gules, a 
 covered cup or, STRETLEY of Northampton and Oxon. 
 
 5. Barry of six, ermine and gules, HUSSEY of Dorset. 
 B. Same as I. 1, B. C. Same as I. 3, B. 
 
 The original design for both I. 4 and I. 6 has been 
 completely lost, and it has been replaced in a very careless 
 and unmeaning manner. 
 
 Window No. II 
 
 II. I. Fragments of a White Rose and Crown, similar 
 to I. 5, but imperfect. The crown is exactly similar to 
 examples in Henry VII. 's Chapel. 
 
 In a small shield are the arms with names inscribed, 
 apparently PILE and JENNINGS of Hayes, Middlesex. The 
 family of Pile also took the name of GERNON. 
 
 PILE Gules, three Piles wavy argent, impaling : 
 
 1 and 4. JENNINGS Argent, on a fesse gules, three bezants. 
 
 2 and 3. DUNSTON Or, a bull's head cabossed sable. 
 
 II. 2. This very interesting fragment shows two heads, A 
 and B, of fifteenth-century costume, both with helmets or 
 caps bearing crests or badges. The helmets have been 
 injured and repaired with fragments of mantling. 
 
 A. Has a crest with swan's head gorged with a ducal 
 coronet. 
 
 B. Has a crest, apparently a bear muzzled. Between them 
 are two White Roses en soleil. The swan and the bear were 
 well-known badges of the Beauchamps, Earls of Warwick, 
 and their descendants. See both together in the seal of Sir 
 Richard de Beauchamp, K.G., fifth Earl of Warwick, died 
 1439, in Boutell, English Heraldry, frontispiece. 
 
 These heads are fine and interesting, and are apparently 
 older than the house. One bears some resemblance to the 
 portraits of Richard III. They evidently belong to the 
 White Rose (York), and may have come from the house at 
 Woking.
 
 zo8 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 II. 3. Remains of a magnificent Red and White united 
 Rose and Crown, similar to that in I. 5, evidently from the 
 same workshop as the Rose and Crown in the next window. 
 
 In the sides are two shields, both alike, being the arms of 
 ONSLOW, argent, a fesse gules between six Cornish choughs 
 proper, 3, 2, and I, impaling a coat, three bucks' head 
 cabossed (2 and i), a canton or, not otherwise tinctured. 
 
 II. 4. In this large shield, similar in shape originally to I. 4 
 and I. 6, are some very old fragments. Two have the mono- 
 gram H., crowned in the form of the Dragon, the badge of 
 Henry VII. It is better seen in V. 5, a lower window ; 
 also the Crown in Hawthorn Bush, and some fine fragments 
 of mantling (original). In the midst of this is inserted a 
 shield of much inferior and later work, being the arms of 
 ONSLOW with their quarterings. 
 
 CARR Gules, on a chevron or, three mullets sable. 
 
 HAUGHTON of Chester Argent, three bars sable. This 
 coat impales sable, a chevron between three elephants' heads 
 erased argent, tusked or, a chief or ; possibly for HUSKISSON of 
 Earth, Sussex, but the tinctures are indistinct and very doubtful. 
 
 II. 5. This very interesting piece gives the arms of Arch- 
 bishop BOURCHIER. Above is a mitre. Archbishop Bourchier 
 crowned Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, October 1485, 
 and married Henry VII. to Elizabeth of York, January 1486. 
 
 This may have come from an older house, perhaps the 
 Royal Manor of Woking, long the residence of Margaret 
 Beaufort, Henry's mother. The coat shows : 
 
 i. First grand quarter, quarterly 
 
 1 and 4. Argent, a cross engrailed gules between four 
 water bougets sable, BOURCHIER. 
 
 2 and 3. Gules, billettee or, a fesse argent, LOVAIN, over all 
 a label of three points gules, on each point three lioncels 
 rampant or. 
 
 ii. Second grand quarter, quarterly Grand vert, BERNERS. 
 iii. as ii. ; iv. as i.
 
 XII 
 
 THE PAINTED GLASS 209 
 
 Also in small shields, carelessly mended, are ONSLOW 
 impaling three stags' heads cabossed sable, a canton or (?). 
 
 In this very fine old design there are many of the original 
 ornamental pieces, fleur de lys, devices of birds, and orna- 
 mental initials and monograms. 
 
 One of these is ^ 1654 \ . Also apparently a 
 
 merchant's or artist's monogram [? James.Nicholson] 
 
 There is also T. C., doubtless for Sir Thomas Copley, 
 and I. P., both with string ornaments in the Henri II. French 
 manner (1550). 
 
 There are also, apparently of later date, two small shields 
 of eight quarterings. These are (A) apparently for William 
 Cecil, second Earl of Exeter, 1613, married Lady Elizabeth 
 Manners, Baroness Roos, only daughter of Edward, third Earl 
 of Rutland. See J. Doyle, Official Baronage of England, i. 
 716, and iii. 190. 
 
 These coats are (A) CECIL impaling MANNERS. 
 
 (A) I. Barry of ten, argent and azure, over all six escut- 
 cheons, 3, 2, I, sable, each charged with a lioncel rampant of 
 the first, CECIL. 
 
 2. Per pale gules and azure, a lion rampant argent, hold- 
 ing a tree eradicated vert, WYNSTON of Hereford. 
 
 P
 
 2io ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 3. Or, two bars azure, a chief quarterly azure and gules, 
 I and 4 charged with two fleurs de lys, 2 and 3 with a lion 
 passant guardant, all or, MANNERS. 
 
 4. Gules, three water bougets argent, DE Roos. 
 
 5. (Broken) ? gules, a saltire argent, NEVILL. 
 
 6. Or, fretty gules, on a canton argent, a ship j/7^/<r, NEVILL 
 of Bulmer. 
 
 7. Gules, a lion passant guardant argent, crowned or. 
 
 8. Gules, three lions passant guardant or, a bordure argent. 
 (B) Quarterly of eight 
 
 1 and 6. Ermine, on a pale jrf&, three martlets argent, 
 NICHOLSON. 
 
 2 and 5. Gules, a chevron cottised between three trefoils, 
 slipped or. 
 
 3. Urgent, on a bend sable (or azure], between two eagles' 
 heads erased, a rose argent, a bordure engrailed sable (or 
 
 4. Gules, on a bend wavy argent, three martlets 
 
 7. Argent, a fesse between three boars' heads erased sable. 
 
 8. Argent, a chevron engrailed #/?.; between three bugle 
 horns sable, stringed or, PETIT. 
 
 II. 6. The design in this light has been much injured, and 
 the centre replaced with a very poor and late Rose in Garter 
 
 with Crown. There are four initial letters 
 
 (twice), apparently for Sir Henry Weston, 1560. There is 
 also an M. crowned, and H. E. with the Crown in the 
 Hawthorn Tree. These are of earlier date. The M. may 
 stand for Queen Mary, but probably is for Margaret, Queen 
 of Scotland, or Mary, Queen of France, both sisters of 
 Henry VIII. Sir Richard Weston was one of the knights 
 who went with Mary Tudor to France on her marriage with 
 Louis XII. in 1514.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 211 
 
 Window No. Ill 
 
 III. i. This light originally contained a Red and 
 White Rose, of which only the extremities remain, with 
 the ornamental devices of flowers, animals, etc., of original 
 glass. 
 
 In place of the Rose has been inserted an old inscription 
 of which all we now see is O PRETIU EST DAT 
 HONORES MICITIAS IBIQUE. IA. Probably not 
 later than the house. 
 
 It may be noted that at King's College, Cambridge, are 
 similar mottoes Sola salus servire Deo Sapientiaeet jelicitatis 
 (Willis and Clark, i. 578). 
 
 There are also two shields of later date. 
 
 A. i. Argent, a fesse gules between two crescents and 
 a bugle horn, stringed vert, NEALE, Hants, 1579, impal- 
 ing sable, two bars or, in chief three mullets or, FREKE of 
 Dorset. 
 
 B. i and 4. Argent, on a fesse sable, three mullets or, in 
 chief two dragons' heads couped, in base a cross formee 
 fitchee sable, POUND. 
 
 2. Argent, three fleurs de lys, two and one sable, ARDEN. 
 
 3. Argent, a chevron between three eagles' legs erased 
 sable, BRAY. 
 
 III. 2. Here has been an original White and Red Rose, 
 crowned, with fragments of the Garter. Pieces have been 
 inserted badly. The fragments show 
 
 I. Vair, 4. gules, a sal tire argent, for NEVILL, very fine in 
 colour. 
 
 Also fragments of a coat sable, two lions passant or. 
 
 III. 3. Remains of an original Rose, with floral designs 
 surrounding it. In the place of the Rose has been inserted 
 an inscription similar to that in III. 1 NON EST MIHI 
 SAPIE RE VIVAM SERA NIM ASTINA DIE. Beside 
 this is a shield, ENGLAND, in a garter, and the following
 
 212 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 device \ .ST I (?) for R. Warneford, see IV. 5. 
 
 III. 4. This light contains, with fragments of original 
 devices, a large and much more recent coat of STRANGEWAYS 
 quartering RATCLIFFE, and impaling HOWSON of London (1605). 
 The crest, a lion passant paly argent and gules, has been 
 reversed in repairs. 
 
 STRANGEWAYS is sable, two lions passant in pale, paly of six, 
 argent and gules. 
 
 RATCLIFFE of Essex is argent, a bend engrailed sable, an 
 escallop in chief sable. 
 
 HOWSON, quarterly argent and sable, four roundels counter- 
 changed. 
 
 The date below is 1621. 
 
 Sir R. Onslow, M.P., temp. Charles I., married Elizabeth, 
 daughter and heiress of Richard Strangeways, County Durham. 
 
 There are also two small coats at side. 
 
 A. Same as I. 1, B., crest, a leopard pierced through with 
 an arrow. 
 
 B. ONSLOW impaling SWAN, a crescent for difference. 
 III. 5. Here is a magnificent specimen of the old Red 
 
 and White Rose united, seeded or, with the crown of Henry 
 VII. This is doubtless from the same artist who produced 
 the Roses in Westminster Abbey (compare I. 5). 
 
 III. 6. This light is uninjured. In it is a fine specimen 
 of the coat of STRANGEWAYS quartering RATCLIFFE, with 
 mantling, crest complete, a lion as in the arms, and also dated 
 1621. Same as dexter side of coat III. 4, which see. 
 
 1 and 4. STRANGEWAYS. 
 
 2 and 3. Urgent, a bend engrailed sable, in chief an 
 escallop sable, RATCLIFFE of Essex.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 213 
 
 Compare the Onslow quarterings in the ancient glass 
 windows of West Clandon Church, and the fine illuminated 
 pedigree of the family in the possession of the Earl of Onslow. 
 
 Window No. IV 
 
 IV. I. We have here, nearly perfect, a very fine design 
 contemporary with the house, and of the finest glass of the 
 period. 1 
 
 It is the coat of arms of Edward, third Earl of Derby, K.G., 
 impaling those of his first wife, Dorothy, daughter of Thomas, 
 second Duke of Norfolk. The coronet is wanting. He may 
 not at this time have succeeded to the title, if the glass is 
 earlier than 1522. 
 
 The arms of this Duke of Norfolk, his father-in-law, are 
 found in IV. 3, and those of Thomas, second Earl of Derby, 
 his father, are in IV. 3. 
 
 This Edward, Earl of Derby, succeeded his father in 1522, 
 and was third in descent from the Lord Derby who contributed 
 to the victory at Bosworth. He was High Steward at the 
 coronation of Queen Mary, and was Chamberlain of Chester 
 under Elizabeth. He was celebrated for his magnificence. 
 He died in 1572. This coat may date from any year after 
 his marriage (see Memoirs of the House of Stanley, ^.to, 1767). 
 
 The quarters for Howard on the feme side are quite 
 similar to those of the Duke of Norfolk in IV. 3, and are no 
 doubt of the same age. 
 
 It will be observed that the coats of the Lords Derby here 
 
 1 It will be noticed that in the coats gules (both here in IV. 1, as in IV. 3, 
 V. 1, V. 3, VI. 3, and in south bay) the pattern is produced by grinding off 
 the ruby glass so as to produce white or yellow objects on a red ground. 
 This is now effected by fluoric acid. The use of the diamond was not known 
 before the seventeenth century. The ruby glass became gradually thinner in 
 successive ages. The effect of this process is that of an intaglio, the charge 
 being engraved like a seal on the field. See Winston, Style \n\Ancient Glass- 
 Painting, 1847, p. 119 ; H. J. Powell, Principles of Glass-Painting, p. 99.
 
 2i 4 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 and in V. 1 differ very slightly, and are both nearly the same 
 as those represented on the bronze tomb of Margaret, 
 Countess of Richmond, in Westminster Abbey, for their 
 ancestor, her third husband. 
 
 The coat of Edward, third Earl of Derby, is : 
 
 i. First grand quarter, quarterly 
 
 1 and 4. STANLEY Urgent, on a bend azure, three 
 bucks' heads cabossed or. 
 
 2 and 3. LATHOM Or, on a chief indented azure, 
 three plates. 
 
 ii. and iii. ISLE OF MAN, of which Earl of Derby was king. 
 Gules, three legs conjoined in the fesse point in armour proper, 
 garnished and spurred or. 
 
 iv. Quarterly 
 
 I and 4. STRANGE Gules, two lions passant guardant in 
 pale argent. 
 
 2. WIDVILLE Argent, a fesse and canton gules. 
 
 3. MOHUN Or, a cross engrailed sable. 
 
 On an escutcheon of pretence is DE MONTALT, azure, a 
 lion rampant argent. 
 
 See Brayley, Westminster Abbey, Tomb of Margaret of 
 Richmond; J. Doyle, Baronage, i. 553. 
 
 The only difference between these coats is that the coat of 
 the father, V. 1, quarters WARREN ; that of the son, IV. 1, 
 quarters also MOHUN. 
 
 It will be observed that the quartering of Widville in 
 IV. 1 is or, a fesse and canton gules. Or is evidently an error 
 for argent. It is correctly shown in V. 1, and in upper south 
 bay 3. 
 
 It will be noticed that neither this coat, VI. 1, nor that of 
 the Duke of Norfolk, IV. 3, nor that of the second Earl of 
 Derby, V. 1, show any traces of the Garter, as they all impale 
 the arms of their wives. 
 
 The arms of Dorothy, daughter of Thomas, Duke of 
 Norfolk, are given on the feme side. They are as follows :
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 215 
 
 I. Lost and replaced by a fragment of mantling ; 2. 
 Howard ; 3. Warren ; 4. Mowbray, damaged. The 
 oeculiarity that Howard is in the second place in this coat, 
 as it is in IV. 3, will be noticed presently. 
 
 IV. 2. A magnificent shield of the arms of COPLEY, 
 probably the coat of Sir Roger Copley of Roffey, about 1530. 
 Tie quarterings are similar to those in the painted panel in 
 the gallery dated 1567, with initials R. C. ; but this glass has 
 no escutcheon for Luttrell, the wife of Sir T. Copley. It 
 shovs in six quarterings, badly re-set and broken. 
 
 I. COPLEY ; 2 and 5, WATERTON. 
 
 3. Has been removed, and in its place we have a fine 
 fragment of the lions from some coat of ENGLAND, 1 and a 
 fragment of what is intended for ST. OMER, azure, a fesse 
 between six cross crosslets or. 
 
 4. Is Leo, LORD WELLES ; 6 is LORD Hoo AND HASTINGS. 
 Compare the Copley coats in VI. 2, and in the upper south bay. 
 
 These coats belong to the family of Copley about the 
 time of the founder, and are of glass of that date. A question 
 arises how they came here. John Weston married the 
 heiress of Copley in 1637, a hundred years later. Possibly 
 these Copley coats were brought and inserted here about that 
 date at the same time as the three panels or escutcheons of 
 Sir T. Copley, 1567, or they were inserted in the hall at the 
 building. Sir Roger Copley (1540) was a grandson of Sir G. 
 Boleyn, and the Copley and Weston families were connected 
 long before the marriage. Sir R. Copley was High-Sheriff 
 of Surrey at the time of the building of the house. 2 
 
 IV. 3. We have here a magnificent piece of glass of the 
 
 1 See the corresponding fleurs de lys, which have slipped into the Copley 
 coat in VI. 2. 
 
 2 Note on IV. 2 as to pedigree of Copley, communicated to F. H. Salvin 
 by D. G. C. Elwes, Esq. " LEO, LORD WELLS, married for his first wife 
 Joan, daughter and heiress of SIR ROBERT WATERTON, Knight. His second 
 wife was Margaret, daughter and heiress of SIR JOHN BEAUCHAMP of Bletsoe. 
 His daughter Eleanor married Thomas, LORD Hoo AND HASTINGS. The
 
 216 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 date of the foundation. The coronet is damaged. Note 
 that the field of ruby glass is deeply incised, to show the 
 charges. This is the coat of Thomas, second Duke of 
 Norfolk, Earl Marshal, K.G., and Lord Treasurer (1514', 
 died 1524, at the age of eighty. He commanded the Engliih 
 at the battle of Flodden, where James IV. of Scotlaid 
 was killed, 1513. He was Treasurer of England wh.lst 
 Sir R. Weston was Under-Treasurer. He was grandfamer 
 of the Queens Catherine Howard and Anne Boleyn, and 
 also of Margaret Howard, Lady Arundell, and thus he was 
 great-grandfather of Dorothy, Lady Weston (1560). On 
 the feme side are the arms of Tilney. TILNEY Arg'nt, a 
 chevron between three griffins' heads erased gules, bealed or. 
 The Duke married successively Elizabeth, daughter and 
 heiress of Sir Frederick Tilney, and Agnes, sister and heiress 
 of Sir Philip Tilney. This coat is for the second wife, who 
 was mother of Dorothy, Countess of Derby, in IV. 1. 
 
 This coat of the Duke of Norfolk, and also that for 
 Dorothy, his daughter, IV. 1, show a very great and interest- 
 ing peculiarity. The arms borne by the Dukes of Norfolk 
 are, as is well known : 
 
 1. Howard. 
 
 2. England (differenced}, for Thomas de Brotherton, son of 
 Edward I. 
 
 3. Warren. 
 
 4. Mowbray (or recently Fitzalari). The two coats in 
 these lights (about which there cannot be the least doubt 
 that they represent the Norfolk arms at the date 1530), show 
 I. Blank (lost) in both cases; 2. Howard; 3. Warren; 
 
 latter married first Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Felton, 
 Knight ; second, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of SIR NICHOLAS WICKING- 
 HAM, Knight, by whom he had an only daughter, Anne, married to Sir 
 Geoffrey Bullen or Boleyn, Knight, Lord Mayor of London ; third, Eleanor, 
 daughter of Leo, Lord Wells, sister and at length co-heir to Richard, Lord 
 Wells. The daughter of Thomas, Lord Hoo and Hastings, by Eleanor, 
 daughter of Lord Wells, was Anne (or Jane), married to Sir Roger Copley."
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 217 
 
 4. Mowbray. Examination shows that in both cases the 
 glass bearing the arms of Howard was painted for the second, 
 and not for the first quarter. Unquestionably, the first 
 quarter in both was occupied by the missing arms of de 
 Brotherton, possibly without the label of cadency. It is well 
 known that Lord Surrey, the grandson of this Thomas, 
 second Duke of Norfolk, was executed, and also Thomas, the 
 third Duke, the son of the second Duke, was attainted in 
 1 546 on charges of high treason, one of the proofs being that 
 they had improperly borne the royal arms. The Duke, upon 
 his trial, admitted that he had borne the arms of De Brother- 
 ton in the first quarter (see Howell's State Trials, vol. i. p. 457, 
 Confession of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, 38 Hen. VIII. 
 1546). "I do likewise confess," he says, "that to the peril, 
 slander, and disinherison of the King's Majesty and his noble 
 son, Prince Edward, his son and heir apparent, I have against 
 all right unjustly and without authority borne in the first 
 quarter of my arms ever since the death of my father the arms 
 of England, with a difference of the labels of silver * * * , 
 which I know and confess by the laws of the realm to be 
 High Treason." There is said to be no extant example of 
 this peculiar quartering in the case of the Duke himself. 
 But the royal lions were borne in the first quarter by some 
 families at that date, e.g. by Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. 
 It is found in seals of William Berkeley : dexter side, de 
 Brotherton ; sinister side, Berkeley. Also of Elizabeth, 
 Duchess of Norfolk, which is : dexter side, de Brotherton ; 
 sinister side, Howard and Warren, quarterly. In the 
 Memorials of Howard, by Henry Howard, 1834, foli P 9> in 
 a portrait of the victor of Flodden, from a book of heraldry, 
 1597, the arms are quartered I. Brotherton ; 2. Howard; 
 3. Warren ; 4. Mowbray. 1 
 
 1 An example of the arms of John Howard, first Duke of Norfolk, with 
 the royal arms of De Brotherton in the first quarter, is to be found in MS. E., 
 Philpott's Press, in the College of Arms (MS. Letter of Charles A. Buckler).
 
 218 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Doubtless they were shown so here originally. But on the 
 attainder of Lord Surrey and the Duke, in 1 546, the com- 
 promising lions of England were rudely removed by the 
 widow, Lady Weston, or by the Anne Pickering whose 
 husband, Sir Francis Weston, had been executed ten years 
 before. These windows, if we assume, as we must, that the 
 first quarter contained originally the royal arms, are quite 
 independent evidence that the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, 
 had borne their coat in that form in a preceding generation, 
 and twenty-two years before the attainder. And it will be 
 noticed that they were so shown in the hall of a colleague, in 
 which it is certain that Henry VIII., Wolsey, Cromwell, and 
 other ministers of the king were frequently in council with 
 him. It throws new light on the monstrous absurdity and 
 iniquity of this particular charge against the Duke and the 
 Earl of Surrey. 
 
 In the brass effigy of this Duke of Norfolk, on his tomb at 
 Thetford, his arms are given impaling those of Tilney for his 
 wife, Agnes (see H. Howard, Memorials, p. 29). 
 
 IV. 4. Fragments of heads, rudely mended, the Stafford 
 knot, and a bit of the Garter. 
 
 IV. 5. A quarry of four curious devices of original glass ; 
 two are the well-known Bourchier knot forming a double B. 
 Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, the famous soldier, author 
 and statesman, was Lieutenant of Calais 1521-32, and there 
 he died in 1532. Sir R. Weston was at that date Treasurer 
 of Calais. Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners, was Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer whilst Sir R. Weston was Under-Treasurer. 
 He was the friend of Caxton, the translator of Froissart, and 
 one of the foremost of those who in the age of Henry VIII. 
 promoted the extension of European culture. 
 
 Here is also a coat Party per fesse embattled argent and 
 sable [sic], six crosses pattee, 3 and 3 counterchanged, a 
 crescent for difference. A motto, DA MIHI FERRE 
 CRVCES. At each side are the initials R.W. This must
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 219 
 
 be for one of the family of WARNEFORD of Warneford Place, 
 Wilts. Above, in place of crest, is a Latin cross. The family 
 crest is a garb proper. 
 
 IV. 6. Fragments badly replaced and unintelligible. 
 
 Window No. V 
 
 V. i. A very fine coat of the date of the house. It gives 
 the arms of Thomas, second Earl of Derby, grandson of the 
 first Earl, husband of Margaret Beaufort. He impales the arms 
 of Anne, daughter of Lord Hastings of Hungerford, whom he 
 married, 1507. This Lord Derby succeeded his grandfather 
 in 1504, and died in 1522 (see J. Doyle, Official Baronage, 
 
 i- 553). 
 
 The coat of this Lord Derby is almost identical with that 
 of his son, the third Earl, Window IV. 1, except that in the 
 first grand quarter, No. 3, he quarters WARREN, cheeky or and 
 azure, and in fourth grand quarter, No. 3, he omits MOHUN 
 and repeats WIDVILLE, as in No. 2. The coat impales 
 HASTINGS of Hungerford, as he married Anne, the daughter of 
 Edward, Lord Hastings of Hungerford. On the feme side 
 the coat displays quarterly 
 
 1. HASTINGS Argent, a maunch sable. 
 
 2. HUNGERFORD Sable, two bars argent, in chief three 
 plates. 
 
 3. BOTREAUX Argent, a griffin segreant gules. 
 
 4. MOLEYNS Paly wavy of six, or and gules. 
 
 It will be observed that this glass, like that in IV. 1, IV. 3, 
 and others, is of "pot metal," the colour being run in the 
 glass (see Winston, Memoirs, 1865, p. 79), and in the ruby 
 pieces the charge is produced by grinding the surface. Owing 
 to this, the charge on the Hastings coat, No. 3, looks like two 
 garbs, and is not like a griffin at all. Compare COMYN of 
 York, argent, three garbs gules, banded or. This was, how- 
 ever, the designer's intention (see J. Doyle, Baronage, ii. 1 50 ;
 
 220 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Papworth and Morant ; Banks's Dormant Baronage, vol. ii. 
 etc.) The coat, No. 4, is sometimes attributed to MOELS, 
 also a bearing of HASTINGS. This Lord Derby, according to 
 Collins, iii., was Viscount Kynton, Lord Stanley and Strange, 
 Lord of Knokyn, Mohun, Basset, Burnal, and Lacy, Lord 
 of Man and the Isles. His wife, Anne, sister of George 
 Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, was daughter of Lord Hastings, 
 who was, in right of his wife, Lord Hungerford, Botreaux, 
 Moleyns, Moels, and de Hornet. Hence these quarterings. 
 They are explained by reference to the pedigree on page 221. 
 
 V. 2. A magnificent head of Saracen, the crest of SIR 
 RICHARD WESTON (see chap. iii. p. 88, and chap. vii. p. 144), 
 with wreath and " tun," green, blue, and red. This seems 
 nearly perfect, and is one of the original pieces in situ. Doubt- 
 less several of the lower windows were filled with these heads. 
 Compare lower south bay No. 5, and X. 2. 
 
 V. 3. A very fine coat of COPLEY, nearly perfect, the 
 quarterings of which are all shown in the painted escutcheons 
 dated i 568 (see chap, xi.) But this coat is evidently earlier, 
 and of the date of the house, or shortly afterwards. It is 
 quarterly of six 
 
 1. COPLEY Argent, a cross moline sable, a crescent for 
 difference. 
 
 2. Hoo Quarterly sable and argent. 
 
 3. ST. OMER Azure, a fesse between six crosses crosslet 
 or, a quartering of Hoo (see Banks's Dormant Baronage, iii. 
 376 ; and also the seal of Sir W. de Hungerford, died 1410, 
 Archaeological "Journal, xiii. 195). This piece has been broken 
 and badly mended. The fesse in ST. OMER has been re- 
 placed by a fragment of SHELLEY, turned on its side in a very 
 clumsy way. The marriage of Sir Roger Copley with Eliza- 
 beth Shelley was after 1530. 
 
 4. WELLES Or, a lion rampant double queued sable. 
 
 5. ENGAINE Gules, a fesse dancettee between six crosses 
 crosslet or.
 
 THE PAINTED GLASS 
 
 221 
 
 _ o 
 
 gs 
 
 .1 
 
 S> -3 
 
 5 c 
 
 8*2 
 
 cr a t; 
 
 frfi 
 
 V 
 
 L.3J - 1 
 I* 
 & s 1 
 
 is S
 
 222 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Adam de Welles, Lord Welles, married, 1299, Margaret, 
 daughter and heiress of John de Engaine, Lord of Grimsby 
 before 1295 (J. Doyle, Official Baronage, iii. 605). 
 
 Hence comes this coat which figures so often in the 
 Copley quarterings. 
 
 6. WATERTON Barry of six, ermine and gules, over all 
 three crescents sable. 
 
 LEO, Lord Welles, killed at Towton, 1461, married, first, 
 Joan, daughter and heiress of Sir R. Waterton, and, second, 
 Margaret Beauchamp, Duchess of Somerset. 
 
 This coat, unless SHELLEY is improperly inserted in it, as 
 seems probable, might be for Sir Thomas Copley, born I535> 
 the son of Elizabeth Shelley, but of course before his marriage 
 with Katherine Luttrell {Escutcheons, chap, xi.) 
 
 V. 4. Fragments of a Red Rose, very fine in colour, 
 restored. 
 
 V. 5. This light, like the corresponding lights, IV. 5, VI. 
 5, IX. 5, X. 5, contains four lozenge-shaped devices, arranged 
 in a lozenge. The three upper pieces are probably original, 
 two of them being curious devices of Sir Reginald Bray, one 
 a hemp-crusher, bray, of very curious form ; the other a 
 Hawk's lure (see Boutell, English Heraldry, p. 104, and 
 Manning, pp. 514-525). Sir R. Bray was in the service of 
 Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and was an active instru- 
 ment in placing the crown on the head of Henry VII., and 
 is said to have found the crown in the hawthorn bush. He 
 was the architect of Henry VII.'s Chapel in the Abbey, and 
 of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. He laid the first stone 
 in 1 502. His badges are found in many churches in Surrey, 
 e.g. Shere, Godalming. As he died in 1504, it is unlikely 
 that this badge was originally placed in the hall. But he 
 served with Sir Richard Weston ; or the badge may have 
 been used by inheritance. Sir Edmond Bray of Stoke 
 d'Abernon was High-Sheriff" of Surrey in 1521, and Sir 
 Edward Bray also in 1538. The third lozenge contains an
 
 xn THE PAINTED GLASS 223 
 
 initial H. crowned, formed by a dragon, probably for Henry 
 VII. This occurs also in II. 4. See it in A. W. Franks's 
 Ornamental Glazing Quarries, p. 98. 
 
 The fourth lozenge contains a crest a demi-bull, collared 
 and chained, a crest of HASTINGS. 
 
 V. 6. Fragments of a Red Rose, badly restored. 
 
 Windmu No. VI 
 
 VI. I. This is a fine coat of arms, being the arms of 
 Henry VIII. impaling those of Catherine of Aragon. This 
 is probably nearly perfect, but is without the Crown. He 
 was king at his marriage. Part of a lion passant remains. 
 The coat shows on baron side France and England ; on feme 
 side 
 
 1 and 4. Grand quarters LEON and CASTILE, quarterly. 
 
 2 and 3. Grand quarters ARAGON impaling SICILY, per 
 saltire, BRABANT (Willement, Royal Heraldry, p. 67 ; Jenkins, 
 Heraldry, 1886, p. 83, where these quarterings are shown 
 and explained ; see H. Woodward and Burnett, Heraldry, 
 1892, p. 495). 
 
 VI. 2. A fine shield for the COPLEY family, somewhat 
 transposed, but probably for Sir Thomas Copley, about 1560. 
 
 It is much injured and badly restored. 
 
 It may have been originally quarterly of eight. 
 
 I. COPLEY; 4. (?) broken, azure, fretty argent (?) ETCH- 
 INGHAM. 
 
 5. WELLES ; 8. Hoo. 
 
 2 > 3> 6, 7, appear to have been badly repaired and trans- 
 posed, and have a fragment, as it were in chief, azure, three 
 fleurs de lys or, from some older royal coat. 
 
 There are also BELKNAP, azure, three eagles in bend 
 between two cottises argent, quartered with SHELLEY, sable, 
 a fesse engrailed between three whelk shells or. Sir W. 
 Shelley, Chief-Justice of the King's Bench, 1521, married
 
 224 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Alice, daughter of Sir H. Belknap of Essex. Their daughter, 
 Elizabeth, married Sir Roger Copley. Also there seem to 
 be coats or, two- bendlets gules, SUDELEY, and azure, on a 
 bend flanche or, a hawk argent. 
 
 VI. 3. A grand coat of the finest glass, contemporary 
 with the house or older, being probably a fanciful coat for 
 the ancient kings of Wales, and representing Henry VII. or 
 Henry VIII. as hereditary King of Wales or England by 
 descent from the Britons. It is quarterly. 
 
 1 and 4. Or, lion statant regardant gules. 
 
 2 and 3. Azure, three ducal coronets in bend or. 
 The traditional arms of WALES are 
 
 Quarterly, I and 4. Gules, a lion passant guardant or. 
 
 2 and 3. Or, a lion passant guardant gules. 
 
 The piece is surrounded with a wreath in fine old work, 
 and above is a lion passant. The ruby glass is deeply incised. 
 See Heylin's Help to History of England, pp. 7, 20 ; Papworth, 
 p. 593. Azure, three crowns or, for King Arthur (Sandford, 
 Royal Genealogies, p. 277). 
 
 VI. 4. A circular piece enclosing the arms of England 
 and France, and crown, with fragments of the Garter. R. 
 with crown, from device H.R., and apparently another bray, 
 device of Sir Reginald Bray (see V. 5, badly restored). 
 
 VI. 5. The lozenge piece enclosing four lozenge de- 
 vices 
 
 1. Arms of England and France quarterly. 
 
 2. A tulip, finely drawn, see the same in X. 5. 
 
 3. A parrot. 
 
 4. Grotesque, more recent, a man shearing a pig, or a pig 
 in ram's fleece. 
 
 VI. 6. This interesting circular piece encloses, with 
 fragments of royal arms and the Garter, a portrait of Charles 
 II., probably at the date of his restoration, aetat. 30, 1660. 
 He wears the ribbon of the Garter. The portrait has the 
 Crown and C.R. Though the portrait is not very life-like,
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 225 
 
 and is apparently that of a younger man, it is hardly probable 
 that this piece, to which the iron bar of the window is 
 adapted, could have been placed here during the Common- 
 wealth. Brayley (History of Surrey, ii. p. 20) calls this a 
 portrait of Charles I., and indeed it is almost as much like 
 him as his son. 
 
 Upper North Bay 
 
 U. N. BAY i. This light has a magnificent specimen 
 of a Red and White Rose, dimidiated with green petals, 
 the Rose being party per pale argent and gules, with the 
 Tudor Crown, and probably with a wreath and monogram, 
 H.R., as in upper south bay 1. 
 
 This glass is evidently identical with similar roses and 
 crowns in Henry VII.'s Chapel in the Abbey. 
 
 U. N. BAY 2. Here is a very fine coat, contemporary with 
 the founder, for a Bishop of Winchester, with Garter and 
 Mitre. But the piece has been broken and badly repaired. 
 
 The dexter side gives the arms of the see imperfectly, gules, 
 a sword and one key in saltire argent, badly mended. 
 
 The sinister side seems to be 
 
 Azure, on a chief argent, a saltire gules (? St. Patrick), or 
 this may be that azure is a restoration or clumsy repair. 
 
 Round, with fragments of Garter, are some letters, ap- 
 parently ABP-OS-T-E., or APS-OS-A-T-S. Doubtless, this 
 once contained the arms of Cardinal Wolsey. 
 
 U. N. BAY 3. Another magnificent coat of arms for 
 GARDINER, Bishop of Winchester. 
 
 On the dexter side is, in chief 
 
 Gules, two keys in bend, argent and or, between them a 
 sword of the second. 
 
 And in base is 
 
 Gules, three crescents argent (?), careless restoration, taken 
 from another coat. 
 
 Q
 
 226 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 On the sinister side are the arms of GARDINER. Azure, on 
 a cross or, between four griffins' heads erased, a cinquefoil 
 gules, pierced of the second (see Rev. R. Bedford, Blazon of 
 Episcopacy, 1858, p. 103). 
 
 Stephen Gardiner, 1483-1555, was Bishop of Winchester 
 from 1531-52 ; he was in France with Wolsey, 1527 ; and 
 ambassador to the Pope, 1528. He was Master of Trinity 
 Hall, Cambridge, from 1525-49, and again, 1553-55. He 
 was also Archdeacon of Norfolk. 
 
 U. N. BAY 4. A splendid Red and White Rose with 
 Tudor Crown. The crown and wreath are almost perfect. 
 The rose has been broken. 
 
 These are doubtless contemporary with the house, and from 
 the factory of Bernard Flower. Henry VII.'s Chapel was filled 
 with pieces from the same workmanship. 
 
 Upper North Bay (Lower Half] 
 
 Windows 5, 6, 7, 8 are apparently ONSLOW coats, and their 
 quarterings of seventeenth or late sixteenth-century work. 
 
 U. N. BAY 5. Quarterly of six. 
 
 I, 2, 3 are apparently removed and replaced by a large 
 hand, the sleeve striped or, holding a fish vert. But this is 
 not heraldic, nor from a coat. 
 
 4. CARR Gules, on a chevron or, three mullets sable. 
 Edward Carr married Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Onslow, 
 who died 1571. (?) COBHAM of Kent. 
 
 5. Now simply azure. 
 
 6. Argent, goutt'ee du sang, a lion rampant sable, KYN ASTON. 
 John de Onslow, 8 Henry VI., married Margaret, daughter 
 and heiress of Madoc Kynaston of Shropshire (Collins, Hist. 
 Peerage, v. 462). 
 
 This impales the coat of SHIRLEY of Sussex quartering 
 BREWSE or BRAOSE, azure, seme"e of crosslets, a lion rampant 
 or, langued gules.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 227 
 
 Sir Edward Onslow, died 1571, married Elizabeth, daughter 
 of Sir Thomas Shirley of Sussex. The coat shows 
 
 1 and 4. SHIRLEY Paly of six, or and azure, a canton 
 ermine. 
 
 2 and 3. BRAOSE, as above. 
 
 U. N. BAY 6. COKE impaling PILLETT. 
 Quarterly 
 
 1 and 4. COKE Party per pale gules and azure, three 
 eagles displayed argent. 
 
 2 and 3. Argent, a chevron azure between three torteaux, 
 on each a saltire of the first : (?) wreaths. 
 
 Feme side is PILLETT Sable, a chevron argent between 
 three covered cups or. 
 
 U. N. BAY 7. Broken fragments, badly replaced and 
 unintelligible. 
 
 U. N. BAY 8. ONSLOW Quarterly of six. Same as 
 dexter side of Window II. 4. 
 
 I and 6. ONSLOW Argent, a fesse gules between six 
 Cornish choughs proper, a crescent for difference. 
 
 N.B. The piece above the fesse is broken and lost. 
 
 2. KYNASTON Argent, gouttee du sang, a lion rampant 
 sable, langued gules. 
 
 3. CARR Gules, on a chevron or, three mullets sable. 
 
 4. Argent, on a chevron sable, three bezants. (?) BOND, 
 County Devon. 
 
 5. Barry of six, sable and argent, a canton argent. Under- 
 neath is the date 1639, which may be transposed. HOUGHTON. 
 
 Lower North Bay 
 
 L. N. BAY I. A magnificent original piece, the device of 
 the founder, the tun with wreaths. Quite perfect and very 
 brilliant. 
 
 L. N. BAY 2. A fine old coat, damaged, but apparently 
 party per bend sable and or; it may be or, a greyhound, 
 monkey, or monster sable, on a chief sable, three bezants.
 
 228 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Above is an old White Rose en soleil, the badge of the house 
 of York, also in the next light. 
 
 L. N. BAY 3. This very magnificent and interesting piece 
 gives us the coat of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, being the 
 royal arms, with a label of three points ermine, on each point 
 a canton gules (see Boutell's Heraldry, Royal Cadency, p. 222), 
 with the White Rose en soleil. The colouring and design of 
 this splendid specimen of the coat of Richard as Duke is 
 singularly fine. It remains a doubt how the coat, which must 
 be older than the house by forty years, came in so conspicuous 
 a position in the hall where Henry VIII. was undoubtedly 
 entertained by his Minister. After his accession, June 1483, 
 the coat of Richard, as Duke of Gloucester, could not have 
 been shown thus. It has no doubt been reset. It may have 
 come from the older house, or from the hall at Woking. Both 
 this manor of Sutton and that of Woking undoubtedly were in 
 the possession of Richard III. as king. 
 
 L. N. BAY 4. Here was the device of the " tun," with a 
 wreath similar to No. 1. In lieu of the tun we now see 
 architectural fragments of Perpendicular style, beginning of 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 L. N. BAY 5. Picture of sheep-shearing seventeenth 
 century ; poor work ; pigs and bullocks at the side ; an owl 
 holding a mirror, a fox and some flowers and birds are of 
 original and much finer glass. 
 
 Lights 6 and 7, both here and in lower south bay, are filled 
 with lozenge ornaments made up of nine lozenges. Many of 
 these are original. 
 
 L. N. BAY 6. A portcullis crowned, a grasshopper, and a 
 fox are fine original designs and very interesting. Then come 
 grotesques, a monkey playing on a guitar, and an eagle playing 
 on the same, with a crest, a horse's head couped (now brown, 
 probably or and gules, armed and plumed), and a crescent 
 for difference. Then a curious and interesting monogram 
 design dated
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 229 
 
 intertwined with a true lover's knot. It is uncertain for 
 which of the Weston family this is. 
 
 Sir Henry Weston, an only child, and Dorothy Arundell 
 had been married apparently in 1 560 ; Lady Anne (Pickering) 
 was now Lady Knyvett, and at least forty-five. Richard, the 
 eldest son of Sir Henry, was born in 1564, and married Jane 
 Dister in 1583. This may have been for the betrothal of the 
 infants. 
 
 There is also twice repeated a later design, a book with a 
 ducal coronet above it ; on the dexter page a heart and three 
 stars above ; on the sinister, a key. Motto, Respice, Suspice, 
 1630. 
 
 L. N. BAY 7. Here is another quarry of nine lozenges ; 
 many of them are original and very finely drawn. 1 
 
 The first is a marguerite or double daisy rising out of a 
 tun. This is undoubtedly a rebus for Margaret, the daughter 
 of the founder, the wife of Sir Walter Dennys, whose mag- 
 nificent coat of arms is seen in X. 3. Below this is a camel, 
 probably from the arms of CAMELL, borne by the founder, 
 but certainly later in date ; the White Rose en soleil, same as 
 in 2 and 3, is fine ; an eagle's head erased, a mushroom, a 
 design of an eye in the sun, the crest of BLUNT of Maple- 
 Durham. A shield argent, a chevron between three fleurs de 
 lys (?) gules (now brown), a crest, a white hart lodged, attired 
 and hoofed or, collared with oak leaves and acorns vert, a 
 crescent for difference, BELLASIS, Yorkshire, or BELASYSE, 
 County Lincoln. 
 
 1 As to quarries (from quarrel, quadrellum, low Latin) see A. W. Franks, 
 Ornamental Glazing Quarries, 1849, where several of these specimens are 
 given.
 
 230 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 In the centre is a complete coat of arms of Spain, impaling 
 those of England, being no doubt for Philip of Spain and 
 Mary, 1554. Sir Henry Weston, the then owner of the 
 estate, defended Calais for the Queen. This coat, which is 
 contemporary, is merely drawn, and not coloured. The arms 
 of Philip are nearly the same as those of Catherine of Aragon 
 in VI. 1, except that they quarter FRANCE within a bordure 
 gobonated for BURGUNDY, and FLANDERS Or, a lion rampant 
 crowned sable. See Woodward and Burnett, p. 495. 
 
 L. N. BAY 8. The arms of COPLEY, with mantling and 
 crest complete, probably of late sixteenth-century work, far 
 inferior to the original design. 
 
 Here is a fragment also seen in VIII. 4 ; a circular en- 
 closure, with palisade. 
 
 Upper South Bay 
 
 This contains in its upper lights some splendid examples of 
 glass of the date of the house, uniform with the upper tier of 
 lights in upper north bay. The lower lights, as in north bay, 
 have later (Copley) coats. 
 
 U. S. Bay I. A magnificent Red Rose crowned and in 
 wreath. This is very rich in colour and quite perfect. The 
 wreath bears the monogram PR. 
 
 U. S. BAY 2. Royal arms of England with Crown and 
 Garter ; perfect, and very fine in colour and design. 
 
 U. S. BAY 3. The arms of William Fitzalan, thirteenth 
 Earl of Arundel, K.G., succeeded to the earldom 1524, died 
 1544. He was Lieutenant of Calais, 1541. He was the son 
 of Margaret Widville, daughter of Earl Rivers, and was cousin 
 of Henry VIII. (see History of Arundel, by M. A. Tierney, 
 1834, vol. i.; Doyle, Official Baronage, vol. i.) His coat, 
 which has the Coronet and Garter, shows 
 
 i. FITZALAN of Arundel Gules, a lion rampant or. The 
 brilliancy of this in the mid-day sun is extraordinary.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 231 
 
 2. FITZALAN of Bedale Barry of eight or and gules. 
 
 3. WIDVILLE Argent, a fesse and canton gules. 
 
 4. Quarterly, being 
 
 1 and 4. MALTRAVERS Sable, a fret or. 
 
 2 and 3. FITZALAN of Clun Argent, a chief azure. 
 
 U. S. BAY 4. A very fine Red Rose with Crown and 
 motto DIEU ET MON DROIT. 
 
 All these are unquestionably of the date of the house, and 
 the finest work of 1530. 
 
 U. S. BAY 5. A very elaborate, but rather later coat of 
 COPLEY, in eight quarters, with an escutcheon of pretence 
 for LUTTRELL (see Escutcheons, chap, xi.) Surrey Archaeol. 
 Coll. iii. 
 
 1. COPLEY Argent, a cross moline sable, a crescent for 
 difference. 
 
 2. WELLES and ENGAINE Quarterly, see Window V. 3. 
 
 3. WATERTON Barry of six ermine and gules, over all three 
 crescents sable. 
 
 4. Hoo Quarterly, sable and argent. 
 
 5. ST. OMER Azure, a fesse between six crosses crosslet 
 or. 
 
 6. MALMAYNS Azure, three sinister hands couped argent. 
 
 7. WYCHINGHAM Ermine on a chief sable, three crosses 
 pattee argent. 
 
 8. ST. LEGER Azure, fretty argent, a chief or. 
 On an escutcheon of pretence is 
 
 LUTTRELL Or, a bend between six martlets sable. 
 This coat is doubtless for Sir Thomas Copley, died 1584, 
 great-grandfather of Mary, wife of John Weston, 1637. 
 
 ST. OMER, MALMAYNS, and ST. LEGER were quarterings of 
 Hoo. The first Lord Hoo, 1446, was the son of Alice St. 
 Maur, whose mother was Jane, daughter of Nicolas Malmayns. 
 His second wife was Elizabeth Wickingham. 
 
 U. S. BAY 6. The coats in Nos. 6, 7, 8 are all COPLEY 
 coats with nearly the same quarterings, apparently of the same
 
 232 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 date, and for the same Sir Thomas Copley. They have been 
 injured and badly repaired, especially No. 6, the lower 
 quarters of which, 5 to 10, are not intelligible. 
 
 U. S. BAY 7. 7, sable, three talbots' heads erased argent, 
 HALL, County Lincoln ; argent, a lion rampant. 
 
 U. S. BAY 8. Azure (?) FAUCONBERG. In 8 appears 
 NEVILLE Gules, a saltire argent, and MOWBRAY Gules, a lion 
 rampant argent. These are probably misplaced during repairs. 
 
 In 8 are two very fine monograms. R. with crown, and 
 H.E. with crown and hawthorn bush, fleur de lys, etc. 
 
 Here are also two of the original grotesques, a monkey and 
 a griffin, both finely drawn ; also the device of Henry VII., 
 H.E., and the crown and hawthorn bush, with some fine 
 original emblems. 
 
 Lower South Bay 
 
 L. S. BAY I. Fragments of Tudor crown, very fine old 
 glass, not of one coat. There is a grand fragment from the 
 arms of Catherine of Aragon, Leon and Castile, with arms 
 of England, also the following : 
 
 i. Azure, upon a chevron between three harts at gaze or, 
 as many crowns sable. (?) GREEN, Norfolk. This seems to 
 impale 
 
 ii. I. Or, three fleurs de lys azure in pale. 
 
 2. Vaire, BEAUCHAMP of Hache. 
 
 3. Gules, two lions' heads erased or. 
 
 4. Quarterly, I and 4. Gules, a castle or; 2 and 3. 
 Argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned or. 
 
 But the whole coat has been transposed and entirely 
 confused in the resetting. 
 
 L. S. BAY 2. A magnificent original design, happily quite 
 perfect, the arms of the founder. 
 
 1 and 4. WESTON Ermine, on a chief azure, 5 bezants. 
 
 2 and 3. CAMELL Argent, three camels trippant sable.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 233 
 
 Sir R. Weston was the son of Catherine Camell, heiress of 
 John Camell of Shapwick, Dorset. 
 
 L. S. BAY 3. A splendid head of Saracen for the crest 
 of Weston, with mantling (compare V. 2). 
 
 This and the last light enable us to judge of the appearance 
 of the hall as originally completed, and shows most noble 
 examples of the work of the glass-makers of 1530. 
 
 L. S. BAY 4. This design is much mutilated. It shows 
 us the portrait of a king crowned, apparently Henry VII., 
 certainly not Henry VIII. Below are the arms of England 
 impaling those of Catherine of Aragon, White and Red Roses. 
 Fragment argent, a saltire gules. (?) St. Patrick. 
 
 This and a fragment vaire are found together in III. 2, 
 and are fine and original ; also in upper north bay 2. 
 
 L. S. BAY 5. Remains of a Tudor crown, apparently 
 with wreath ; now in the place of the arms is a circular 
 niche of late Gothic work ; within (not in colours) a shield, 
 being 
 
 Arms of the Adventurers or Hambrough Merchants. This 
 society was incorporated 24 Edward I., 1296, and obtained 
 ample privileges and a confirmation of their charter from 
 Queen Elizabeth. See Cunningham, English Industry, i. 372. 
 ARMS Barry undee of six, argent and azure. A [chief 
 quarterly gules and or, on the first and fourth quarters a lion 
 passant guardant of the fourth ; on the second and third two 
 roses gules, barbed vert (Boutell, Plate 13, p. 328 ; and 
 Edmondson, Heraldry ; Gwillim, Heraldry). Sir Richard 
 may have been a member, see p. 47. 
 
 L. S. BAY 6. The lozenge, with nine lozenge devices. 
 I. Castle crowned. Castile. 
 
 2 and 3. Two Roses argent, seeded gules, crowned. 
 Two crown-and-hawthorn with monogram H.E., a bird with 
 buckle, and the punning rebus LEP above a tun, for Lepton. 
 
 The quarries of Lepton are cut with a diamond and 
 inscribed thus "W.E. 1704," and "A. 1702."
 
 234 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 Rev. Radulph or Christopher Lepton, Canon of Wells, was 
 Rector of Alresford and St. Nicholas, Guildford, 1504-27 
 (Manning, i. 65, 69). 
 
 L. S. BAY 7. Another lozenge quarry of nine pieces ; 
 three appear to be original ; an eagle apparently saying grace 
 before sitting down to table ; a fox with bird, and the crown 
 and hawthorn. Two are figures of late seventeenth-century 
 work, apparently Dutch Christ before Pilate, two sea 
 monsters, dolphin and dragon; also Respite, Susfife, 1630. 
 The book and crown as in lower north bay. 
 
 L. S. BAY 8. Here is a splendid and apparently perfect 
 royal device, a fine Tudor crown, uninjured, which supports 
 a wreath of magnificent blues and orange. Within are the 
 following devices : 
 
 A donjon of a castle with two wards and a gate with port- 
 cullis forms a bed for flowers ; out of the castle rise two roses 
 and two marigolds, apparently counterchanged a heart and 
 cross are in flames ; out of the flames rises an eagle, hawk, or 
 phcenix crowned, with wings outspread. This is for Jane 
 Seymour, and it was also borne at times by her son, Edward 
 VI. (Willement, p. 71, Plate 17). The same appears in 
 Hampton Court Palace (see History by Ernest Law, vol. i. 
 p. 181). 
 
 The work is apparently contemporary with the house. 
 Jane Seymour was married 1536, and died 1537. It is 
 singular that the personal badge of Jane Seymour should 
 be put in the hall of the father whose only son had been 
 executed just before her marriage as one of the lovers of 
 Anne Boleyn. But Sir Richard Weston attended the court 
 ceremonies of Jane Seymour, as we see in chap. iii. pp. 73, 74. 
 
 Window No. VII 
 
 VII. i. The Garter encloses a crest, a falcon displayed 
 belled and gorged with a ducal coronet, the crest of PAULET,
 
 xn THE PAINTED GLASS 235 
 
 Marquis of Winchester. This light is much injured and 
 badly mended with modern fragments. It contains the 
 portcullis chained, and a coat for ONSLOW impaling SWAN, 
 same as in II. 2, II. 3 ; azure, three swans argent, a chief or. 
 
 VII. 2. Here was a magnificent original Tudor crown 
 and Red Rose of the Abbey design, apparently encircled by 
 the Garter. 
 
 VII. 3. The Garter as in No. 1, HONY SOYT QUY 
 MAL Y PENSE, enclosing a coat of ten quarterings for 
 PAULET. 
 
 1. PAULET Sable, three swords in pile argent, points to 
 bases, pommels and hilts or, a crescent for difference. 
 
 2. Roos Gules, three water bougets argent. 
 
 3. POYNINGS Barry of six, or and vert, a bendlet gules, 
 a crescent for difference. 
 
 4. ST. JOHN Or, on a chief gules, three mullets pierced 
 argent. 
 
 5. DELAMARE Gules, two lions passant guardant argent. 
 
 6. HUSSEY Barry of six, ermine and gules. 
 
 7. SKELTON Azure, a fesse between three fleurs de lys 
 argent. 
 
 8. IREBY Argent, a fret sable, a canton of the second. 
 
 9. DELAMERE Argent, six martlets (3, 2, l) sable (see 
 Baigent, Practical Manual, p. 35, where these quarterings are 
 given from a monument in Croxdale Church). 
 
 These are the arms of William Paulet, K.G., first Marquis 
 of Winchester, 1551, created by Henry VIII. Lord St. John, 
 1539, and one of his executors. He succeeded Sir Richard 
 Weston as Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries, 1 54- 
 54 (J. Doyle, Official Baronage, iii. 700). He was Lord 
 Treasurer during the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and 
 Elizabeth, and he explained his long tenure of office by 
 saying that he was " the willow, not the oak." He was the 
 builder of Basing House, about twenty-five miles from Sutton, 
 and must have been well known both to the founder and to
 
 236 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 his grandson, Sir Henry Western. He died 1572, aged 
 eighty-seven. The crescent for cadency marks the fact that 
 the elder branch is represented by Earl Poulett. 
 
 The crest, falcon gorged with a ducal coronet and belled, 
 appears also in VIII. 1. Below is a coat, gules, five leopards 
 rampant in cross or, for BYNTWORTH, and the word Bents- 
 worth. 
 
 VII. 4. Here are two devices or rebus, a circular enclosure 
 surrounded by a stockade, in front a five-barred gate, inside 
 trees, above J., below R. 
 
 A late sixteenth -century coat with mantling and crest 
 sable, four or six lions rampant in cross argent, langued and 
 armed gules, a scutcheon of pretence ermine (?) ST. MARTIN. 
 
 Crest on a knight's helmet, a lion statant argent, langued 
 gules, armed or, on a cap of maintenance. The whole is a 
 complete piece of seventeenth-century work. 
 
 VII. 5. This light has been injured and badly mended. 
 Several pieces of the original devices, birds and animals, remain. 
 
 VII. 6. This light has been injured and badly mended. 
 Also the original hawthorn crowned and rose-tree crowned 
 with H.R. In the centre of the design is a large shield or 
 four quarters impaling sable, three pickaxes argent, for PIGOTT. 
 
 The coat shows : 
 
 I and 4. Sable, a buck's head cabossed attired or, between 
 the antlers a cross crosslet fitchee or, langued or, and pierced 
 through the nose with an arrow or. 
 
 2. Argent, a chevron between three rooks' heads erased 
 sable, the chevron charged with an annulet or. (?) NORREYS. 
 
 3. Argent, a chevron gules between three squirrels siegant 
 sable, each holding a nut or SCOBINGTON. 
 
 Window No. VIII 
 
 VIII. I. Original wreath from Saracen's head, badly 
 mended ; within is a large crest, falcon gorged and belled as 
 in VII. 1, for PAULET, Marquis of Winchester.
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 237 
 
 VIII. 2. Very fine original Red Rose with crown above, 
 similar to that in VI. 4, but much damaged. 
 
 VIII. 3. Fragments of original wreath from Saracen's 
 head, badly mended, three fleurs de lys, one quarter of royal 
 arms, original glass of 1530. 
 
 VIII. 4. Original quarries of birds, grotesques, and 
 mantling. Three birds sitting down to dinner. In the 
 centre a shield, sixteenth century, of four quarters. 
 
 I and 4. BABINGTON of East Brigford, Notts Argent, ten 
 torteaux, 4, 3, 2, I, a label of three points azure. 
 
 2. DETHICK of Derby Argent, a fesse vaire or and gules 
 between three water bougets sable. 
 
 3. Argent, a chevron (?) between two compasses and a 
 globe or (/*). Company of CARPENTERS, who had a grant of 
 arms, 1466 (Boutell, 331). Transposed in mending. 
 
 The family of BABINGTON of Notts, from Sir John de 
 Babington, chief Captain of Morlaix, in Bretagne, under 
 Edward III., intermarried with family of DETHICK, County 
 Derby. Of this family was Anthony Babington, executed 
 1586. 
 
 VIII. 5. Birds, grotesques, and fragments of original 
 glass, the H.E. and H.R. with hawthorn and crown, and a 
 large coat of six quarters. 
 
 1. Ermine on two bars sable, three fleurs de lys or. 
 
 2. Sable, six lioncels rampant or, 3, 2, i. (?) ST. MARTIN 
 of Wilts. 
 
 3. Sable, a griffin segreant between three cross crosslets 
 argent. (?) FROXMORE. 
 
 4 and 5. Quarterly (unintelligible and transposed) (i) 
 goat's head erased, horned or ; (2) leopard's head cabossed ; 
 (3) two leopards' heads cabossed ; (4) two goats. An escut- 
 cheon of pretence argent, three crescents sable. 
 
 6. Fleur de lys, from original royal arms. 
 
 VIII. 6. Late sixteenth-century shield, nearly complete, 
 supporters two camels. This has been transposed ; originally
 
 238 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 it contained arms, crest, and supporters of the Merchant 
 Taylors' Company with their motto (incorp. 1466 and 1503). 
 Crest, on a knight's helmet a lamb en soleil argent, on a cap 
 vert. The shield below has been apparently filled with the 
 royal arms as borne by James I., and is a good deal injured. 
 
 1. In the first quarter of the royal coat is now a rabbit, 
 with the letters W.T. In sole posuit tabernaculum suum. See 
 Psalm xix. v. 4. 
 
 2. In the second a White and Red Rose. 
 
 3. The harp, for Ireland. 
 
 4. England and France quarterly. Below the motto, 
 Concordia res parvte erescunt, motto of the Merchant Taylors' 
 Company. See Burke, General Armoury, under "London, 
 Companies of." Also motto of United Provinces. 
 
 In this window, light 3, is an inscription with a diamond 
 " John Weston Esquire putt in this painted glass, August ye 
 28, 1724," apparently done by a workman during some 
 repair. 
 
 Windmu No. IX 
 
 IX. I and 3. Very fine original designs of the arms of 
 the founder. Both the same. WESTON quartering CAMELL, 
 same as in lower south bay No. 2, and in X. 1. These are 
 fortunately complete, with their mantling, and give an 
 excellent conception of the best armorial decoration of the 
 period. 
 
 IX. 2. The rebus of the " tun " for the founder, as in 
 lower north bay No. 1, and probably similar, surrounded 
 with wreathing. 
 
 IX. 4. Here are curious sixteenth -century fragments, 
 heads of kings, birds, grotesques, and two fleurs de lys. 
 
 In the centre is a sundial, marked from 10 to 8. This 
 very curious piece is probably in situ, and by a metal rod or 
 bracket, placed outside, it apparently indicates the time.
 
 in THE PAINTED GLASS 239 
 
 IX. 5. Here is a lozenge-shaped quarry of old grotesques ; 
 an eagle or hawk is wheeling in a barrow a smaller bird. It 
 looks like an illustration of the Burial of Cock Robin ; also 
 an eagle, hawk, or rook on two staffs, crutches, or stilts, with 
 a pack on his back, apparently disguised as a pedlar. Also a 
 demi-virgin couped below the shoulders, issuant out of clouds, 
 vested and crowned or, the crest of the Mercers' Company, 
 1 394. The motto Virtutis laus actio is for CORBET, one of the 
 quarterings of ONSLOW. This motto was also used by William 
 Howard, Earl of Arundel, whose family occupied Sutton Place 
 1615-25. 
 
 IX. 6. Here are later fragments, not now intelligible ; in 
 the centre a Madonna and Child. 
 
 Window No. X 
 
 Here are, no doubt in situ, in the upper tier of lights, the 
 arms and crest of the founder and the arms of his son-in-law. 
 
 X. I. The arms of WESTON quartering CAMELL, as in 
 IX. 1 and 3. 
 
 X. 2. The Saracen's head with wreath, much injured. 
 
 X. 3. Here is a magnificent coat of arms, contemporary 
 with the hall, and almost perfect. This splendid specimen 
 gives a vivid impression of the command over the resources 
 of colouring possessed by the glass-painters of 1530. It gives 
 the arms of Sir W. Dennys quartering the arms of Berkeley 
 in right of his mother. 
 
 This beautiful coat is thus blazoned : 
 
 1 and 4. Grand quarters 
 
 DENNYS Gules, three leopards' heads or, jessant de lys 
 azure (sic) ; over all a bend engrailed of the last. 
 
 2 and 3. Grand quarters, quarterly 
 
 I. BERKELEY Gules, a chevron between ten crosses 
 pattee, six in chief and four in base, argent.
 
 240 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE CH. 
 
 2. BROTHERTON Gules, three lions passant guardant in 
 pale or, a label of three points argent. 
 
 3. WARREN Cheeky or and azure. 
 
 4. MOWBRAY Gules, a lion rampant argent. 
 
 These are the arms in contemporary glass of Sir Walter 
 Dennys, who married Margaret, daughter of Sir Richard 
 Weston (see her rebus in lower north bay, No. 7). Sir 
 Walter was the son of Sir William Dennys of Dyrham, 
 Gloucestershire, by Anne, daughter and co-heir of Maurice 
 (Lord) Berkeley, descended from James, Lord Berkeley, 
 1421, who married Isabel, second daughter of Thomas 
 Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Hence the MOWBRAY and 
 WARREN quarterings. 
 
 A communication from Mr. Charles A. Buckler, loth 
 August 1880, himself descended from a sister of Sir Walter 
 Dennys, who married Sir Richard Buckler, County Dorset, 
 states as follows "The royal coat of BROTHERTON is, in the 
 first place, in the seals of William Berkeley and Elizabeth, 
 Duchess of Norfolk. It is curious that, at Sutton Place, as 
 the royal quarter had precedence in the HOWARD shield, it 
 was not similarly treated in the BERKELEY quarterings, two 
 sisters and co-heirs having transmitted it to both families. 
 At Sutton Place the fleurs de lys in the coat of DENNYS are 
 azure. This occurs in the earlier instances. Later they 
 were leopards' faces, jessant de lys or, in order to avoid the 
 azure bend." 
 
 X. 4, 5. Fragments, apparently of fine sixteenth-century 
 work. A fleur de lys, White Rose, rose en soleil, etc. 
 
 X. 6. A quarry in lozenge of four designs, apparently all 
 of the seventeenth century, and much inferior to the original 
 work. 
 
 (l) A woman nursing an infant swaddled with bands; 
 (2) an elephant ; (3) tulip, as in VI. 5 ; (4) a curious and 
 amusing design from George Withers's Emblems, published 
 1636. G. Withers was a Guildford man, a stout Puritan,
 
 xii THE PAINTED GLASS 
 
 and a Commissioner under the Commonwealth. 
 Emblems had a great success. 
 
 " A fool sent forth to fetch the goslings home, 
 When they unto the river's bank were come, 
 (Through which their passage lay) conceived a feare 
 His dame's best brood might have been drown'd there, 
 Which to avoyd he thus do show his wit 
 And his good nature in preventing it, 
 He underneath his girdle thrusts their heads, 
 And the coxcomb through the water wades. 
 Here learne that, when a fool his help intends, 
 It rather does a mischief than befriends." 
 
 241 
 
 His
 
 INDEX 
 
 Agriculture, works on, 121-124 
 
 at Sutton Place, 122, 130 
 
 Sir R. Weston on, 122-127 
 Anne of Cleves, 74, 103 
 Aragon, Catherine of, 4, 1 5 1 , 1 8 3 , 2 2 3 
 Architecture, debased, 145 
 
 domestic, 153, 168 
 
 Gothic, 155-158 
 
 Jacobean, 160, 168 
 
 Palladian, 160 
 
 Renascence, 157, 161 
 Arms of Arden, 211 
 
 Arundel, 121, 230 
 
 Babington, 237 
 
 Barrow, 194 
 
 Beauchamp, 207 
 
 Belknap, 124 
 
 Bellasis, 229 
 
 Berkeley, 239 
 
 Berners, 208 
 
 Botreaux, 219 
 
 Bourchier, 208, 218 
 
 Braose, 226 
 
 Bray, 211, 222 
 
 Bynt worth, 236 
 
 Came 11, 232 
 
 Carpenters' Company, 237 
 
 Carr, 226 
 
 Catherine of Aragon, 223 
 
 Cecil, 209 
 
 Coke, 227 
 
 Constable, 192 
 
 Copley, 135, 183, 191, 192, 193, 
 215, 220, 223, 231 
 
 Culcheth, 204 
 
 De Brotherton, 216, 240 
 
 Dennys of Dyrham, 80, 229, 239 
 
 De Roos, 210 
 
 Dethick, 237 
 
 Dister, 148, 191 
 
 Dunston, 205 
 
 Engaine, 193, 220 
 
 Fenwick, 109 
 
 Fitzalan, 231 
 
 Freke, 211 
 
 Fromonde, 205 
 
 Gage, 191 
 
 Gardiner, 225 
 
 Graham, 192 
 
 Hambrough Merchants, 233 
 
 Harper, 191 
 
 Hastings, 215, 219 
 
 Holcroft, 204 
 
 Hoo, 193, 215, 220 
 
 Howard, 215 
 
 Howson, 212 
 
 Hussey, 207 
 
 Jennings, 204, 207 
 
 Kynaston, 226 
 
 Lane, 206 
 
 Lascelles, 108 
 
 Lawson, 191 
 
 Luttrell, 193, 231 
 
 Malmayns, 206 
 
 Maltravers, 231 
 
 Manners, 209 
 
 Mercers' Company, 239 
 
 Merchant Taylors, 238 
 
 Mohun, 214 
 
 Moleyns, 219
 
 244 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 
 Montalt, 214 
 
 Moresby, 109 
 
 Mowbray, 217 
 
 Neale, 212 
 
 Nevill, 191, 210 
 
 Nicholson, 205 
 
 Onslow, 208, 212, 226 
 
 Paulet, 234 
 
 Philip II., 230 
 
 Pickering, 95, 108 
 
 Pigott, 236 
 
 Pile, 207 
 
 Pillett, 227 
 
 Pinchyon, 194 
 
 Pound, 2ii 
 
 Ratcliffe, 212 
 
 Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 228 
 
 Rogers of Brianston, 8 1 
 
 Saint Leger, 193 
 
 Salvin, 148, 192 
 
 Scotland, 193 
 
 Shelley, 193, 223 
 
 Shirley, 226 
 
 Stanley, 214, 220 
 
 St. Omer, 220, 231 
 
 Strange, 214, 220 
 
 Strangeways, 212 
 
 Stretley, 206 
 
 Tilney, 218 
 
 Waldegrave, 192 
 
 Wales, 224 
 
 Warneford, 212, 219 
 
 Warren, 215, 216 
 
 Waterton, 193, 215, 222 
 
 Webbe, 194 
 
 Welles, 193, 215, 222 
 
 Weston, 49, 52, 55, 88, 143, 191, 
 192, 220, 232 
 
 White, Bishop, 205 
 
 Wickingham, 193 
 
 Widville, 214, 231 
 
 Winchester, Bishop of, 225 
 
 Woolfe, 143, 194 
 
 Wright, 192 
 Arundel, Countess of, 121 
 
 Earl of, 121, 230 
 Arundell, Dorothy, n, 109-114 
 Portrait of, n, 113, 195 
 Lady, n, no 
 Lord, 109 
 Sir Thomas, n, 74, no 
 
 Aubrey, John, 170, 181 
 Hist, of Surrey, 170, 181 
 
 Baker, Sir John, 67, 76 
 Basset, family of, 26, 152 
 Beaufort, family of, 31-34 
 
 Margaret, 32-34, 200 
 Bell, the chapel, 151 
 Bigod, Earl Marshal, 26, 27 
 Boleyn, Anne, 65, 66, 70, 72, 93 
 
 coronation of, 94 
 
 execution of, 96-103 
 
 Sir Thomas, Earl of Wiltshire, 53, 
 103 
 
 Lord Rochford, 70, 103 
 Boorde, Andrew, Dyetorie, 165 
 Boston, Lincolnshire, 44, 83 
 Bosworth, battle of, 19, 33, 45 
 Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 58 
 Bray, Sir Reginald, 222 
 Brianston, Rogers of, 80 
 Browne, 49, 93 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 56, 57 
 Buckler, C. A., xvi., 190, 240 
 Building, of Henry VIII, 1-5, 151- 
 164 
 
 of Sutton Place, 1-5, 151-168 
 Brussels, tapestries, 189, 190 
 Bryan, Sir Francis, 93 
 
 Calais, 60-63, IO ^ 
 
 Canals, introduced at Sutton, 13, 16, 
 
 128 
 
 Carew, Sir N., 73, 93 
 Carrack, the Great, 88 
 Catherine of Aragon, 4, 53, 63, 65, 
 
 151, 183, 223 
 
 Cavendish, Life ofWohey, 105 
 Charles I., 131 
 Charles II., 224 
 Charles V., Emperor, 36 
 Chute, Chaloner, 60, 69 
 Civil Wars, 128, 131 
 Clandon, 13, 16, 68, 121, 137, 180 
 Clerkenwell, History of, 87 
 Clover, introduced at Sutton, 122, 
 
 130 
 Copley, arms of, 135, 178, 183, 223, 
 
 2 ?' 
 family of, 135 
 
 John, 137
 
 INDEX 
 
 245 
 
 Mary, 116, 135, 138 
 
 Sir Roger, 215 
 
 Sir Thomas, 13, 116, 135, 192, 
 193,215 
 
 William, 137, 196 
 Crapelet, Lettres de Henry VIII., 103 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 133, 139 
 
 Sir Richard, 40 
 
 Thomas, 41, 65, 66, 71, 96 
 
 executed, 74 
 Cross, moline, 178 
 
 of St. John, 8 1 
 
 Darwin, C., on Worms, 172 
 Daunay, Sir W., 84 
 
 family of, 43, 84 
 Dennys, Lady, 77, 80, 239 
 
 Sir Walter, 74, 239 
 Derby, Earls of, 213-221 
 Despenser, Hugh, 27 
 Dingley, Sir Thomas, 86 
 Dinteville, ambassador of Francis I., 
 
 99. *5 
 
 Dixon, Mr. Hepworth, 104 
 Domesday Survey, 16, 22, 23 
 
 Edward I., 28 
 
 Edward II., 26 
 
 Edward III., 28 
 
 Edward IV., 32 
 
 Edward VI., 73, 108 
 
 Edward, St., Confessor, ?. i, 22, 149, 
 
 152, 204 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 11,70, 108, 113, 
 
 '95 
 Embassy to France, 50 
 
 to Scotland, 46 
 
 to Spain, 46 
 Escutcheons, armorial, 192-194 
 
 Ferdinand, King of Spain, 48, 183 
 Field of the Cloth of Gold, 5, 55, 
 
 156 
 
 Fitzwilliam, Sir W., 70, 76 
 Flower, Bernard, 200, 206, 226 
 France, 50, 90 
 
 art in, i, 5, 6, 156 
 Francis I. of France, 5, 50, 51, 55, 
 
 86,90 
 
 Francis, the name, 90 
 Froude, Mr., 105 
 
 Gage, Viscount, 139 
 
 Elizabeth, 139 
 Gardiner, Bishop, 66, 226 
 Gatton, manor of, 14, 134, 136 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 166 
 George III. at Sutton, 145 
 Glass, painted, 190, 191 
 Gresham, Sir W., 78 
 Grey, family of, n, in, 113 
 Guernsey, island of, 45, 47 
 
 governorship of, 73 
 Guildford, i, 3, 14, 16, 18, 73, 130 
 
 Hall at Sutton, 182-187 
 
 Hampton Court, i, 85, 157, 185, 
 190 
 
 Harrison, Frederick, 149, 182, 188 
 Sidney, 149, 171, 176, 189 
 William, on England, 163 
 
 Hartlib, Samuel, 123 
 
 Harvell, Edmund, 72 
 
 Harvey, William, at Sutton, 121 
 
 Hayward, C. F., on Layer Marney, 
 
 !57, iS9 I 6 4 
 Henry I., 22 
 Henry II., 24 
 
 Henry VII., 33, 39, 44, 233 
 Henry VIII., i-io, 35, 39, 45, 156, 
 
 195, 223 
 
 Herselin of Brussels, 189 
 Holbein in England, 157 
 Holland, family of, 29, 30 
 Howard, family of, 12, 109, 113, 
 216 
 
 Lord Edmund, 109 
 
 Lord, of Effingham, 114, 115 
 Husee, J., letter of, 101 
 Hussey, portraits by, 143, 197 
 
 Inventory at Sutton, 60, 78, 185 
 
 at the Vyne, 60 
 Italian art, 2, 6, 157 
 
 Joan of Kent, 29 
 John, King, 26 
 
 Kent, Earls of, 29-31 
 
 Joan of, 29 
 Kingston, Sir W., 77, 97 
 
 Lady, wife of, 77, 97 
 Knyvett, Sir Henry, 93, 103
 
 246 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 
 Law, Ernest, on Hampton Court, 
 
 '57 
 
 Layer Marney Towers, 156 
 
 Leander, Father, 197 
 
 Lepton, Rev. Chr., 233 
 
 Letters 
 
 Cromwell to Weston, 71 
 E. Harvell to T. Star key, 72 
 J. Husee to Lord Lisle, 101 
 Kingston to Cromwell, 97 
 Lord Sandys to Lord Lisle, 69 
 of Gontier to Chabot, 86 
 of Sir Henry Weston, 115 
 Sir Francis to his family, 99 
 Sir J. Russell to Lord Lisle, 69 
 Sir R. Weston to Cromwell, 68 
 Sir R. Weston to Wolsey, 61, 63 
 Sir T. Copley to Weston, 115 
 Sir W. Weston to Cromwell, 72, 
 
 73 
 
 to Sir Henry Weston, 115 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 156 
 Lisle, Lord, 69 
 Locks, canal, 13, 16, 127 
 Loseley, 77, 78, 115 
 Loseley, MSS. at, 114 
 Lytton of Knebworth, 54 
 
 Machyn's Diary, 114 
 
 Maiano, G., 157 
 
 Malet, Robert, 19, 22-25 
 
 William, 24 
 
 Malta, Knights of, 82-88 
 Manor Field, the, 22, 152 
 Manor of Clandon, 13, 16, 36, 68, 
 121, 180 
 
 of Gatton, 14, 134, 136 
 
 of Hampton Court, 85 
 
 of Loseley, 57 
 
 of Sutton, 7, 18-38, 57, 152 
 Margaret Beaufort, 19, 32, 200 
 Marney, Lord, 163 
 Mar veil, Andrew, 101 
 Mary, Princess, 50, 80 
 Mary, Queen, 195 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 115 
 Mary Tudor, Queen of France, 49, 
 
 210 
 
 Merrow, grant of, 36 
 Monasteries, dissolution of, 74, 75, 
 87 
 
 More, Sir Christopher, 8, 77 
 
 Sir William, 115 
 Morette, French ambassador, 85 
 Mortimer, Roger, 28 
 
 Nevill, William, of Holt, 138 
 
 Melior, 138 
 Noreys, H., 96, 97 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 97, 103, 1 10, 213, 
 214, 216 
 
 Onslow, Earl of, 121 
 family of, 2 1 1, 227 
 Sir Richard, 14, 121, 180 
 
 Orlay, Bernard von, 190 
 
 Pace, Richard, 56 
 
 Page, Sir Richard, 93 
 
 Painted glass at Sutton, 15, 38, 199- 
 
 241 
 
 Patch, the King's fool, 92 
 Paulet, W., Marquis of Winchester, 
 
 234 
 
 Pavia, battle of, 60 
 Pedigree of Weston, 42, 134 
 Penruddock, Colonel, 139 
 Pickering, Anne, 67, 94 
 
 family of, 94 
 
 Sir Christopher, 94 
 Pitson, James, 128 
 Portland, Weston, Earl of, 128 
 Portraits at Sutton Place, 15, 195 
 
 Quadrangle, the, 171-181 
 Quarries, 229 
 
 Raes, Jean, of Brussels, 1 89 
 Reformation, the, 65-75 
 Renascence in Europe, 1-8, 155, 159 
 Rhodes, defence of, 59, 85 
 
 knights of, 82-88 
 Richard I., 25 
 Richard II., 30 
 Richard III., 19, 32, 207, 228 
 Richmond, Countess of, 31-33, 200 
 Roberts, Sir Nicholas, 59 
 Rochford, Lord, 70 
 Rogers, Lady, 78, 80 
 
 family of, 80 
 
 Sir John, 80 
 Rose, an emblem, 204, 212, 225, 228
 
 INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Roses, Wars of, 32, 200 
 Russell, Sir John, 8, 69, 70, 77, 93 
 John, R.A., 197 
 
 Saint John, Knights of, 43-45, 48, 
 
 59, 82-88 
 Salvin, F. H., 36, 37, 146-149, 189, 
 
 192 
 Sands, family of, 47, 79 
 
 Anne, 47, 79 
 Sandys, Lord, 60, 69 
 Seymour, Jane, badge of, 234 
 
 death of, 74 
 
 marriage of, 72 
 Smeaton, Mark, 92, 96 
 Speering, Fra^ois, 189 
 Star Chamber, 54 
 Step gables, 158 
 Stephen, King, 19, 25 
 Stevenson, J. J., on architecture, 158, 
 
 168 
 Suffolk, Brandon, Duke of, 58, no 
 
 Henry, Duke of, no 
 Sutton, manor of, I, 2, 18-38 
 
 Alexander Pope at, 112 
 
 always Catholic, 21 
 
 Cromwell at, 6, 73 
 
 Elizabeth at, n, 37, 114 
 
 furniture and stock at, 79 
 
 George III. at, 145 
 
 grant of, 7, 35, 57 
 
 Henry VII. at, 34 
 
 Henry VIII. at, 37, 38, 68, 70 
 
 inventory at, 78, 169 
 
 portraits at, 195 
 
 William Harvey at, 121 
 
 Wolsey at, 6, 35, 36 
 Sutton Place, 58, 152 
 
 canals and locks introduced at, 13, 
 16, 121, 127 
 
 fire at, 1 14 
 
 grasses introduced at, 122 
 
 turnips introduced at, 122 
 
 Tapestries, 188-190 
 Terra-cotta, 156-164 
 
 fireplaces, 187 
 Trevisano in England, 157 
 Turkopolier, office of, 61, 84 
 Turnips introduced at Sutton, 122 
 Villiers, de Lisle-Adam, 59, 85 
 
 Vine Cottage, 22, 152 
 
 Vine, The, Hampshire, 60, 69 
 
 Waldegrave, Lady Horatia, 147 
 Walls of Sutton Place, 178 
 Wards, Court of, 54, 74 
 Warren, William of, 25 
 Webbe, John, 194 
 Webbe-Weston, J., 144 
 
 arms of, 144, 191 
 
 family of, 144-150, 192 
 
 J. J., 147, 192 
 
 T. M., 148, 192 
 Wenesi, 22 
 Westminster Abbey, 33, 201, 206, 
 
 225 
 Weston, Sir R. (i), 6-10, 39-81 
 
 death of, 76 
 
 his arms, 232 
 
 his executors, 8, 70, 76 
 
 his will, 77-79 
 
 letters by, 61, 63, 68 
 
 surrenders treasurership, 76 
 Weston, Lady Anne, 47, 79 
 Weston, Sir F., 8-10, 67, 89-106 
 
 execution of, 101 
 
 letter of, 99 
 
 will of, 100 
 Weston, Sir H., n, 12, 107-119 
 
 his will, 118 
 
 letters of, 115 
 Weston, Sir R. (2), 120 
 
 Sir R. (3), 13, 16, 120-133 
 
 Richard, 138 
 
 Katherine, 80 
 
 Margaret, 80, 229, 240 
 Weston family, 41-44, 83 
 
 arms of, 49, 52, 55, 232, 240 
 Weston, Earl of Portland, 14, 131 
 
 John (i), 134 
 
 John (2), 138 
 
 Melior Mary, 141-144, 195 
 
 Sir John, 83 
 
 Sir William, 62, 75, 82-88 
 Wey, the river, 10, 14, 16, 128 
 Will of Sir R. Weston, 77 
 
 of Sir F. Weston, 100 
 
 of Sir H. Weston, 118 
 
 of Melior Mary Weston, 144 
 William, Conqueror, 22-25 
 Wilson, Mr. J., 122
 
 248 ANNALS OF AN OLD MANOR-HOUSE 
 
 Windows, see Painted Glass 
 Wingfield, Sir R., 53, 77 
 Winston, Charles, 199 
 Withers, George, 240 
 Woking, 34, 37, 200 
 Wolffe, family of, 142, 143 
 William, 142, 1^6 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 6, 35, 37, 41, 
 
 66 
 
 Woodstock, Edmund of, 28 
 Worplesdon, 130 
 
 Zucchero, Federigo, portrait by, 113, 
 195 
 
 THE END 
 
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