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THE

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VOL. XCIII. PART I.

Embellished with Views of the GATEWAY of LULLINGSTONE CASTLE, Kent; and the FREE SCHOOL at STAMFORD:

I

Also with the Representation of an ANCIENT PAINTING in ENFIELD CHURCH.

Mr. URBAN,

Bromley, Kent, March 1, 1820. ATTEMPTED in my last communication to afford some account of the Antiquities at Otford *; the subject of the present leads me along the banks of the Darent about four miles to the northward of the village abovementioned, to the antient demesne of Lullingstone.

This consists of a park, nearly four. miles in circumference, lying on the left bank of the Darent, and rising to a bold éminence towards the Southwest, crowned with finely-clustered woods, and interspersed with venerable insulated trees of beech, oak, or ash. Five hundred head of deer by their placid browsings, or sudden and cautious flight, enliven the upland scene of Lullingstone park.

Close to the seat of the present possessor, Sir Thomas Dyke, now styled Lullingstone Castle, the river is received into a capacious basin, and, forming in its course a pretty fall of a few feet, glides on, at the back of the mansion, towards its mouth. From the Julling murmur of this stream, rippling over the pebbles, the place is said to have derived its appellation. This "stille sound" has not escaped the notice of Spenser in his beautiful description of the house of Morpheus:

to lulle him in his slumber soft a trickling streame

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The front of the existing house at Lullingstone appears to have been erected as late as the reign of Queen Anne. It is, however, approached on the eastern side by the noble portal of brick (represented in the Plate), and erected by Sir John

See vol. xc. i. p. 489. GENT. MAG. Suppl. XCIII. PART I.

A

Peche or Pechyt. This gateway is flanked by two polygonal towers; an entablature in the centre exhibits the lion double queued, and the motto of the Peches, "Prest à faire." To the left of this entrance, on the lawn, and forming a right angle with the mansion, stands the antient little church.

The beautiful site of Lullingstone was not, it appears, overlooked in Roman times. Near the North-eastern boundary of the park a tesselated pave

ment was discovered in the course of the last century, and several coins and other relics of Roman occupation were ploughed up. It may be observed that a lane leads from Lullingstone through Chelsfield, and points directly on the fortifications commonly called Cæsar's Camp at Keston, the antiquities of which I have elsewhere endeavoured to describe t.

Lullingstone was formerly divided into two distinct parishes and estates. Their population having greatly declined, in the year 1412 the church of Lullingstane on the northern side was abandoned, the parishes united §, and the service of the Deity performed in that of Lullingstone. Thorpe describes much Roman brick as visible in the ruins of the church of Lullingstane; it had been worked into the walls when the remains of Roman buildings were plentiful in the neighbourhod. It appears from Domesday. that the two estates at Lullingstone were held of Odo Bishop of Bayeux, by the families of Ross and Peyforer.

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Account of Lullingstone Church, Kent.

"Goisfrid de Rosten (de ep'o) Lolinge stone: p. uno sol. se def'd, &c.

"Osb'nus Pastforeire ten' in Lolingestone dimid' sol. de ep'o. &c."

Hence the estates were probably distinguished by the titles of Lolingestone Rosse and Lolingstone Peyforer. Anketellus Rosse held lands at Lullingstone in the 20th of William the Conqueror; his grandson William de Rosse held two knight's fees in Lullingstone in the 1st of King John. Alexander de Rosse his son was one of the Recognitores Magna Assise at the end of that King's reign. Lora de Rosse, sole daughter of William de Rosse, afterwards marrying William de Peyforer, the estates were probably united, and the whole called by the name of Lullingstone Peyforer. William de Peyforer sold his demesne of Lullingstone to Gregory de Rokesly, "Maior of London, Master of the King's Mintes, and therefore a goldsmith, I think," says Stow in his "Summarie."

With John the son of this Gregory de Rokesley, the succession of the monuments of the Lords of Lullingstone now remaining in the church begins, and few places can present a chain so little interrupted. I shall therefore leave to professed topographers the description of the carved screen, that separates the chancel from the nave, executed in the 15th century; with that of the painted glass, of which two fragments representing bishops, in the little chapel North of the chancel, are of the 13th century; and shall confine myself to a chronological detail of the sepulchral monuments and their inscriptions, which I faithfully copied in the summer of 1819*. On a brass:

"Hic jacet dn's John's de Rokesle qnda' do' de Lullyngston q' obiit primo die mensis septembr' a. d'i m. tricentesimo lvt cuj'. a'i'e p'piciet' de' am'."

A shield displays the arms of Rokesley, a cross with a rook in the dexter

canton.-John de Rokesle was Rector of Chelsfield.

This quondam Lord of Lullingston, as he is styled in the inscription, had in the 33d year of Edward III. sold his estate to Sir John Peche, whose grandson William died and was buried at Lullingston: his brass is the next in my note book. It is engraven with

The orthography and abbreviations are exactly followed.

Thorpe says 1361.

† Excu

his figure in armour, and the following legend

:

"Enea Willi' Peche hec est mortis imago, Marmore suppos'ti cui sua facta manent. Olim miles erat, non prosunt militis arma;

Mors jubet, et morti cuncta creata favent. Qui legis hoc scriptum memor esto qd morieris Pro illo funde preces hasque sequaces

habes.

Qo die mensis Aprilis anno dm' 1487."

The monument of Sir John, son of Sir William Peche, is very sumptuous. It consists of his effigy in armour, beautifully sculptured in free stone; on his surcoat is the lion double queued, and the border is enriched with the motto Prest à faire, and a running device of peaches, in allusion to his name. This monument, when I visited the church in company with Mr. Charles Stothard, was faithfully copied by him for his series of "The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain,"—a work in which History and ancient Costume are illustrated by an elegant and accurate pencil, and which emulates in its decorations the lustre of the old illuminated MSS.

John Peche was Sheriff of Kent in the 10th of Henry VII. He deterred Perkin Warbeck from landing at Deal, and afterwards was greatly instrumental in preventing the Cornish insurgents, under James Touchet Lord Audley, from penetrating into the county. He was created a Knight Banneret, and in the subsequent reign appointed Lord Deputy of Calais. The monument of Sir John Peche was erected in his lifetime,- a very customary thing in those days: it bears the inscription" Peche me fieri fecit," and is evidently by the same hand as the sculptured entablature over the gateway. The Peches bore for their arms, Azure, a lion rampant Ermine à la queue fourchée, crowned Or. He founded the almshouses at Lullingstone, and gave 5001. to other pious uses, to be performed by the Grocer's Company, of which

he was free.

Sir John Peche dying without issue, his sister Elizabeth became his heir, and Lullingstone passed by her marriage with John Hart, Esq. into the possession of the family of that name. The next monument is that of Sir Percival Hart and his lady, representing them in a bad style of sculpture, and bearing the following inscription, the quaint diction of which is in the true spirit of the epitaph poetry of the time: "Percivall

PART 1.]

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1

Account of Lullingstone Church, Kent.

"Percivall Hart, goods knight, lieth here, that heir to Peche was,
Who did his daies in service of four worthy princes pass,

Of which the first him knighthode gave, but all him favourde muche,

And though the change of reignes and sway of state sometimes were suche,
As serch'd all sorts, his name in question never came nor went.

His youth in wars abrode, his age in peace at home he spent,

Chief Steward and Knight-harbinger in Court his places were,

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And those two rowmes in those four raignes with credit great he bare.

In Lord Braies blood he matched, where through twelve children he obtain'd,
Which as their states and ages cravde he orderlie uptrain'd.

Himself, his house, and house-hold train, his diet, and his port,
With what to worship else might tend, he usde in such good sort,
As to his praise just proofe procured whereas he had to deal,
A friend to all, a foe to none, fast to his commonweal,

Here four score years and four with men he lived on earth to die,
And dead, with saints in heaven now lives, and shall eternallie.
Obiit vicesimo primo die Maii, anno 1581."

Sir Percivall must indeed have possessed some remarkably respectable or pliant qualities which enabled him to retain his office with perfect approbation in the succeeding reigns of Henry VIII. Edward VI. Mary, and Eliza

beth.

On an altar tomb in the North chapel are the effigies of a knight and his lady, sculptured in a much superior style to the monument of Sir Percival. The inscription is as follows:

Here lieth Sir George Hart, Knight, second sone of Sir Percivall Hart, Knight, who spent his youth in travel into forayne partes, for his better inabling to doe his prince and country service, which he accordingly performed in his elder yeares towards them both to his great reputation. [Queen Elizabeth of famous memorie (that ever carried a sparing hand in bestowing of honor), gave him the order of knighthode. He married Elizabeth Bowes, the daughter of John Bowes, of Elford, in Staffordshire, Esquier, descended of that auncient family of the Bowses of Yorkshire, by whom he had five children, namely Percivall, Robert, and George, sonnes, and Frances and Elizabeth, daughters. He lived vertuously the term of 55 years, and died religiously the 16th day of July, 1587."

On a blue slab:

"Here lies the body of William Hart, Esq. eldest sonn of Sir Percivall Hart, who died on the one and thirty of March, 1671, in the 77th year of his age."

Comparing the dates given on the inscriptions, this could not be a son of Sir Percivall Hart first commemorated, and who died in 1581. He might be a grandson.

Bearings of the Harts: Azure and Gules per chevron, three harts trippant Or. Of the Bowes: Ermine, three bows proper.

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The next monument is formed by a modern Gothic screen, ornamented with various escutcheons of the alliances of the Harts. The beautifying of which the inscription boasts, has been the greatest injury to the church, and has destroyed, by the anomalies of Grecian and undefinable architecture, the purity of its Gothic character.

"In memory of Percyvall Hart, Esq. the munificent repairer and beautifier of this church, himself a true lover of the Church of England, and Representative of this county in the two last Parliaments of her most pious Majesty Queen Ann. During which time the church and clergy received greater tokens of royal bounty than from the Reformation to her time, or since to this day. Mr. Hart's steady attachment to the old English Constitution disqualified him from sitting any more in Parliament, abhorring all venality, and scorning as much to buy the people's voices as to sell his own, conscious of having always preferred the interest of Great Britain to that of any foreign state. He passed the remainder of his life in hospitable retirement, with as much tranquillity as possible under the declension both of his own health and that of his native country, which when he could not serve, he could not but deplore. He married Sarah, youngest daughter of Edward Dixon, Esq. of Tonbridge, by whom he had one daughter, Ann, married to Sir Thomas Dyke, Baronet, of Horeham, in Sussex; he died on the 27 day of October in the year 1738, aged 70. Mrs. Hart died on the 6th day of November, 1720, aged 57. The curious inspector of these monuments will see a short account of an auncient family for more than four centuries, contented with a moderate estate, not wasted by luxury nor increased by avarice. May their posterity, emulating their virtues, long enjoy their possessions. Percyvall Hart, Esq. was baptized 7 May, 1666; buried Nov. 6, 1738.

"Rowme is frequently used by the writers of the 16th century for office.

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Lullingstone Church.Stamford Free School.

Mrs. Sarah Hart, wife of Percyvall Hart,
Esq. was buried Nov. 14, 1720."

Lullingstone now descended for the third time by the female line to a new family, by the marriage of Ann Hart to Sir Thomas Dyke, who first conferred on the present seat at Lullingstone the title of a castle. His wife and himself are at once commemorated in the following epitaph :

"Sacred to the memory of Dame Ann Dyke, who died November 24, 1763, aged 71, a lady of exemplary piety and virtue. In religion most sound and sincere; in her love and friendship steady and constant; only child of Percivall Hart, of this place, Esquire. She was twice married; first, to John Bluet, of Holcombe Court, in the county of Devon, Esq. and afterwards to Sir Thomas Dyke, of Horeham, in the county of Sussex, Bart. to whose memory she by her will ordered this

monument to be erected. Mr. Bluet was a worthy descendant of a very ancient family, a man of great endowments and sound learning, which he manifested to the world by some excellent writings. He departed this life Dec. 17, 1728, aged 29, and was buried near this place. Sir Thomas Dyke was a truly honest Englishman; in his domestic concerns discreet and frugal; in all acts of hospitality magnificent and noble ;

ever

zealous to maintain and defend the true

principles of religion, liberty, and loyalty He departed this life the 18 of Aug. 1756, in the 58 year of his age. He lies buried in this chancel."

Arms of Dyke are, Or, three cinquefoils Sable.

Thus the Lullingstone monuments have brought this estate through various possessors down to Sir JohnDixon Dyke, the son of the above Sir Thomas, and from him it has descended to his only son, Sir Thomas Dyke, Sheriff for Kent in 1820, and colonel of the West Kent Militia. Before I quit the subject of Lullingstone church, I cannot but observe the extreme neat ness which is every where seen in it, and I as worthy of general imitation; shall record one more epitaph which it contains for the artless simplicity of the request therein expressed :

Of your charite pray for the soule of M'res Alice Baldwyn, late gentilwoman to the ladie Marey princes of England, which Alice decessid the 10th day of July, anno 1533. On hir soule Jhu' have mercy. a."

In having thus sketched the history of Lullingstone, and first given a complete account of the monumental inscriptions of its possessors, I trust I have furnished some useful matter to

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future Kentish topographers, and that I have not wearied the patience of your readers. Their favourable reception of this account, may prompt to future perambulations in my neighA. J. K.

bourhood.

Mr. URBAN, Bainton, April 2, 1815. HAVE sent you a drawing of the Free School in Stamford, which is part of the parish church of St. Paul. (See the Plate, p. 577.)

"William Ratcliffe, Esq. having been Alderman of Stamford four times, in the year 1530 gave all his messuages, lands, and tenements in Stamford, for the perpetual maintenance of a Free Grammar School in that town, which land as it stands for the present improved (A. D. 1646) yields to the head schoolmaster and usher 301. per ann. or thereabouts: for the augmentation of which stipend Wm. Ceeil, late Lord Burleigh, gave (or pretended to give) 41. per ann. to the said school for ever, issuing out of a depopulated town near Stamford, called Pickworth. But in regard the heirs of the said Lord Burleigh (when they let the last leases of the said manor of Pickworth, for the better advancement of the fines) pretended to the tenants that they should hold their farms tithe-free, but no sooner were their leases made, sealed, and delivered, when as the said heir presented a chaplain of his own to the parsonage thereof, the same having neither town nor church standing, only the ruins of both appearing; so that the parson making good the title and tithes from the tenants, they have ever since refused to pay the said 47. per ann. to the use of the said school." See Butcher's Survey of Stamford, p.62.

Mr. Truesdale gave the interest of 50l. to free-born scholars belonging to the Free School, going directly from thence to the University. The above sum is vested in the hands of the Cor

poration, for which they pay at the rate of 5 per cent. interest.

In the South wall of the Court yard of the house in which the master of the School resides, over the door-way, is a stone with the following inscription":

"Donum

M': Tho': Ballot

Stamfordiæ
Gymnasi.
Archis.
An'o D'ni
1609."

PART 1.]

Stamford Free School.-Singular Accident.

- This house was rebuilt in the year 1724, by subscription from some neighbouring gentlemen, and the Corporation stock. It is probable that the above inscribed stone was fixed in the front of the house before it was rebuilt, and that Mr. Ballot gave the house to the school.

On the verge of an arch in the North wall, behind the wainscot of the seats in the Free School, is this inscription: "Hic jacet Eustachius Malherbe Burgensis Staunvordie." In a deed of the 20th of Edw. II. in which the situation of some lands in Stamford field is described, it is said that, "Robert le Flemyng of Staunford, gave to John de Christemnes, burgess of Staunford, two acres of arable land lying in Staunford fields, near the mill that was Eustace Malherbe's, abutting on the land of the Priory of St. Leonard East." This was probably the mill now called Hood's mill.

In the 10th year of James I. Thomas Earl of Exeter gave a yearly rent of 1087. to the Master, &c. of Clare Hall, Cambridge, on condition that he and his heirs should have the nomination of three Fellows and eight Scholars to

the said College, and when any of the eight Scholarships became void, it was agreed that preference should be given to such youths of the said University

as had been educated in the Free School in Stamford. In the indenture it was agreed that the three Fellows and six of the Scholars should be called the Earl of Exeter's Fellows and Scholars; and the other two the Countess of Exeter's Scholars.

We learn from Peck's "Desiderata Curiosa," that Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England to Queen Elizabeth, received a portion of his elementary education at Stamford School; an honour truly great to any school, to have had the education of a man, if equalled, we may venture to affirm, not surpassed in wisdom, learning, and piety, by any of his own, or any other age. At the first Parliament holden in the beginning of the Queen's reign, many difficulties arose in reforming and altering religion, a work of great moment, and which by his great skill, temperance, and learning was effected. After this he laboured for the wealth of the state; for by his advice the coin was brought to the standard of fineness now current in England; for he held a position

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(which undoubtedly is true), that that realm cannot be rich whose coin is poor or base.

From Stamford School the Lord Trea-' surer probably went to St. John's College, Cambridge; for the above author says that "His Lordship being in his infancie so pregnant in wit, and so desirous and apt to learne, as in expectation foretold his great fortune, was virtuouslie brought up and taught at school, (first) at Grantham, and (then) at Stamford, both in the countie of Lincoln. And at the age of fourteene yeres in May, 27 Hen. VIII. (1535) he went to Cambridge, where he was a Student in St. John's College."

Dr. Zachary Brooke and Dr. John Chevallier were educated at Stamford School: the former commenced his residence in St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1734, and was afterwards Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in that University. The latter left Stamford for St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1747; and was afterwards Master of that Society. R. H. * ·

Mr. URBAN,

June 3.

F the following story, which is literally copied from Harl. MSS. 1233, f. 2, be worthy a place in your pages, is much at your service. I am not aware if it be taken from any printed

it

work.

X.

"A miraculous accident happened in Spinola campe, wherein the power and providence of God declared themselves. There was in

the enemie's quarters about Mount Naybergh, where the troops of Don Corduba lay, from the mount to fetch water, which poore a certain souldier's wife, which went downe woman being great with child, and its sup posed neere her time of child-birth, was shott off about the middle of her body with

a cannon bullett. Some that were neere when the blow was given, came to behold the particulars of this occurrence, where they found one halfe of the woman upon the ground, and the other halfe upon the brinke of the water. The matrix or wombe was a parcell of that part which lay in the water, wherein the child, unborne as it was, did moove and struggle, which thing being out of the wombe; drawing it out of the perceived by these beholders, they tooke it flood like another Moyses, and brought it to Antwerpe, where it was baptized, and

*This article was sent to us, in 1815, by our late valuable Correspondent Robert Henson, Esq. who died at Dieppe, Sept. 7, 1817.

called

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