Fotheringhay and Mary, Queen of Scots ... With illustrations ... and ... portraits of Mary ... now first published

Front matter

From an original contemporary portrait in the possession of the Author. FOTHERINGHAY AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS BEING A. ACCOUNT, HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE, OF FOTHERINGHAY CASTLE, THE \aAST PRISON OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, AND THE SCENE OF HER TRIAL AND EXECUTION. By CUTHBERT B E DE : With Illustrations by the Author, And an original contemporary portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, now first published. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co. OUNDLE : ALFRED KING. 1886. tc Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore ; And to the throng how touchingly she bowed That hailed her landing on the Cumbrian shore ; Bright as a Star (that, from a heavy cloud Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts, When a soft summer gale at evening parts The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud) She smiled : but Time, the old Saturnian Seer, Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand, With step prelusive to a long array Of woes and degradations hand in hand — Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringhay.' Wordsworth's Sonnet lo " Mary, Queen of Scots.

WITH A GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A LITERARY AND ARTISTIC FRIENDSHIP, EXTENDING OVER THIRTY-FIVE YEARS, AND MUCH KIND HOSPITALITY, I SUBSCRIBE THIS BOOK in JOHN MOYER HEATHCOTE, Esq., OF CONINGTON CASTLE, HUNTINGDONSHIRE, A BUILDING SO INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH FOTHERINGHAY AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Lentoti Vicarage, Grantham, November, rSSj. PRE FA CE. The chief portion of the contents of this book originally appeared in three numbers of " The Leisure Hour," for November, 1865, illustrated with three views, drawn on the wood, by myself, from my own sketches taken in that year. After an interval of twenty years, Mr. Alfred King, of Oundle, thought that a re-publication of my account of Fotheringhay would be of interest to the many visitors to that historical spot; and my friend, Dr. Macaulay, Editor of " The Leisure Hour," kindly gave me permission to use both the letterpress and illustrations that had appeared in his Magazine.

I have, hcnvever, very carefully revised and corrected what I then wrote, and have made vety co?isiderable additions, in order to make the information as complete and accurate as I was able. Fresh illustrations have also been added from my own sketches. Further, I have supplemented the descriptive details, by a concise history of the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, derived from the best authorities. CUTHBERT BEDE. CONTENTS

Chapter I

page Fotheringhay a troubled history. — Its foundation. — Sad Chatillon.— Edward Duke of York.— Proud Cis.— King Edward the Fourth.— Richard the Third.— Catharine of Arragon.— Mary, Queen of Scots.— Queen Elizabeth - - - - 7

Chapter II

Queen Elizabeth's visit to Fotheringhay. — James the First and his supposed "filial justice." — A vulgar error. — The Castle standing in 1625. — The survey of it. — The curse of King Tames. — Fuller's visit. — Dismantling of the Castle. — Its possessors. — Crown land. — Lord Overstone. — Decadence of the town ---------- 15

Chapter III

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. — Conington Castle. — Sir Robert's birth at Denton. — His monument in Conington Church. — The Church and Mansion at Denton. — Sir Robert purchases a portion of Fotheringhay Castle. — The removal to Conington of various relics ------- 26

Chapter IV

The Banquet-hall of Fotheringhay removed to Conington. — J. M. Heathcote, Esq. — His ancestors, and their purchase of Conington from the Cottons. — The chair from which Mary, Queen of Scots is believed to have risen for execution. — Contemporary accounts. — Other remains of Fotheringhay. — The Talbot Inn, Oundle. — Chapel at Fineshade. — Thorough destruction of the Castle ----- 34

Chapter V

Fotheringhay village, ancient and modern. — The New Inn. — Its history. — The Market-stead. — Relick Sunday. — The Cross. — The May-pole. — The Bridge. — Queen Elizabeth. — The Collegiate Church. — Distant view. — Archdeacon Bonney's work on Fotheringhay

Chapter VI

page Description of Fotheringhay Church. — The projected College. — Destruction of the Choir. — The Church tower and clere-story. — The bells. — The porch. — The fetterlock badge. — The font. — The pulpit. — Monuments to the Dukes of York. — Royal funerals. — The hero of Agineourt. — Burial of Richard, Duke of York.— Edward IV. ' - 48

Chapter VII

Fotheringhay Castle, the royal residence of York. — The Castle-keep. — Its shape. — View from the Church tower. — The Castle moats. — Buttressed wall. — Scarcity of illustrations of the Castle. — Mary Stuart albums. — Miss Agnes Strickland. — Joseph Cecil, Esq. — Schiller's " Mary Stuart." — D. O. Hill's painting. — T. Bell's poem. 60

Chapter VIII

General view from the lantern of the Church. — Site of the Castle. — Robert Wyatt's find of Queen Mary's ring. — No ruins. — Queen Mary's rooms. — The moats. — The mill-brook. — The Mound. — Hawthorns. — The Scotch thistle. — Miss Strickland's opinion. — Wordsworth's Sonnet. — Burns' poem. 69

Chapter IX

Mary brought to Fotheringhay. — Perio Lane. — Legends concerning it. — The Queen of Scots in prison. — Her rigorous treatment. — Insults offered her. — Queen Elizabeth's conduct. — A modern criticism. — Scenery of Fotheringhay. — Wordsworth's " Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots." - - - 81 HISTORY OF TRIAL, EXECUTION, & FUNERAL. Part I.— The Mock Trial 94 Part II. — After the Trial - - - - . - - 107 Part III. — The Execution 116 Part IV. — Funeral of Mary, Queen of Scots - - - - 139

Appendix

. Original Letters of Miss Agnes Strickland 174 Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots 196 Original Sonnet on " Fotheringhay : 1885 "-.--- 201 Notes - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE. Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. From an original painting on copper — presumed to be a contemporary — in the possession of the Author, and now first published. (Frontispiece.) Three Views of Fotheringhay. Drawn on wood by the Author - iS The Chair from which Mary, Queen of Scots, is believed to have risen for execution. Drawn by the Author - . - - J/S Staircase and Window, Talbot Inn, Oundle. Drawn hy Mr. Caparn, Oundle -------- 39 Remains of Fotheringhay Castle. Drawn by the Author - - 40 The New Inn, Fotheringhay. From a water-colour drawing hy the Author ---------- 42 The Bridge and Church, Fotheringhay. Drawn by the Author - 48 The outer Wall and Moat, Fotheringhay.

Drawn by the Author 62 The outer Moat, Mound, Bridge, Church, &c, Fotheringhay. Drawn by the Author -------. 74 Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. From an old print - - 128 SlGNET-RING OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. Found in the ruins of Fotheringhay, and supposed to have been dropped from her finger on the scaffold, and to have been s-tuept away in the bloody sawdust. FOTHERINGH AY.

Chapter I

Fotheringhay a troubled history. — Its foundation. — Sad Chatillon. — Edward Duke of York. — Proud Cis. — King Edward the Fourth. — Richard the Third. — Catharine of Arragon. — Mary, Queen of Scots. — Queen Elizabeth. Fotheringhay is a name distinguished in historic annals ; but, although from the first its castle was connected with royalty, it would appear in every age to have brought to its princely possessors a heritage of misery and blood. Balliol, York, Plantagenet, and Stuart alike found in Fotheringhay either a troubled home, or a gloomy prison, or the grave of a violent death. Originally built by Mary Stuart's ancestor — that Simon de St. Liz who had married the great niece of William the Conqueror, and who had built a second fortress upon the river Nene at Northampton — the old castle of Fotheringhay had been held by the luckless Balliols ; and its last possessor was that Mary of Valence, Countess of Pembroke, whose husband fell in a tournament upon their bridal day, and whom the poet Gray has celebrated as the "Sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn That wept her bleeding love."

She passed the long days of her virgin-widowhood at Fother inghay, devoting herself to the services of religion, and her fortune to the foundation of Pembroke Hall, in the University of Cambridge, to perpetuate the memory of her husband of a few hours. Her successor in the lordship was Edmund Langley, the fifth son of Edward III, who rebuilt the castle, and left it to his son Edward, Duke of York. He did not, however, live long to enjoy it, for he was slain at the head of his vanguard of English archers in the famous fight of Agineourt, where he was stifled by the heat and by the enemy thronging upon him — for, says the old Chronicle, "being a satte man, he was smouldered to death." It was his dying wish that he should be buried in the collegiate church of Fotheringhay, which he himself had founded ; and there he was accordingly interred on December i, 141 5.

The castle then passed to his brother, Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cambridge, who was beheaded, on suspicion of being in a conspiracy against Henry V. His son, Richard, Duke of York, was the next who held it ; and he, too, inherited the Fotheringhay fate, meeting a violent death at the battle of Wakefield Green, together with his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, a lad of twelve, who was barbarously slain in cold blood by Lord Clifford. The bodies of the father and son were removed from Pontefract to Fotheringhay with the greatest pomp, and with a ceremonial of which a full account has been handed down to us, and were buried in the collegiate church on July 22, 1466. Richard's widow, Cecily, Duchess of York — who was the "proud Cis" of the familiar proverb — survived her husband thirty-six years ; and, as the " sad Chatillon " had done before her, passed the chief part of her widowhood at Fotheringhay, where also she found her grave.

By the way, Miss Agnes Strickland was slightly in error in fixing the period of the Duchess of York's " sorrowful widow hood " at " thirty years "* — thirty-six is the correct date of widowhood, where, at Fotheringhay, she not only wept away her years, but also saw " the last of her male descendants perish tragically, and the name of Plantagenet become extinct." The pronunciation of her Christian name, together with that of her father, is curiously and phonetically shown by the inscription on the east side of the Communion-table in Fotheringhay Church : — " Sissily, Dutchess of York, Daughter to Raulfe Nevell, first Earl of Westmorland." She and the Dukes of York were first buried in the choir ; * The Queens of Scotland : Mary Stuart. Vol. VII, p. 419. B but at the dissolution, when the choir was pulled down by the Duke of Northumberland, their bodies were dug up, and (according to Fuller) lay in the churchyard without any monument until Queen Elizabeth visited Fotheringhay, in 1573, and ordered the bodies to be re-buried in the church, and appropriate monuments to be erected.

On opening the coffin of the Duchess Cecily there was found about her neck a silver ribbon with a pardon from Rome, penned in a very fine Roman hand, as fair and fresh to be read as if it had been written yesterday. Such was the account given by Mr. Creuso, a gentleman who dwelt in the college at the same time, to Henry Peacham, who mentions it in his " Complete Gentleman " (p 160). King Edward the Fourth — son of the Duchess Cecily — occasionally fixed his residence at Fotheringhay, coming there on one occasion by water from Croyland to join his Queen, and, on another occasion, granting an audience here to Alexander, who entered into a covenant to do fealty and homage for the realm of Scotland within six months after he had obtained possession of the crown. During her widowed residence at Fotheringhay, the Duchess Cecily not only had to mourn the tragical fate of her little grandsons, Edward V and his brother, but also to have her grief made more poign ant by the thought that their murderer was her own son, who had been born within the walls of Fotheringhay ; that Duke of Gloucester who, as King Richard III, was the last of the Plantagenets, and who, having waded to the throne through blood, quitted it by a violent end, yet not before he had accused his mother of the grossest profligacy.

Shakespeare, therefore, in his play of " Richard III," makes the duchess say of him, "He is my son, ay, and therein my shame;" and again, ' And I for comfort have but one false gloss That grieves me when I see my shame in him." And the Shakespearian reader will also call to mind that scene where, in such terrible colours, she depicts her son's character from his very birth at Fotheringhay ; where his infancy was " tetchy and wayward " ; and then solemnly curses him with this prophetic malediction : — " Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end : Shame serves thy life, and doth thy death attend." Such was the king of England who was born in Fotheringhay Castle, and from whose mother Mary, Queen of Scots was fourth in descent. After the death of Duchess Cecily, in 1495, the castle was given by Henry VII to his Queen Elizabeth, who was the sole representative ofthe House of York.

Henry VIII settled it in dower upon his unfortunate Queen Catharine of Arragon, who repaired it at great cost, and would seem to have been attached to it, until her royal husband wished to turn it into her prison, when she declared that "to Fotheringhay she would not go, unless bound with cart-ropes and carried thither." But in Mary's reign Fotheringhay really became a state-prison, when Edward Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, was removed thither from the Tower, on a charge of having been implicated in Sir Thomas Wyatt's conspiracy. Such was the previous history of Fotheringhay Castle up to the period of that terrible tragedy — the imprisonment and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, which has, as it were, swallowed up the memory of all that had gone before, and caused the name of Fotheringhay to be associated with, and dedicated to, a recollection of the most touching royal death scene in our country's annals.

Into the details of that scene it is not here my province to enter, though they will be narrated at the end of this book. We have to do now with the prison, and not its prisoner ; with the past and present of Fotheringhay itself, and not with the doom of its most illustrious and beautiful captive. She who, as Wordsworth has sung, " Dear to the loves, and to the graces vowed," landed on the Cumbrian shore, "With step prelusive to a long array Of woes and degradations hand in hand — Weeping captivity and shuddering fear, Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringhay " — though the poet is scarcely correct as to "the shuddering fear." It may have dwelt in the guilty bosom of Elizabeth, but was certainly not shown by Mary, even in the supreme moment of her fate. Yet, if the verse of the poet is faulty, there is a verse in a certain Book which, could a voice have gone up from the banquet-hall of Fotheringhay, might have thus denounced the English queen : " Thou hast consulted shame to thyself by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." " Lo ! on that mound, in days of feudal pride, Thy towering castle frown'd above the tide ; Flung wide her gates, where troops of vassals met With awe the brow of proud Plantagenet. " But ah ! what chiefs in sable crests appear? What bright achievement marks yon warrior's bier ? 'Tis York's ! — From Agincourt's victorious plain, They bear the fallen hero o'er the main ; Through all the land his blooming laurels spread And to thy bosom give the mighty dead. " When from thy lap the ruthless Richard sprung, A boding sound through all thy borders rung : It spoke a tale of blood — fair Neville's woe, York's murderous hand, and Edward's future foe."* The history of Fotheringhay would seem to have been written in letters of blood.

Through many generations, it * " Antona's Banks." (1797.) brought to its princely possessors a heritage of misery and bloodshed. Balliol, York, Plantagenet, and Stuart alike found in Fotheringhay a troubled home, a gloomy prison, or the scene of violent death; and Queen Elizabeth — who visited Fotheringhay in 1573 — may, perhaps, have had its gruesome antecedents in her mind, when she selected Fother inghay as the last prison of her lovely and hapless cousin, the Queen of Scots.

Chapter II

Queen Elizabeth's visit to Fotheringhay. — James the First and his supposed "filial justice." — A vulgar error. — The Castle standing in 1625. — The survey of it. — The curse of King James. — Fuller's visit. — Dismantling of the Castle. — Its possessors. — Crown land. — Lord Overstone. — Decadence of the town. Up to this last chapter of its history, Fotheringhay had doomed its princely tenants to more or less of misery ; and the majority of the royal personages who were con nected with it appear, either in their own persons or in those of their nearest relatives, to have . met their ends by violent deaths. Its history was written in characters of blood ; and it would almost seem as if the tragical associations that thronged its towers should cause Queen Elizabeth (who had visited the castle in 1573, and had busied herself by putting up new monuments in the church to the slaughtered Dukes of York) to deliberately select Fotheringhay as the last prison of her regal victim, and as a fortress over whose portals might have been written, " All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

It is, at any rate, a noteworthy circumstance that, in the words of Mr. Nichols,* "Fotheringhay has been distinguished * The distinguished historian of Leicestershire. See his "History and Antiquities of Fotheringhay," p. v., 1787 — a scarce work, but, for the most part, embodied in the popular "Historic Notices of Fotherbeyond any other place in Britain, except the capital, by the aggravated misfortunes of royalty ;" and its tragical records found their consummation in that dread event which, as it were, overwhelmed the castle with so great a shame that nothing less than its complete annihilation would answer the demands of poetic justice. Probably some such feeling as this existed from the first, and gave a colourable pretext to the popular story (which is even entertained by Nichols and other historians), that no sooner had James I come to the throne than he caused Fotheringhay Castle to be demolished, in order to efface all traces of his mother's execution.

The local poet who, in 1797, wrote the poem of " Antona's Banks,"* thus enshrines the vulgar error in his verse : " In darkest night for ever veil the scene When thy cold tomb received the captive Queen : For this has Time erased thee from his page, And filial justice, with vindictive rage, Burst on thy princely towers with whelming tide, Nor left one vestige to relate thy pride." inghay," by the late Archdeacon Bonney. See also Bridge's " History of Northamptonshire," and Miss Strickland's "Queens of Scotland," vii. 420. * The river Nene was sometimes called Avon. See Leland's " Itinerary," vol. i., sol. 4-6. " Foderingey stondithe on the farther rise of Avon, as I entered the towne. The bridge to Foderingey over Avon is of timber. The castelle of Foderingey is fair and meately strong, with doble ditches, and hath a kepe very auncient and strong.

There be very fair lodgyns in the castel. And as I hard Catharine of Spaine did great costs in late tyme of refreshing of it. This castel longid of late tymes to Edmunde of Even in a carefully-compiled book of reference by an eminent man — " The English Archæologist's Handbook : by Henry Godwin, F.S.A.," (Parker, 1867,) the vulgar error is repeated; for, mentioning Fotheringhay Castle, Mr. God win says, " Razed to the ground by James I." (p. 200.) Britton and Brayley (1807,) say of the castle, "On the accession of James to the throne of England, an order was issued for its demolition." (p. 218.) Samuel Lewis, in his "Topographical Dictionary," (1835,) says of Fotheringhay, "James I on his accession to the throne, demolished the castle." And this statement is commonly repeated in Guide books and educational works. * Archdeacon Bonney, the historian of Fotheringhay, in speaking of the destruction of the castle, says, " Thus removed by degrees it escaped the notice of the antiquary, who probably had recorded its destruction had it been less gradual."

And, he adds, "The tale of its having been destroyed by order of James, on account of its having been Langeley, Edward the iijd's sunne, and so lineally to the Dukes of York." The Warwickshire Avon takes its rise in Northamptonshire, but has not any connection with the Nene. * For example, in the six-volume edition of Pinnock's County Histories, it says of Fotheringhay, " On the accession of James I. it was levelled with the ground. It was demolished by him because it had been the scene of the sufferings and death of his mother, the beauteous and unfortunate (perhaps criminal) Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned and beheaded here, by order of Queen Elizabeth." In the map of North amptonshire given in this work, Fotheringhay is not marked. the scene of his mother's suffering is clearly disproved ; and must be left to those only who are fond of seeing events clothed in the language of fiction."

The Archdeacon's work was printed and published by Mr. Thomas Bell, of Oundle, in 1 82 1 ; and, it is not a little singular, that when Mr. T. Bell, published, in 1853, a volume of poems, "The Rural Album," with descriptive and "historical notices of Barnwell and Fotheringhay Castle," he wrote the following lines in a poem " On Fotheringhay Castle " : " Ah ! let the grave conceal thine errors, Queen ! 'Twas not thine errors, but thy charms, I ween, That fir'd a cruel rival's vengeful hate To spurn thy prayers, and leave thee to thy fate, Who woman's tears, and kindred ties withstood, And stain'd the annals of her reign with blood ! For this, ill-faited Castle ! filial love Struck down thy tow'rs, as vengeance from above, Raz'd thy strong walls, from whose embattled side The white rose banner wav'd in warlike pride, And where the crook-backed king his vassals met, And nobles hail'd the proud Plantagenet!"

But, in his "Historical Notices" of Fotheringhay, Mr. Bell says, "It has been said that James the First ordered the demolition of this castle ; but, whether this was so or not, it is certain that in the last year of King James' reign it was surveyed, and its condition fully reported, and that soon after it was consigned to ruin." It was not, then, " filial love " that struck down the tower of P'otheringhay and razed its strong walls. Unfortunately for those who would desire this story to be true, King James did nothing half so poetical or full of sympathetic "filial justice." On the contrary, although the castle would appear to have been uninhabited after the execution of Mary Stuart, and up to the end of Elizabeth's reign, yet no sooner had James ascended the throne than he turned the castle to account by bestowing it on some of his courtiers.

He gave it to three proprietors ; and when the first of these three (Lord Mountjoy, Earl of Devonshire) died, the other two (Sir Edward Blount and Joseph Earth, Esq.) conveyed the castle and lordship to his natural son, Mountjoy, who was afterwards created Earl of Newport. King James died on March 27th, 1625 ; and that the castle was standing in its integrity at that date is fully proved from the survey made on April 3rd, 1625, when it was thus described : — "The castle is a capital house, built of stone, moated with a double moat. A fair court within the castle ; a building upon a mount, eight or sixteen square, with lower and upper chambers, to ascend by stairs, and then descending towards the hall, which is large and spacious. On the left hand the court is the chapel, and goodly lodgings ; the great dining-room well crarnished at present with pictures ; next the hall are the buttery and kitchen ; and, at the other end of the kitchen, a convenient yard for wood, with large beer-houses and back houses, and offices.

From the gate going out of the yard, there is a great yard half encompassing the castle, going round about to the first gate, and a great barn in the west side of the said yard ; a gate house, and another ruinous house in the east corner of the same. The river Nene on the south side serves for the outer moate, and the mill-brooke on the east for the inner moate ; between the mill-brooke and the castle was a great pond. The gate and fore-front of the house looks full north ; and as soon as you are passed the inner drawbridge, at the gate there are some stairs leading up to some fair lodgings, and up higher into the wardrobe, and so to the fetter-lock on the top of the mount, on the north-west corner of the castle, which is built round of eight or sixteen square, with chambers as above." There is nothing said of demolition in this survey ; and it is self-evident that, if James was inspired with that " filial revenge " which popular tradition has ascribed to him, he would have demolished Fotheringhay as soon as he had the power to do so.

The popular tradition, indeed, goes still farther than the castle, and includes the whole town of Fotheringhay in the devasta ting mandate of King James. He laid a curse upon the town, and would have it burnt stick and stone, says the legend ; and it is in consequence of this curse (at any rate the people think so) that so many alarming fires have happened in the village. Yet, in the teeth of popular tradition, this fact stands clear, that Mary Stuart's son reigned twenty-two years, and that Fotheringhay Castle was standing after his death, and was then "a capital house," with its great dining-hall well garnished with pictures. This fact overrides the statement of those who, although rejecting the popular tradition, yet say (as was said at the meeting of the Archæological Institute at Peterborough in August, 1861, and at the meeting of the Lincoln and Northampton Society in September, 1859) that the castle having fallen into decay, and James having no use for it, he did not care to repair it.

And, indeed, did not Fuller the historian visit the castle, and there (as he tells us) read the following couplet from an old ballad* written on one of the windows with a diamond by the Queen of Scots herself ? — " From the top of all my trust, Mishap hath laid me in the dust." Now, as Fuller was not born till the year 160S, when James had already been king for five years, we have here another proof of his filial revenge, if ever exercised upon the destruction of Fotheringhay, was at any rate allowed to * It is preserved in Ellis's "Specimens." slumber for many years after he had the power of gratifying his desires. Fuller was born within ten miles of Fotheringhay, at the rectory-house of Aldwinkle, All Saints, the adjoining parish to Aldwinkle, St. Peter's, in whose rectory-house the poet Dryden was born ; so that he probably visited the castle somewhere about the time when the survey was made in 1625, in which year, being then of the age of seventeen, Fuller took his B.A. degree at Cambridge.

That survey, taken after the death of King James, does not make special mention of the castle being out of repair, or in a ruinous condition, except with some of the buildings in the court-yard. We are, however, driven to the presumption that the general condition of the castle was such that the expense of restoring it to its former grandeur so alarmed its then possessor, Mountjoy, Earl of Newport, that he preferred to dismantle the building and dispose of the materials. Mountjoy died in the garrison at Oxford, Feb. 12, 1645, and was succeeded in his title by his only surviving son Henry, the last Earl of Newport, who died in 1679, without ever having enjoyed the estate, which (as appears from a deed preserved in the Fotheringhay church-chest, and printed by Nichols in the Appendix to his book) had been alienated by his father to Sir George Savile, of Thornhill, in the county of York, Bart., afterwards Marquis of Halifax.

His son and successor, William, the second marquis, dying without male issue in 1700, the manor and lordship was sold by his father in-law, Daniel, Earl of Nottingham, and the other trustees for the marquis's three co-heiresses, to Hewer Edgeley Hewer, Esq., who died, without issue, Nov. 16th, 1728, when it descended to the family of Blackburne. It then passed through several hands, until it was purchased by the Messrs. Belsey ; and from Thomas Belsey, Esq., the survivor of the two purchasers, it passed to Robert Sacket Tomlin, Esq., of Dane Court, Kent, who sold it to Lord Overstone. The late Mr. John Gough Nichols, F.S.A., told me that there was considerable delay in the completion of the purchase of Fotheringhay, respecting its validity ; and that an old inhabitant of the place said to him, " Fotheringhay has had many masters ; but, it's Crown land, and it'll go to the Crown again."