"The fighting Veres." Lives of Sir Francis Vere, general of the queen's forces in the Low countries, governor of the Brill and of Portsmouth, and of Sir Horace Vere, general of the English forces in the Low countries, governor of the Brill, master-general of ordnance, and baron Vere of Tilbury

Preface

THE war of independence in the Netherlands had a lasting influence on the formation of opinion in England. It thus led to the civil war in defence of the liberties of the old country, and to the founding of colonies in America. Queen Elizabeth declared that the people of the Netherlands were justified in resisting the tyranny of rulers who infringed and attempted to subvert their rights and liberties. She made war on the tyrant, and espoused the cause of the oppressed people. Englishmen received the declaration of their Queen with enthusiasm. During upwards of sixty years they continued to cross the sea and to fight for the cause of freedom. There was scarcely a man in England who had not either served himself, or known a relation or neighbor who had been in the wars. During that period of sixty years the colonies were founded in America. There was cause and effect. The whole generation imbibed and imparted to their posterity a zeal for popular rights which tended to awaken that traditional love of freedom which is the inheritance of English-speaking people. We see the results in the resistance

IV PREFACE.

to monopolies during the last year of the Queen's reign, in the rise of a parliamentary opposition to James I., in the foundation of the New England colonies, in the resistance to the tyranny of Charles I., in the overthrow of his attempt to establish a despotism on the plan conceived by Strafford, and in the final triumph of constitutional freedom.

It is these results, flowing from the struggle against Spain, which gives importance to the record of English military service in the Low Countries. Among those who became famous in the course of that memorable enterprise, the names of Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere stand foremost. The story of their lives covers the whole period of the war of independence. While others came and went, the Veres remained steadfastly at their posts, devoted their lives to the cause, and saw their work completed. Placing the sense of duty above all other motives, they were examples of that type of conscientious public servants which is met with most frequently among English-speaking people.

Sir Francis Vere is the first great English general in modern history. He founded a school which was further developed by his brother Horace. In that school were formed those distinguished leaders who fought out the war between Charles I. and the Parliament of England. In the same school were formed those military advisers who accompanied the lovers of freedom to colonize America. The posterity of

PREFACE. V

both the great branches of the English folk, of that in America as of that in the old country, ought therefore to know the story of the " fighting Veres."

I have attempted, in the following pages, to write a connected narrative of the life-work of the two brothers. But the work is mainly devoted to the biography of Sir Francis Vere, for his brother served with him for many years, so that the two lives are included in one story. The later chapters relate the events in the life of Sir Horace subsequent to his brother's death. It was during this period that the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from Delftshaven ; and I have referred to that great event in the chapter which includes the twelve years' truce.

While condensing the portions referring to general history, my endeavor has been, with the materials I have succeeded in collecting, to convey a clear idea of the military events in which the Veres were concerned. Special attention has been given to descriptions of the localities. The story of the lives of the two generals includes diplomatic as well as military service and private or family history. The allusions to the general course of events are only intended to make the narrative clear and intelligible ; my object being to present the lives of the men themselves, rather than to write a history of their times.

The materials for these biographies are to be found in the numerous reports and letters preserved in the British State Paper Office, in the British

Vi PREFACE.

Museum, and at Hatfield. These materials include 227 letters from Sir Francis Vere, besides many from Sir Horace. Some of the military actions are described by Sir Francis himself in his published Commentaries, and these descriptions have been collated with the accounts of the same events in letters written long before, by himself and by other officers. The works of Strada, Meteren, and Grimeston, of Bentivoglio, Carnero, and Herrera, generally give full accounts of the events described in letters of the Veres and other English officers, frequently supplying additional information, and almost always yielding corroborative testimony. These histories, together with Prinsterer's letters of the House of Orange, have been consulted in the preparation of an account of each action in the Netherlands ; while Camden, Stow, Wilson, Hexham, Monson's Tracts, and documents in Hakluyt, have been my authorities for other parts of the narrative. There are voluminous materials for a history of the Vere family. A more complete note on the sources of information will be found in an appendix.

I received much valuable assistance, in my researches respecting the home and ancestry of the Veres, from the late Mr. Ashurst Majendie of Castle Hedingham, Major Barnardiston of the Ryes, and Mr. Ambrose of Mistley Manor, as well as from the late Mr. Stephen Tucker, Somerset Herald, and the late Colonel Chester. To the latter accomplished Amer-

PREFACE. vii

ican genealogist I owe the particulars respecting the wife of Sir Francis Vere, her family and marriage, as well as numerous notes of Vere entries in parish registers. I have personally visited and carefully examined the localities of all the sieges and battles in which the Veres were engaged, and in these researches I owe much to the kindness of Commodore Jansen of the Hague, and of M. Arnold van Tets,1 who supplied me with letters of introduction, and assisted me in procuring old maps and plans, and in other ways. I have also to thank the Marquis of Salisbury for allowing me to examine the letters having reference to my subject, which are preserved at Hatfield, and for giving me a copy of Captain Docwra's account of the battle of Turnhout.

The only two previous biographies of the Veres were written without reference to the letters in the State Paper Office and at Hatfield, or to other manuscripts. The best will be found in the Biographia Britannica. The other, by Mr. Gleig, is mainly copTed from it. I now venture to submit to American readers this new attempt to supply what I believe to be a desideratum in their national history. The proclamation of Queen Elizabeth in 1585 was the forerunner of the Declaration of American Independence. The lives of Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere include events which aroused the spirit of American colonization.

1 Now the Netherlands minister at Constantinople.

Contents

PAGE

PREFACE » . . . iii

Part I. Sir Francis Vere

CHAPTER

I. THE VERES i

II. THE HOME OF THE VERES 11

III. BOYHOOD OF FRANCIS VERB 18

IV. THE THEATRE OF WAR 28

V. THE ENGLISH VOLUNTEERS 4?

VI. THE ART MILITARY 53

VII. OPENING OF THE WAR 67

VIII. THE FIRST CAMPAIGN 83

IX. SLUYS 100

X. BERGEN-OP-ZOOM Ii;

XI. RESIGNATION OF LORD WILLOUGHBY .... 135 XII. SIR FRANCIS VERB IN CHIEF COMMAND. Relief of Rhein-

berg 144

XIII. BREDA, AND THE EXPEDITION INTO WESTPHALIA . . 158

XIV. ZUTPHEN AND DEVENTER. THE BATTLE IN THE BETUWE.

XV. SIEGES OF GERTRUYDENBURG AND GRONINGEN . . 187 XVI. ADMINISTRATIVE DUTIES AND PRIVATE AFFAIRS. DEATH

OF ROBERT VERE 198

II. CADIZ 217

XVIII. THE ISLAND VOYAGE 236

XIX. BATTLE OF TURNHOUT 254

XX. THE BOMMEL-WAART 263

XXI. THE EVE OF THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT .... 278

XXII. THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT 296

XXIII. THE SIEGE OF OSTEND 306

Xxvi

X CONTENTS.

XXIV. DEATH OF THE QUEEN, AND RESIGNATION OF SIR FRANCIS

VERB 333

XXV. MARRIAGE AND DEATH OF SIR FRANCIS VERB . . 351

Part II. Sir Horace Vere

I. THE RECOVERY OF SLUYS, AND THE BATTLE OF MULHEIM . 364 II. MARRIAGE OF SIR HORACE VERE. His YOUNG RELATIONS.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS. DEATH OF BARNEVELDT . . 379

III. THE WAR IN THE PALATINATE 394

IV. DEATH OF JOHN VERE. SIEGE OF BPEDA BY SPINOLA. CRE-

ATION OF LORD VERE OF TILBURY 421

V. MARRIAGES OF DAUGHTERS. SIEGES OF BOIS-LE-DUC AND

MAASTRICHT. NOTICE OF HENRY HEXHAM . ' . . . 433

VI. DEATH OF LORD VERE. CONCLUSION 451

Appendix

A. NOTE RESPECTING THE STORY TOLD TO THE DISPARAGEMENT OF

AN EARL OF OXFORD, IN FROISSART 461

B. NOTE ON THE AUTHORITIES 464

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PORTRAITS.

PAGE

SIR FRANCIS VERB. From a print by Faithorne . . Frontispiece

HORACE LORD VERE. By Cornelius Jansen . . . . 364

MAPS.

SOUTH BEVELAND 46

THE SIEGE OF SLUYS 100

THE SIEGE OF BERGEN-OP-ZOOM 128

RHEINBERG AND ADJACENT COUNTRY 152

BREDA 162

GRONIXGEN 192

THE COUNTRY ABOUT WESEL 212

THE FIELD OF TURNHOUT . . 256

NlEUPORT AND ADJACENT COUNTRY 282

OSTEND 310

THE FIELD OF THE PALATINATE 402

BOIS-LE-DUC AND MAASTRICHT 436

THE FIGHTING VERES.

PART I.

SIR FRANCIS VERE.

Chapter I. The Veres

THE English people took an active part in the great war for freedom during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their rulers sometimes held aloof and sometimes assisted with money and troops ; but the cause was one which moved the people, and their support was always given, warmly and heartily, to their neighbors in the glorious fight for liberty. Whether the government gave its countenance or whether it forbore, there were Englishmen fighting side by side with Dutch patriots from first to last. In that fight no two names are so conspicuous as those of Francis and Horace Vere. The brother warriors stand out prominently as the representatives of their race in the great fight for freedom. They never faltered, never grew weary, but faithfully and loyally devoted their lives to a cause which is dear to all English-speaking people.

The noblest and most ancient house in the baronage of England was falling from its greatness, and would soon be extinct. But, in the last two generations, it produced a company of able and gallant soldiers whose deeds alone entitle the family to veneration. No less than ten Veres crossed the seas to fi<rht in the cause of freedom. Five were slain in

O

battle. Two became great generals, whose lives should ever be had in remembrance, because their record is the record of deeds that form a part, and no unimportant part, of the history of their race.

It is quite true that the two brothers, Francis and Horace, " brought more glory to the name of Vere than they took blood from the family."1 Yet the characters of men are influenced by the race from which they spring, and by the traditions of the land where they are born. Hence it is necessary that the story of their lives should be preceded by an account of their family and of the country in which they were born and bred.

The family of Veres, Earls of Oxford, was one of the most ancient and noble in England. Dating from A. D. 1137, the earldom continued in an unbroken succession of twenty earls until 1703, a period of nearly six hundred years. They intermarried with Bigods and Canteloupes, Clares and De Quinceys, Uffords and Mortimers, Scropes and Howards, Nevilles and Courtenays, all the most historical families of the country. They succeeded to five baronies — of Bolebec,2 Sanford,3 Badlesmere, Scales, and Plaiz ; and they were hereditary Grand Chamberlains of England.

1 Sir Robert Naunton. ony of the realm. The family held

2 The eldest son used the title their dignity and estates not per of Lord Bolebec. baroniam, but by sergeanty of the

8 But Dugdale and Nicolas do Queen's bed - chamber. Banks' not admit that Sanford was a bar- Stemmata Anglicans, p. 247.

THE VERES. 3

They were originally Danes from the Cotentin of Normandy, if we adopt the most probable opinion and set aside the fictions of earlier antiquaries.1 The Cotentin, comprising the modern department of La Manche, was ceded to the Duke of Normandy by Alan of Brittany, in 936 A. D., when there was a considerable migration of the original Celtic inhabitants, so that it was one of the districts which became most thoroughly Norman. William Longsword is said to have admitted a fresh Danish colony into his newly acquired province of Coutances ; and when Harald Blaatand, the Danish king, after settling the affairs of the duchy, and acting as a faithful friend to the young duke, returned to his northern realm, many of his followers remained behind in the Cotentin.2 It was not long before these Danish settlers had to defend their homes against a devastating invasion. In 996 A. D., King ^thelred of England sent an army to burn and destroy, which landed

1 Leland gives a fictitious de- manor held under the superior scent of Vere from Milo, Duke of manor of Gavray. There are Aungiers, a brother-in-law of many deeds, noticed in the Trans- Charlemagne. Collins repeats the actions of the Society of Antiqua- Leland fable. Percival Golding ries of Normandy, to which de (Harl.MSS., 4189) supplies a de- Veres are parties. There is a tailed pedigree which shows the letter, dated 1271, from William descent of the Veres from Serug, de Ver to Odon, Bishop of Bayeux, the great-grandfather of Abraham, confirming a grant ; also the sale Later genealogists have suggested of the manor of St. Sauveur in that the Veres came from Veere 1301, by Benoulf de Ver. See a in the Island of Walcheren, mere- paper by Mr. Ashurst Majendie ly from the similarity in the spell- in the Proceedings of the Essex ing of the two names. M. de A rchceological Society, Part I. vol. Gerville, of the Society of Anti- i. p. 75.

quaries of Normandy, was of opin- 2 Freeman's Norman Conquest,

ion that the Veres came from the i. pp. 185, 190, 215. village of Ver, near Coutances, a near Coutances ; but the men of the country smote the invaders with a great slaughter, and their fleet returned discomfited.1

These formidable Danish settlers were ruled over by Neal de St. Sauveur, whose castle was a few miles south of Valognes, and who was Viscount of Coutances. His knights were the ancestors of many of our English nobles. The two rivers Soulles and Syenne flow through the most beautiful valleys of the Cotentin, and fall into the Havre de Regneville, opposite the Island of Jersey. Courcy and the old city of Coutances are on the Soulles. The Syenne rises near the village of Percy, and flows northward by the Abbey of Hamlye, through the forest of Gavray, and by the village and castle of Ver, to the Regneville estuary. All this is now a country of rich meads and hills and valleys, of orchards and small fields of pasture and buckwheat, with well-timbered hedgerows and glorious views of distant wooded hills. At the ruined Abbey of Hamlye, a picturesque old stone bridge crosses the Syenne, with orchards on either bank, and cliffs rising abruptly from the valley, and crowned with oak woods.

From this lovely district came the Percys and Paganells, the De Courcys and De Veres. The castle of the Paganells was on the wooded crest overhanging the rich vale of the Syenne, and the stately Abbey of Hamlye was built by them near the river bank. Lower down the valley was the castle and manor of Ver, held of the superior manor of Gavray, the early Norman home of the Veres.

These knights followed their chief, the Viscount

1 Freeman's Norman Conquest, \. p. 300.

THE VERES. 5

of Coutances, when he led the revolt against William, and was defeated in the cavalry action of Val-es- Dunes, in 1047. Neal made his peace with the Norman duke, and twenty years afterwards the brave old warrior commanded the Cotentin levies at the battle of Senlac. Serving with them was Aubrey or Alberic de Vere, who may have been a younger brother of the Lord of Ver in the valley of the Syenne, or perhaps the lord himself. He changed his home for many broad acres in Essex and Suffolk, receiving from William the Conqueror the whole inheritance of a great Saxon thane named Wulfwine ; and he founded the English branch of the Veres.1 His son Alberic was created Lord Great Chamberlain of England by Henry I., and married Adeliza, daughter of Gilbert, Earl of Clare.

This second Alberic was a Crusader, and Leland relates by what event he received the addition of a silver mullet to his paternal shield, which was quarterly red and gold. It was in the year 1098 that Corborant, Admiral of the Soudan of Perce, was defeated near Antioch by the Christian host. The night coming on during the chase, God displayed a silver star of five points, which, to every man's sight, did light upon the standard of Aubrey de Vere, there shining excessively. It has ever since been borne in the first quarter of the Vere shield. But more sceptical modern heralds 2 think the mullet was a mark of cadency borne by the younger brother of the

1 The first Alberic de Vere He founded Colne Priory, where

held Kensington, nine lordships he was buried, with his younger

in Suffolk, fourteen in Essex, in- son, in 1088.

eluding Hedingham and Bentley, 2 Planche*. and Campes in Cambridgeshire.

second earl, who retained his mullet when he eventually succeeded as third earl.

The third Alberic de Vere was in the Holy Land with Robert of Normandy, at Jerusalem and the siege of Antioch, and retook a banner of St. George which had been captured by a Saracen. He it was who married Beatrice, daughter of Henry, Castellan of Bourbourg, by Rosa, the heiress of Manasses, Comte de Guisnes. He received investiture as Comte de Guisnes in 1137, and held the county until he was driven out by the next heir, Arnold de Gand, in 1 144. He was created Earl of Oxford1 by the Empress Maud, and confirmed by Henry II. in 1155. His second wife, Lucia de Abrincis, founded a nunnery at Hedingham, and was its first Prioress. This Earl also founded the Augustine Priory at Hatfield Broad Oak, where his son was buried.

Robert, the third Earl, was one of the Barons who stood up for the liberties of England against King John and the Pope, and was excommunicated by Innocent III. His brother William was Bishop of Hereford, and a great builder. The fifth Earl was a supporter of Simon de Montfort, and was captured at Kenilworth, afterwards serving with distinction in the wars of Edward I. The sixth Earl also served with the greatest of the Plantagenets in his Welsh and Scottish wars; and his brother Hugh, Lord Vere, was employed by Edward I. on missions of importance to France and Rome. John, the seventh

1 Leland and Collins say that d'Ardres called him Albertus

this Aubrey was called "Aubrey Aper, using Aper as a synonym

the Grimme," for his greatness of for Verres (Vere). This word

stature and stern look. The truth " Aper " was re-translated into

was that the chronicler Lambert English as "the Grimme "!

THE VERES. 7

Earl of Oxford, was a very distinguished military commander under King Edward III. He was in the great sea-fight with Don Luis de la Cerda and the Genoese off Guernsey, and served with the King in Brittany at the sieges of Vannes and Nantes, and in Gascony with the Earl of Derby, when he gallantly led a charge against the French camp at Auberoche. At the battle of Cressy the place of the Earl of Oxford was with the Prince of Wales in the first battalion. He was then sent to England for reinforcements, and returning, defeated the French fleet off Calais, taking twenty sail. He went to Gascony with the Prince of Wales, and was at the battle of Poitiers as Chief of the Archers. He died in the camp of the English army before Rheims, on January 24, 1360, aged forty-seven.1 His son first bore arms in his father's last campaign when only eighteen, but he died early, leaving an only child — the ill-fated and much-abused favorite of Richard II. It should be remembered that this Duke of Ireland was a mere youth, and that he had not seen twenty-eight summers when he was killed out hunting at Louvain, after several years of exile. He was childless.

The Duke of Ireland was succeeded by his uncle Aubrey, the tenth Earl, who was employed on important diplomatic missions ; and his son was a military commander under Henry V. and a Knight of the Garter. The two succeeding Earls were loyal and unswerving adherents of the House of Lancaster. The twelfth Earl, well known to readers of the

1 A disparaging story is told of Appendix, and proved that it is a this Earl, or of his son, in Frois- baseless calumny, sart. I have reprinted it in the

Paston Letters, served under the Duke of York in France; but was beheaded by Edward IV., with his eldest son Aubrey, for corresponding with Margaret of Anjou. The next son, John, succeeding as thirteenth Earl, never swerved in his loyalty to the fallen House of Lancaster. But the silver star which lighted the first Earl in his pursuit of Corboran did an ill service for his descendant. At the battle of Barnet the Earl of Oxford carried all before him on the right wing of the Lancastrian army. On returning from the pursuit of the King's left, the device of Oxford's men, the silver star of five points, was mistaken for Edward's badge — a sun in splendor. Those who wore it were received with a discharge of arrows from their own side, which caused irremediable confusion, and the battle was lost. Oxford afterwards escaped to fight again at Bosworth, and to become one of the most powerful nobles of England under the first Tudor King. He was godfather to Henry VIII., and died at the age of seventy-four, in 1513.

His cousin John, the fifteenth Earl of Oxford, a Knight of the Garter, was the first Protestant Earl, from 1526 to 1539. He was constantly employed in the service of the state, a wise and upright councillor. He was a man endued with many noble qualities, virtuous and religious, a great housekeeper, and exceedingly beloved. He was called " the good Earl of Oxenford." By his wife Elizabeth, heiress of Sir Edward Trussell, he inherited a great property in Northamptonshire, to add to his vast Essex and Suffolk estates. This Trussell heiress was one of the ladies of Queen Anne Boleyn. She is described

THE VERES. 9

as "a woman of unsullied fame, whose presence seemed to guarantee the honor and discretion of her mistress." By her the Earl had four sons and four daughters. He died at his manor of Earl's Colne, and was buried in the church of Castle Hedingham. Nearly all the previous Earls, until the Reformation, had been buried in the church of Earl's Colne Priory.

The altar tomb of the fifteenth Earl of Oxford is of black marble, and was placed in the centre of the chancel.1 On one side are his four daughters kneeling, in the act of prayer, with books on draped desks before them, and the names above, Elizabeth, Anne, Frances, and Ursula. At the angles there are mullets above and below, with the motto " Verite vient " between. On the other side are the four sons, John, Aubrey, Robert, and Geoffrey, in the same positions. The horizontal slab is very richly carved. There are the crest and helmet, supporters and shield, surrounded by the motto of the Garter ; and below, the Earl in the robes of the Garter, and the Countess, both in the attitude of prayer.

Geoffrey, the fourth son of the fifteenth Earl of Oxford, was the father of our heroes, Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere.

The record of the public services of a long line of noble ancestors was the inheritance of the Veres of Queen Elizabeth's time : that and their own stout hearts. They had little else. With the sixteenth Earl the greatness and wealth of the head of the

1 It has since been very improp- the four sons are represented is erly removed and placed against completely concealed from view, the wall, so that the side on which

IO THE FIGHTING VERES.

family ended, and the cadets had to carve out their own fortunes in their own way. Let us now glance at the country of the Veres, the valleys watered by the rivers Colne and Stour, forming the border-land of Essex and Suffolk.

Chapter II. The Home Of The Veres

THE Veres came from the lovely wooded valleys of the Soulles and the Syenne, in the Cotentin, to make their homes in the basins of the Stour and the Colne. The Stour rises near the borders of Cambridgeshire, and flows eastward into its estuary at Harwich, while the Colne, with a shorter course, and flowing nearly parallel for some distance, turns south into its long estuary. Between the two rivers and the German Ocean is the peninsula comprised in the Tendring Hundred; and, higher up, the Lexden and Hinchford Hundreds.

In every part of this region the powerful Earls of Oxford owned manors and whole villages ; and their badges and other memorials constantly occur in the walls, or windows, or woodwork of the churches. The. Stour has a course of about fifty miles, with a catchment basin some fifteen miles across; and the Colne flows over thirty-two miles, with a width of basin of three to six miles ; the whole width of the two basins being about twenty-two miles. In the valleys and on the slopes of the hills the scenery is picturesque, and there are many very pleasing views. The valley of the Stour was the native place of two famous English painters, Gainsborough and Constable, the former born at Sudbury, the latter at East

Bergholt, and it has been suggested that the beauties of the woods and lanes and meadows of the valley may have awakened, the genius as well as exercised the pencils of these great artists. "The scene of my childhood," said Constable, " made me a painter. The beauty of the scenery, its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadow flats, sprinkled with flocks and herds, its well - cultivated uplands, its woods and rivers, with numerous scattered villages and churches, farms and picturesque cottages, all impart to this delightful country an amenity and an elegance hardly anywhere else to be found."1

The chief seat of the Veres was at Hedingham, near the head-waters of the Colne, where the'ir magnificent Norman keep still defies the ravages of time.2 It was built by the second Alberic de Vere in the time of King Stephen, and here Stephen's Queen, Maud, died in 1152. The castle was approached from the village by a drawbridge across a moat. The great keep of Hedingham is the finest relic of Norman civil architecture in England. Its massive strength is relieved by abundant ornament. The chevron ornament adorns the windows and other arches, and the great fireplace on the first floor. A beautiful spiral pattern enriches the pillars of the staircase, and the doorway leading to galleries cut in the thickness of the wall, whence arched openings overlook the hall below. This first-floor room of the keep is beautifully proportioned, and the

1 Quoted by Mr. Torlesse, in and Majendies. For a hundred

his account of Stoke by Nayland. years the keep was without roof

a Thanks mainly to the care of or floors. It was repaired by Mr.

its later owners, the Ashworths Ashurst in 1 720.

THE HOME OF THE VERES. 13

ornamented arches of the gallery give it a certain lightness. The steps leading up to the great door of the keep were formerly protected by a lower tower containing the garrison chapel, as at Dover Castle.

The keep alone remains standing. In the prosperous days of the Veres it occupied the centre of a courtyard, round which there were extensive buildings, forming the palatial home of the Earls of Oxford and their great retinue. A ground-plan, which was made in the year I592,1 shows that on one side stood the gate-house and a lofty tower ; on another, the great hall and chapel, and the kitchens; on a third, a stone building containing several suites of apartments ; and in rear the stables and granaries, the butts and tennis-court, beyond which was the court for tournaments.

The castle stands on a hill which is partly artificial, overlooking the village, but dominated by higher ground on all sides. It is in fact a mound rising from the lowest part of the Colne valley. To the right, after leaving the castle gates, there was a nunnery, founded by Lucia, Countess of Oxford, in 1190. In front the village street led to the parish church, and on to Sybil Hedingham, the birthplace of the famous condottiere, Sir John Hawksworth. Morant says that " the surface of the two contiguous parishes of Sybil and Castle Hedingham is varied with little eminences and dales, well watered with refreshing rills and purling streams, which make the pastures here excellent."

1 This plan was made for Lord stance was being wasted by his Burleigh, in the interests of his spendthrift son-in-law, the seventhree granddaughters, whose sub- teenth Earl of Oxford.

To the north of Hedingham Castle was the manor house of Kirby and the parish of Tilbury, localities closely connected with the life-stories of our heroes ; and a little further north is the river Stour, winding through its lovely valley, by the old Priory of Clare and the stately hall of Long Melford. Farther back on the Suffolk side, but still within the basin of the Stour, lies the thriving little town of Lavenham, largely owned by the Veres in those days, with its beautiful perpendicular church and lofty flint tower. Away to the west of Hedingham, beyond the Essex border, was the Earl's castle of Camps ; to the east was the Templars' circular church of Maplestead ; and all round, over hill and dale, were the farms and manors of the great Earls of Oxford. The meadow lands along the banks of the rivers were famed places for hawking, while the woods and wide stretches of open country were the chosen haunts of game, the scenes of hunting and all rural sports. There were three parks round the Castle of Hedingham : the home park in which the castle stood, the great park of six hundred acres, and the little park which was stocked with red deer.