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afterwards advanced to that title; and in the following year, he sat in judgment as a Peer on the Duke of Norfolk. He married Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollis, and had two sons, Robert and Walter; but dying in 1576, he devised Bennington to his widow, who, in the thirty-seventh of Elizabeth, in conjunction with her then husband, Sir Christopher Blount, and Robert, Earl of Essex, the unfortunate favorite of Elizabeth, her eldest son, conveyed it to Thomas Crompton, Esq. and his heirs: he settled it in jointure upon Mary, his wife; and a court was held here in both their names, in the forty-first of Elizabeth,

By what means this manor again reverted to the Earl of Essex, does not appear; but in the first of James the First, it was possessed by Richard, Earl of Clanrickard, in right of his wife, Frances, widow of Robert, Earl of Essex, to whose son, Robert, third Earl of Essex, it afterwards descended, and continued in his pos session till after his divorce from the infamous Lady Frances Howard, his first wife, in the year 1613. He then sold it to Sir Julius Cæsar, Knt. as appears from the following passage in a volume of manuscripts, written by Charles Cæsar, Esq. great grandson to Sir Julius, and now in the possession of a female descendant of the Cæsars, with many other writings belonging to the family.

"The Earl of Essex, after the divorce, was sentenced to pay back his Lady's portion; and to raise part of it, he sold his hunting-house, with a large park of deer, and his mannour of Bennington, in Hartfordshire, to Sir Julius Caesar, Knt. Master of the Rolls in Chancery, and a Privy Counseller to King James the First, King of Great Britain, for the sum of fourteen thousand pounds."+ N 3 Sir

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In the very interesting Memoirs of the Peers of England, during the reign of James the First,' by S. E. Brydges, Esq. is inserted a full account of the abandoned conduct of this wretched woman, as well as of the disgraceful proceedings that attended the obtaining of the divorce.

+ Cæsar's MSS. Vol. I. p. 8. An interesting selection from these manuscripts is intended to be published in the course of the present year; with biographical sketches, and portraits of several of the Cæsar family, from original paintings and miniatures.

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Sir Julius Cæsar, who was appointed Master of the Rolls in 1610, and made one of the Lords Commissioners for the custody of the Great Seal in 1620, died in 1636, at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried in St. Helen's Church, London: but if the information in Chauncy is correct, this manor must have been conveyed to his son and heir, Sir Charles Cæsar, very soon after he had purchased it from the Earl of Essex, as Sir Charles is recorded to have held a court here in April, 1614. This gentleman, who, like his father, was an eminent civilian, was appointed Master of the Rolls in 1638; and, after being twice married, and having fifteen children by both wives, died of the small-pox, at Bennington, in the year 1643: this disease proved fatal also to several of his issue, and among them, to Julius, his eldest surviving son, who dying within a few days, was buried in the same grave with his father.

Henry, his next son, and heir, represented this county in the two first Parliaments held in the reign of Charles the Second; and he was knighted by that Sovereign in 1660: he also died of the smallpox, in January, 1667, 8, and was succeeded by Charles, his se cond son, who was knighted in October, 1671, at Cambridge, on the King's visit to that University. This gentleman, with his bro ther-in-law, Sir Thomas Pope Blount, represented this shire in the Convention Parliament, in the first of William and Mary, and dying in August, 1694, was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles, in whose family this manor continued till the year 1744, when it was sold, by the devisees in trust under his will, to the trustees under the will of Sir John Cheshire Knt, some time Sergeant at Law; whose son, Robert Cheshire, Esq. married one of the daughters and coheirs of Mr. Charles Cæsar. His great nephew, John Cheshire, Esq. is the present possessor, and resides in a small mansion near the site of the ancient CASTLE at Bennington, which stood westward from the Church, and most probably occupied the spot whereon stood the Palace of the Saxon Kings: the artifi cial mount of the Keep, with the surrounding ditch, are still to be

seen.

Chauncy's Herts. p. 345. Chauncy does not appear to have knows

that Sir Julius Cæsar was ever in possession of Bennington.

seen. The old manor-house, that had been inhabited by the Ca sars, stood in the park, at a distance from the village, but was burnt down between thirty and forty years ago; and a smaller edifice, since erected on the site, was for some years occupied by Mr. Bullock, a well-known gentleman of the turf.

Bennington Church is a small fabric, dedicated to St. Peter, consisting of a nave and chancel, with a tower at the west end, and a Chapel, or burial-place, connected with the chancel on the north. Here are two ancient monuments, under arches, which form part of them, each exhibiting recumbent figures of a Knight and a Lady. The most ancient, or that to the west, has a pointed arch, with pinnacles; and the Knight is cross-legged: this, from the arms, gules, three bars gemells, Or, is evidently a Benstede. The other Knight is represented with a collar of SS, under a flat arch, and is doubtless for a Benstede also, as the whole monument is of a date long prior to that at which the family parted with this estate. Many of the Cæsars lie buried here; and among them SIR CHARLES CESAR, Kut. son of Sir Julius Cæsar, who died in 1643, at the age of fifty-nine; and his two wives; ANNE, daughter of Sir Peter Vanlore; and JANE, daughter to Sir Edward Barkham, Knt. some time Lord Mayor of London: the former died in June, 1625, at the age of thirty-three; and the latter in June, 1661, in her sixtieth year. The Benstede family are supposed to have built this Church, as their arms are displayed both upon the roof, and on the tower: in a niche, over the south porch, is a statue of St. Michael and the Dragon.

YARDLEY was given by King Athelstan to the Canons of St. Paul's, London, and it still belongs to that Church. The ManorHouse, called YARDLEY BURY, has become memorable from its having been the residence of the ancient family of the Chauncys, during upwards of two centuries; and here SIR HENRY CHAUNCY wrote his History of this County. The Chauncys derived their name from Chauncy, near Amiens, in Picardy; and one of them coming to England with the Conqueror, appears to have settled in Yorkshire, where his son William purchased the manor of Scirpenbach, and resided in the time of Heury the First. Walter, his

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son, succeeded him in his title of Baron, and held his manor of the King, in capite, by the fourth part of a Barony: in the next reign he gave the King, Stephen, 151. for liberty to marry whom he pleased. His descendants held Scirpenbach till the time of Richard the Second, when it was alienated, in exchange for lands in this county. John Chauncy, Esq. son and heir of Sir William Chauncy, late Baron of Scirpenbach, settled at Gilston, in Herts, having married the daughter of William Gifford, the owner of that manor, which was then called Overhall. He died in the twentysecond of Henry the Sixth; and was succeeded by John, his son, who married Anne, daughter of Sir John Leventhorp, of Sabridgeworth, with whom he had a portion of forty marks. His grandson, Maurice, became a monk in the Charter House, and, with the other brethren on that foundation, was condemned to die, for denying the supremacy of Henry the Eighth. He escaped, however, from prison, and settling at Bruges, became Prior of the Monastery of English Carthusians. He was afterwards Confessor to Queen Mary; but, on her death, was obliged to return to his convent, where he died in the twenty-third of Elizabeth. George, second son of his brother Henry, who had inherited the estate, married Jane, daughter and heiress of John Cornwall, Esq. of Yardley; through which marriage the Bury became the residence of the elder branch of the family. HENRY, great grandson of this George, the celebrated historian of Herts, received the rudiments of his education at Bishop Stortford, and was afterwards entered of Caius College, Cambridge. Thence he removed to the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1656. In 1675 he was made Bencher; and, in the same year; chosen Steward of the Borough Court in Hertford, of which also, in 1680, he became Recorder. In the following year he was knighted by Charles the Second; and in 1685, was made Treasurer of the Inner Temple. Three years afterwards, he was made Sergeant at Law, and Judge of one of the circuits of South Wales. He died in 1700. His Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire' is a very valuable work, though blended with some inaccuracies, and possessing that common defect of its time, an almost total disregard

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to the description of buildings, and the notice of styles of architecture: this deficiency, however, with respect to various ancient manor-houses, is partly compensated for by the plates. Sir Henry married Jane, daughter of Francis Flyer, Esq. of Brent Pelham Hall, by whom he had issue, three sons and four daughters.

WALKERN, which anciently belonged to the Lords Fitz-Walter, by inheritance from the De Burghs and Lanvalleis, and descended through the Mareschals, by the marriage of an heiress, to the Lords Morley, is one of the most ancient possessions of the Capels, Earls of Essex, in this county; it having been purs chased by Sir William Capel, Knt. in the twenty-first of Henry the Seventh, from Sir Edward Howard, Knt. and Alice, his wife, sister and heiress of Henry, Lord Morley. The Bury, or Manorhouse, is surrounded by a moat, and is now occupied as a farm. In the Church, beneath an arch on the south wall, is a defaced effigies of a Knight Templar.

This parish, and its neighbourhood, were greatly agitated about the commencement of the last century by an alarm of Witchcraft, reputed to have been exercised on the persons of two servant maids and a boy, by a poor woman named JANE WENHAM, and who was tried for the said crime at the Hertford Assizes, before Judge Powel. Some time before her trial, the culprit had the weakness to confess herself guilty of the alleged crime; and though she afterwards accounted for this confession, as arising from fear, it appears to have had considerable influence on the minds of the jurymen, who pronounced a verdict of guilty, notwithstanding the endeavours of the benevolent Judge to explain the evidence brought against her; and which evidence was clearly the result of a strong prejudice, operating on weak and superstitious minds. The

Judge Powel is said to have presided when another woman was arraigned on a similar ridiculous charge of Witchcraft, and one of the witnesses gave evidence that the prisoner could fly! On this the Judge asked the woman if it really was so she answered in the affirmative; when the Judge, with a promptitude of expression, which evinced the superiority of his understanding, told her, So she might, if she would; he knew of no law against it.'

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