21 Hen. VIII., had issue Thomas lord Wentworth, who died 1590, who had issue William Wentworth, who died 1582, S. P., and Henry lord Wentworth, who died 1593, who had issue Thomas lord Wentworth, created earl of Cleveland 1 Charles, and had issue Thomas his son and heir apparent, [in whom the earldom became extinct: but the barony is in abeyance in the family of Noel baron Wentworth].

20. BURROUGH. Thomas lord Burrough had issue William, who had issue Henry eldest son, slain by sir Thomas Holcroft near Kingston, 1578, and Thomas lord Burrough, deputy of Ireland, and sir John Burrough, slain by sir John Gilbert, 1594. Thomas lord Burrough had issue Robert lord Burrough, who died a child without issue 1601, and the barony extinct. The first Thomas had issue besides Edward and William sir Thomas Burrough, who died, S. P., and Henry father of Nicholas, who had issue sir John Burrough (ut creditur) slain at Rees.*

21. BRAY (sir Edmund) made baron 21 Hen. VIII. and had issue John lord Bray, who died without issue, and so the barony and line became extinct; but he had six sisters. [The abeyance was terminated in 1839 in favour of Sarah Otway Cave.]

22. WALTER HUNGERFORD, made baron of Hatsbury 28 Hen. VIII., was beheaded for a [detestable crime].

23. ST. JOHN. William Paulet was created lord

* [This account is extremely different from that of modern peerages.-EDD.]

1

St. John of Basing 30 Hen. VIII., and made earl of Wiltshire 3 Edw. VI., and 5 Edw. VI. marquis of Winchester, who had issue John marquis, who had issue William marquis, who had issue William marquis, father of William lord St. John, who died S. P. and of John now marquis. [From William, fourth marquis, the present marquis is descended.]

24. SIR JOHN RUSSELL. [See below.]

25. WILLIAM PARR. [See Appendix II.] Leonard lord Gray, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, holdeth a parliament in Ireland on the 1st of May 28 Hen. VIII. at Dublin, wherein he passeth an act for the suppressing of abbeys.' In the 32nd of the king he is called home and sent to the Tower, and on the 25th of June, 33 Hen., he was to be arraigned in the King's Bench at Westminster, and to be tried by a jury of knights: being no lord of parliament, but confessing the indictment, he had his judgment, and was beheaded at Tower-hill the third day following ; a man of singular valour, that had formerly served his prince and country most honourably in France and Ireland.8

Now I labour in observing the particulars, seeing the whole body of the baronage is since that fallen so much from their ancient lustre, magnitude, and estimation. I that about fifty years ago did behold with what great respect, observance, and distance principal men of countries applied themselves to

7 Chron. of Ireland, p. 100.
8 STOW, 32 and 33 Hen. VIII.

some of the meanest barons, and so with what familiarity inferior gentlemen often do accost many of these of our times, cannot but wonder either at the declination of the one or at the arrogance of the other. But I remember what an eminent divine once said in a sermon: he compared honour among dignities to gold, the heaviest and most precious metal; but gold (said he) may be beaten so thin as the very breath will blow it away; so honour may be dispersed so popularly, that the reputation of it will be pretermitted.

To say what I observe herein, as the nobility spoiled God of His honour by pulling those things from Him, and communicating them to lazy and vulgar persons; so God, to requite them, hath taken the ancient honours of nobility, and communicated them to the meanest of the people, to shopkeepers, taverners, tailors, tradesmen, burghers, brewers, and graziers and it may be supposed that as Constantine the Great, seeing the inconvenience of the multitude of Comites of his time, distinguished them, as Eusebius reporteth,' into three degrees, making the latter far inferior to the former; so may it one day come to pass among these of our times; and it shall not want some precedent of our own to the like purpose.'

9 De Vita Const. 1. IV. c. i.

1 Vide Glossarium, in voc. Comes, p. 109.

SECTION VI.

What hath happened to the Crown itself.

It now remaineth to shew how the lands themselves, thus pulled from the Church, have thriven with the crown, and in the hands of the king, his heirs and successors: truly no otherwise than the archbishop I spake of so long since foretold. For

they have melted and dropt away from the crown like snow: yet herein that snow leaves moisture to enrich the ground, but those nothing save dry and fruitless coffers; for now they are all gone in a manner, and little to speak of remaining for them to the treasury. For my own part I think the crown the happier that they are gone, but very unhappy in their manner of going for as Samson going out of Gaza' carried with him the gates, the bars, and posts of the city, leaving it thereby exposed to enemies weak and undefenced; so those lands going from the crown have carried away with them the very crown-lands themselves, which were in former times the glorious gates of regal magnificence, the present and ready bars of security at all necessities, and like immoveable posts or Hercules' pillars in all the transmigrations of crown and kingdom, had to our time (one thousand years and upward) remained fixed and amor tised to the sceptre. These, I say, are in effect all gone since the dissolution: the new piece hath rent away the old garment, and the title of terra regis Judges xvi. 3.

2

which in Doomsday book was generally the target in every county, is now a blank I fear in most of them.

But his majesty hath a great fee-farm reserved out of the greatest part of both of them-£40,000 a-year, they say, out of the crown-lands, and £60,000 out of the church-lands. I confess it makes a goodly sound, yet is it but froth in respect of the solid land, which is deemed to be more than ten times, if not twenty times as much; and this being but succus redditus, a sick and languishing rent, will grow daily, as our rents of assess have already done, to be of less worth as the price of lands and commodities increase and rise higher. But I hear there is........ thousand pounds a-year of the crown-lands gone without any reservation at all, and above......thousand likewise of the church-lands: and to tell the truth, which myself do well know, a great proportion of the fee-farm rents themselves are likewise aliened already. But mihi Cynthius aurem vellit, I must launch no further. [It is well known that the crown-lands were given up for an allowance in the reign of George III., when the sovereign thus became the stipendiary of the people.]

In what light king Charles viewed Abbey lands, we may learn from his celebrated vow, at a time when all hope of regaining his kingdom seemed at an end:

"I do here promise and solemnly vow, in the presence, and for the service of Almighty God, that if it shall please the Divine