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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2016
In the middle of the sixteenth century there were close ties between the families of Plowden, Englefield and Sandford. Since early in the century the Plowden family estate, Plowden Hall at Lydbury in Shropshire, had been in the possession of Humphrey Plowden, but at that time it appears to have been scarcely habitable. Humphrey Plowden and his wife lived in another house at Bishop’s Castle, which may have been Blunden Hall on the outskirts of the town; and it is probable that their eldest son, Edmund, who became the most celebrated lawyer of his day, was born there in 1518. When Humphrey Plowden died on 10 March 1558, Edmund succeeded to the family estate and he then began the repair and restoration of Plowden Hall. Among the Shropshire neighbours of the Plowdens were the Englefields, who owned large estates in the Isle of Up Rossall, near Shrewsbury. Plowden’s eldest sister, Margaret, had married Richard Sandford, an impoverished member of an old Shropshire family, and she and her husband were living at the Isle of Up Rossall on a small holding that formed part of the Englefield estates. Another of Plowden’s sisters, Jane, had married Richard Blunden who came from Bishop’s Castle, but he and his wife were then living at Burghfield, near Reading, in Berkshire. In 1569, Plowden bought property nearby which included the manor of Wokefield and other land at Stratfield Mortimer, Burghfield and Sulhampstead, and at some time he acquired an interest in Shiplake Court, the manor house at Shiplake which formed part of one of the Englefield manors in Oxfordshire.
1 Edmund Plowden, who was born in 1518, was the eldest son of Humphrey Plowden by his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of John Sturry of Down Rossall and the widow of William Wollascot. He was admitted a member of the Middle Temple in 1538, and in the Parliament which began on 5 October 1553, he sat for Wallingford in Berkshire. In 1551, he married Catherine, daughter of William Sheldon of Beoley, Worcestershire, by whom he had six children. A licence was issued on 23 February 1559 for Edmund Plowden to enter upon his lands following the death of his father (C.P.R. 1, p. 76). No adequate account of Plowden’s life exists, but see D.N.B., 45, p. 428; B. M. P. [Barbara Mary Plowden], Records of the Plowden Family (privately printed, 1887), pp. 13-32; Woolrych, H.W., Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-Law (London, 2 vols, 1869), 1, pp. 101-31Google Scholar; R. O’Sullivan, Edmund Plowden, 1518-85 (Autumn Reading, 1952, in Middle Temple Hall).
2 Blakeway, ‘Isle’, pp. 115, 119. Richard Sandford appears to have had only a life interest in his property there.
3 Richard and Jane Blunden had a son, Andrew, who followed his uncle into the law. Andrew Blunden, who was born at Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, was admitted to the Middle Temple ‘generally’ on 19 October 1566, when Edmund Plowden was Treasurer of the Inn; M.T.R. 1, p. 155. He died on 5 December 1607, aged 64, and was buried at Shiplake, Oxon. After Richard Blunden’s death, his widow, Jane, married Lewis Jones.
4 See licence for Silvester Cowper to alienate, 26 March 1569 (C.P.R. 4, no. 2404); cf. V.C.H. Berkshire, 3, 425. The manor of Wokefield is in the parish of Stratfield Mortimer which is immediately south of that of Burghfield.
5 It has not been possible to determine either the precise date or the nature of the interest in Shiplake Court which Plowden acquired. He was granted a lease of the rectory of Shiplake in 1574 (see note 66), and after his death the Queen granted to his sons and nephew a lease of, inter alia, the mansion house at Shiplake (i.e. Shiplake Court) which was described in the grant as having been formerly in the tenure or occupation of Edmund Plowden (see P.R.O., C. 66/1267, m. 39). However, in a document signed by Plowden on 20 December 1569 (S.P. 12/60/45[ii]) he was described as ‘Edmund Plowden de Shiplake in com. Oxon.’ Presumably his interest in Shiplake Court was acquired roughly contemporaneously with his purchase of the manor of Wokefield in Berkshire, not far away.
6 See V.C.H. Berkshire, 3, pp. 405-07, 409, 434, 500; Blakeway, ‘Isle’, 116, 117.
7 Cf. T. B. Trappes-Lomax, ‘The Englefields and their Contribution to the survival of the Faith in Berkshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Leicestershire’, in Biographical Studies, 1 (1951), pp. 131-48. Sir Francis Englefield’s father, Sir Thomas Englefield (who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire) had been Master of the Court of Wards and a judge of the Common Pleas; he died on 28 September 1537; see Foss, , The Judges of England (London, 9 vols, 1848-64), 5, pp. 159, 160Google Scholar, and Williams, J. Bruce, The Middle Temple Bench Book (London, 2nd ed., 1937), p. 57 Google Scholar.
8 A.P.C., 3, pp. 333, 340-6, 348-52, 508.
9 Letters patent dated 1 May 1554 (C.P.R., 1553-54, p. 249). See Hurstfield, pp. 212, 243. and Hurstfield, J., ‘Corruption and Reform under Edward VI and Mary: the Example of Wardship’, in E. H. R. 68 (1953), pp. 22–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 By letters patent dated 16 December 1554, Queen Mary granted to Englefield in tail male the Great Park of Vastern, at Wootton Bassett (C.P.R., 1553-54, p. 59). He surrendered that grant, together with other property, and by letters patent dated 4 March 1555 was granted the lordship and manor and the borough and town of Wootton Bassett, the Great and Little Parks of Vastern, and other extensive lands, to hold in tail male with remainder in tail male to his brother John (C.P.R., 1554-55, p. 52; see also the abstract of title in Wilts. R.O., 212A/37/5). The manor, including the borough of Wootton Bassett and the park of Vastern, had been granted by Henry VII to his Queen. Thereafter it formed part of the jointure of several of the wives of Henry VIII: it was granted to Catherine of Aragon in 1509, to Anne of Cleves in 1540, to Catherine Howard in 1541, and to Catherine Parr in 1544. Before the death of Catherine Parr the reversion was granted by Edward VI to Protector Somerset in whom it became vested in 1550, After Somerset’s execution in 1552, the manor was granted to John, Earl of Warwick, in 1553, and when he was attainted in 1554 it was forfeited to the crown. See V.C.H. Wiltshire, 9, p. 191.
11 See Harbison, E.H., Rival Ambassadors at the Court of Queen Mary (Princeton, 1940), pp. 62 et seq., 77, 80Google Scholar; R. Persons, ‘A Storie of Domesticali Difficulties’, (C.R.S. 2., pp. 54-57); Cal S. P. Spanish, 13, App., p. 455. Soon after the death of Queen Mary, don Gomez Suarez de Figueroa de Cordoba, Count of Feria, married Jane Dormer, who had been one of the household of Princess Mary and her devoted companion after she came to the throne. She left England for good on 30 July 1559. Feria was created a duke in 1567. For Jane Dormer and her husband, see Loomie, , ch. 4, and Clifford, H., The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, ed. Stevenson, J., London, 1887 Google Scholar (Henry Clifford was Jane Dormer’s servant).
12 E.g., C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 116.
13 A.P.C. 7, pp. 29, 30, 47; Hurstfield, pp. 244, 245. On 12 January 1559 the office was granted to Sir Thomas Parry and on 10 January 1561, after Parry’s death, to Sir William Cecil (C.P.R. 1, p. 60; 2, pp. 44, 45).
14 C.R.S. 2, p. 62.
15 Art. 42 of Magna Carta (1215) declared that, except in time of war and provided that no breach of allegiance were committed, all persons, except those under sentence of imprisonment or outlawry, might enter or leave the realm at any time either by land or sea; and art. 41 declared that all foreign merchants, unless publicly prohibited, might do so with impunity to themselves or their goods. However, the statute 5 Ric. II, stat. 1, c. 2, of 1381 (repealed by 4 Jac. I, c. 1, s. 22), restrained all persons except the great lords from leaving the realm without royal licence; see also 13 Rie. II, stat. 1, c. 20, of 1389 (repealed by the Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure Act, 1881, s. 3). See Co. Inst., 3, 178-81 (ch. 84). Englefield’s licence, dated 12 April 1559 (see C.P.R. 1, p. 54), provided that after one year he might be recalled by letters of the Queen, her ambassadors or six of the Privy Council, and permitted him to take abroad with him eight servants, eight horses, 600 oz. of plate, 100 marks in money and other necessaries.
16 Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth was a conformist, but one of his sons became a priest: cf. Wark, K.R., Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire (Chetham Soc., vol. 19 [3rd series], 1971), pp. 1, 15, 19, 175, 181Google Scholar.
17 See Sir Francis Englefields’ Case (1591), Poph. 18, at pp. 20, 21, where the substance of the deed is set out. The report refers to ‘the Lady Anne then the wife of the said Sir Francis’, presumably an error for ‘Catherine’; Englefield married Catherine Fettiplace, daughter of Sir Thomas Fettiplace of Compton Beauchamp, Berks.
18 S.P. 12/33/48(1), (C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 238); Blakeway, J.B., The Sheriffs of Shropshire (Shrewsbury, 1831), p. 222 Google Scholar. Loomie, p. 17, gave the date of the deed as 8 May 1559, which is the date of the account of the rents, annuities, etc., to be paid out of the revenues of the lands of his wife (see C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 238); the date of the deed is given as 4 May 1559 in s. 7 of 35, Eliz. I, c. 5, and in Sir Francis Englefield’s Case (1591), Poph. 18, at p. 20.
19 Throckmorton to the Queen, Bar-le-Duc, 30 September 1559 (C.S.P.F., 1558-59, 586, at p. 587).
20 For Englefield’s itinerary, see Cal. S. P. Rome, 1558-71, p. 15; C.S.P.F., 1560-61, pp. 307, 530; C.S.P.F., 1561-62, pp. 3, 27, 106, 293; C.S.P.F., 1562, p. 203.
21 Englefield to Throckmorton, Rome, 18 September 1560, and Throckmorton to Englefield, Orleans, 6 November 1560 (C.S.P.F., 1560-61, pp. 307, 308, 382).
22 Englefield to Throckmorton, Padua, 5 February 1561 (C.S.P.F., 1560-61, p. 530).
23 See Meyer, pp. 230, 239.
24 Vatican Archives, Arm. 64, vol. 28, ff. 299, 300 (old foliation), printed in Meyer, pp. 465-7. Cf. Cal. S. P. Rome, 1558-71, pp. 14-16.
25 Vatican Archives, Arm. 64, vol. 28, f. 62 (old foliation). See also vol. 28, f. 45 (old foliation), Louvain, 6 December 1562. Cf. Meyer, pp. 241, 242. Morys Clynnog (or Clenocke) had been chaplain to Cardinal Pole. He went abroad in 1560.
26 Englefield to Throckmorton, Padua, 3 March 1561, and Throckmorton to the Queen, Paris, 9 May 1561 (C.S.P.F., 1561-62, pp. 3, 106). Later in the year Englefield acknowledged his debt to Cecil for the efforts which the Secretary had made on his behalf; see Throckmorton to Cecil, Paris, 9 October 1561 (C.S.P.F., 1561-62, p. 363).
27 See grant to Robert Dudley, K.G., 23 February 1562 (C.P.R., 2, p. 310). He was created Baron Denbigh and Earl of Leicester in 1564. The office of Constable of Windsor Castle, etc., had been granted to Englefield by letters patent dated 10 October 1554 (C.P.R., 1553-54, p. 173).
28 The Queen to Englefield, Westminster, 10 May 1562, and Cecil to Englefield, Westminster, 11 May 1562 (C.S.P.F., 1562, pp. 25, 31); and see the preamble to the statute 35 Eliz. I, c. 5.
29 See Francis Peyto to Throckmorton, Termonde, 29 May 1562 (C.S.P.F., 1562, p. 60).
30 Englefield to the Queen, Bruges, 31 May 1562 (C.S.P.F., 1562, p. 65).
31 Francis Peyto to Throckmorton, Louvain, 22 June 1562 (C.S.P.F, 1562, p. 113). With this letter Peyto (or Peto) enclosed copies of the letters written to Englefield by the Queen and Cecil on 10 May and 11 May respectively, and of Englefield’s letter to the Queen dated 31 May 1562. Lady Knollys was the wife of Sir Francis Knollys who was then Vice-Chamberlain of the Household; she was a kinswoman of the Queen.
32 See anonymous letter to the Queen, London, 24 July 1562, in which the writer said that he had conveyed letters to Englefield and held treasonable conversation with Englefield’s servant, John Payne (C.S.P.D., 1548-80, p. 203).
33 See C.P.R. 2, p. 523 (the Commissioners for Berkshire were Sir Henry Neville, John Winchecombe, Griffin Curtis and James Longworth, and for Wiltshire Sir John Thynne, Henry Brunchorn, Henry Sherrington and John Stockman, or any two of them; each commission was returnable in the Exchequer not later than 13 June 1563). Cf. Sir John Mason to Sir Thomas Challoner (ambassador in Spain), Greenwich, 19 July 1563 (C.S.P.F., 1563, p. 463); and the two documents dated 13 July 1562, listing the manors, lands, etc., in Berkshire and Wiltshire of which Englefield was seized in his own or his wife’s right, and listing the manors, lordships and hundreds held by him in right of his wife (C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 227) Sir Henry Neville was granted, in 1572, the office of seneschal of the manor of Sonning, and other rights, formerly held by Sir Francis Englefield; see letters patent dated 14 November 1972 (P.R.O., L.R. 1/98, f. 172).
34 Sequestration was an important part of the procedure of the Court of Chancery; see Jones, W.J., The Elizabethan Court of Chancery (Oxford, 1967), 302-04Google Scholar. Commissions of sequestration were often directed to country gentlemen in the commission of the peace, to mayors of boroughs, and to officials such as the chamberlain of London (Jones, op. cit., 303).
35 C.P.R. 2, pp. 501, 604. On 18 November 1562, Alexander Clerke was inducted to the vicarage of Shiplake, Oxon., on the presentation of the patron of the living, Sir Francis Englefield. James Elys (or Ellis) was inducted in April 1565, but it is not clear by whom the presentation was made; cf. Climenson, Emily J., History of Shiplake, Oxon. (London, 1894), p. 405 Google Scholar.
36 See the recitals in the order to the treasurer and others, dated 27 March 1571 (C.P.R. 5, no. 1687), cited in note 54; the Berkshire commission was executed by only three of the commissioners (Neville, Winchecombe and Curtis), and they took into the Queen’s hands the manors of Englefield, Tidmarsh, Tilehurst, South Morton, East Ilsley, Sindlesham, Bradfield, Sulhampstead, Brimpton, Speenhamland, Hartridge, Ashhampstead and Streatley, and other lands; the Wiltshire commissioners took into the Queen’s hands the manor of Wootton Bassett and the borough there, and other lands.
37 Elizabeth I to Philip II, King of Spain, 25 February 1568 (C.S.P.F., 1566-68, pp. 419, 420; draft in Cecil’s handwriting). See also Strype, Annals of the Reformation, 1, p. 410; 2, p. 27.
38 C.P.R. 3, no. 762. The manors granted to Lady Englefield were stated to be Sherevenham Salopp, Compton Beauchamp and Stanford Dingley, and all other manors and lands in Sherevenham Salopp, Compton Beauchamp, Stanford, Farringdon, Bawkin and Bray which Sir Francis held in her right. On 11 January 1566, at Lady Englefield’s request, those manors were granted to Nicholas St John and George Fettiplace (her brother); see C.P.R. 3, no. 2152.
39 This was permitted by the terms of his licence to go overseas; see C.P.R. 1, p. 54, and note 15. Cf. Hurstfield, p. 245.
40 He was in receipt of the pension in 1575; in a list of English exiles drawn up in that year, it is stated that ‘Sir Francis Inglefield, knight, abideth commonly at Bruxelles; somme tyme he is at Machlin. He hath his owld pencion still, which he had beinge councellour in Q. Maries tyme, of the K. of Spaigne, by moneth. … He rideth allwayes with 4 good horse.’ (S.P, 12/105/10; C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 500).
41 For Andrew Blunden, see note 3.
42 The authority for this is Blunden’s MS: ‘I might recken hit for a singular benefitt or pleasure that when her Maiestie had uppon Sir Frauncis [Englefield] his disloyalty in not returninge into England accordinge to the proclamacion in that behalfe made forfaited the issues & profitts of his lands, that Mr Plowden for many yeares together gave sir Frauncis xxtie pounds annuity, procured sundry other anuyties for him, was the meane to gett from the Lord Treasurer [Marquess of Winchester] and Sir Walter Mildmay [Chancellor of the Exchequer] an estate to Mrs Englefild in the houses and demeanes of Englefild and Sindlsham without which she could not have well lived, …’. The first part of Blunden’s MS is badly mutilated, large portions of the pages being torn off, so that the nature and date of the document cannot be determined with certainty. What remains is largely a justification of the writer and of Edmund Plowden in their dealings with the Englefields and was written, presumably, as a result of the quarrel that broke out between the Englefields, Fittons and Sandfords in which Blunden took a considerable part. As Blunden referred to Richard Sandford’s death (p. 138) the MS must have been written after 10 February 1588, when Sandford died.
43 Englefield to the Queen, Termonde, August 1563 (B.M., Add. MS 33271, f. 10).
44 Englefield to Cecil, Antwerp, 8 April 1564; Englefield to the Council, Antwerp, 8 April 1564 (C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 238).
45 The pension, payable out of the revenues of the Low Countries, was granted by a document dated 30 October 1568, addressed to the Duke of Alba (as ‘chief of our Council of State, Head Major Domo, Governor, Lieutenant and Captain General in my Low Countries’) which ordered payment of a pension of 1,000 florins ‘of twenty placas each one’ (a placa was a small coin which circulated in the Low Countries during the Spanish rule); see Archives of St Alban’s Coll., Valladolid, Serie II, Legajo 6 (a translation of the document is printed in Harrison, A.A., ‘Sir Francis Englefield’, in Dublin Review, 119 (1896), 34–76, at pp. 50, 51Google Scholar, where it is wrongly dated 1576). For an account of Sir Francis Englefield’s life as an exile, see Loomie, ch. 2.
46 The statute 32 Hen. VIII, c. 1 (1540), controlled the disposition of property by will and preserved the king’s feudal rights of wardship and primer seisin. In the same year the Court of the King’s Wards was set up by the statute 32 Hen. VIII, c. 46, to control the King’s wards and the administration of their property. In 1542, by the statute 33 Hen. VIII, c. 22, the business of livery of seisin was transferred to the court which then became known as the Court of Wards and Liveries. As to wardship and marriage, generally, see Holdsworth, , History of English Law, iii, 61–66 Google Scholar; and for the Court of Wards, see Bell, H., An Introduction to the History and Records of the Court of Wards and Liveries (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar.
47 Blunden’s MS, p. 125 (here, as elsewhere, when quotations are made from this document, punctuation has been supplied and contractions silently expanded). The Earl of Pembroke to whom reference is made was William Herbert (c. 1506-70) who was the first Earl of the Herbert line of the second creation. Although an intimate of King Philip of Spain during Mary’s reign he became, after Elizabeth’s accession, a supporter of Cecil and the Protestant party; in 1569, two years after his good turn to Plowden, he was arrested for supporting the scheme for the marriage of the Duke of Norfolk to Mary Queen of Scots, but managed to clear himself.
48 Blunden’s MS, pp. 125, 126.
49 C.P.R. 4, no. 1459.
50 Cf. Blunden’s MS, p. 126: ‘When Mr Plowden had obtained this [the wardship], how carefully he brought up younge Englefild in learninge and vertue, what paines, labour and travaile he tooke in quieting his causes and matters in lawe, what toiles and suits in lawe he had sundry yeares together for Tottenhoe [i.e. Tattenhoe in Bucks.] beinge then for the most parte litigiouse in lawe, how he to his very great charge he quieted the same duringe the mynority of yonge Mr Englefild, if they shuld deney it beinge now fresh in memorie wold torne them to great discredit, I dare boaldly affirme that in this one matter he did more benefitt the yonge gentleman then hee or his uncle ever did to Mr Plowden.’
51 Blakeway, ‘Isle’, 115, 116.
52 Cf. Blakeway, ‘Isle’, 113, 114.
53 Blunden’s MS, 128.
54 Order dated 27 March 1571 (C.P.R. 5, no. 1687). I have been unable to find any confirmation for Father Loomie’s statement (The Spanish Elizabethans, p. 21) that the Queen granted Englefield’s estates to the Earl of Leicester in November 1570; nor for Brigadier Trappes-Lomax’s statement (Biog. Stud., 1, pp. 132, 141) that the Queen granted the manor of Englefield to Sir Francis Walsingham about September 1586. It is true, however, that in the 1570’s several would-be owners of Englefield property sought the help of courtiers, including Leicester, to achieve their ambition: for instance, in 1572 a client of Leicester professed himself ready to perform any service in his power and solicited a lease of part of Englefield’s lands (Robert Hogan to Leicester, 26 June 1572; C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 447); in 1575, Griffin Curtis sought Burghley’s help to obtain the reversion to some copyholds, part of Englefield’s lands, for one William Smith (Curtis to Lord Burghley, 7 September 1575; H.M.C., Salisbury M SS, 2, p. 106); and in 1578 Humphrey Burdett wrote to John Baptist Castiglione, a Groom of the Privy Chamber, asking that, on the expiration of the lease of the inn at Ilsley the premises might be assigned to John Chandler and his wife who were old servants of the house of Englefield, and Burghley intervened, but the sitting tenant, Laurence Brooker (or Broker), put up a strenuous resistance (Humphrey Burdett to John Baptist, Castiliian, and Roger Young, 20 July 1578; and Baptiste, M., ‘Castilion’, and Young, Roger to Burghley, Lord, 15 October 1578: H.M.C., Salisbury MSS, 2, pp. 190-1, 215-16Google Scholar), which appears to have been successful as he was probably still the tenant of the inn, the Sign of the Lamb, when the Queen made a grant of the land in 1589 (cf. P.R.O., C. 66/1334, m. 1).
55 The session ended on 29 May 1571. For the parliamentary history of this session, see Neale, J.E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments: 1559-1581 (London, 1953), 177–240 Google Scholar.
56 See 13 Eliz. I, c. 1 [treasons] (Statutes of the Realm, 4, p. 526); 13 Eliz. I, c. 2 [bulls from Rome] (Statutes of the Realm, 4, p. 528); 13 Eliz. I, c. 16 [attainders] (Statutes of the Realm, 4, pp. 549-52).
57 13 Eliz. I, c. 3 (Statutes of the Realm, 4, p. 531).
58 See note 15.
59 Even before this statute had been passed steps had been taken to secure the property of the exiles; on 21 November 1570, the Queen instructed Lord Keeper Bacon to issue commissions for inquiry as to persons who had departed the realm without licence, and as to what goods and lands they had at their departure (C.S.P.D., 1547-80, p. 396).
60 It was provided that the act should not extend ‘to the Right Honorable the Lady Jane Duches of Feria, nowe being in Spayne, Daughter unto Sir William Dormer Knight, nor unto the Lady Jane Dormer Wydowe Graundmother unto the said Duchesse’. For Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, see note ll. The Parliament in which this Act was passed was the only Elizabethan one in which Jane Dormer’s father sat (Commons Journals, 1, p. 83), but it seems likely that this special provision in her favour was due to her relatives in the House of Lords, since the Journals of that House record that the Act was read a third time and passed on 19 May 1571, ‘with a new Proviso, and certain Amendments put unto it’ (Lords Journals, i, 690); see Loomie, p. 102, note 18.
61 An estate pur autre vie was an estate in land which was held during the life of another person who was known as the cestui que vie. It was the lowest estate of freehold. The holder of such an estate was a tenant pur autre vie.
62 14 Eliz, I, c, 6 (Statutes of the Realm, 4, pp. 598, 599).
63 An ‘inquest of office’ was an inquiry made by the sovereign’s officer, sheriff, coroner or escheator, either virtute officii or by writ sent to them for that purpose, or by commissioners specially appointed, concerning any matter that entitled the sovereign to possession of lands or tenements, goods or chattels; the finding of a jury in an inquest of office of a fact which entitled the crown to such possession was known as ‘office found’.
64 See Blakeway, ‘Isle’, pp. 113, 114.
65 Ibid., (where, however, some inaccurate dates are given). In 1573, the Queen granted the two Englefield manors at South Morton in Berkshire to Thomas Cordrey, who became a lunatic in 1574 and died in 1587, when the South Morton manors were leased to Humphrey Foster for twenty-one years (see V.C.H., Berkshire, 3, p. 501).
66 See P.R.O., E. 310/22/119, m. 42. Miss Climenson (in her History of Shiplake, Oxon, pp. 202, 203) printed an inaccurate and incomplete version of this document, with the Latin portions translated into English. Miss Norsworthy, citing this document, stated that in 1573 the Queen granted a lease of both Shiplake Court and Shiplake Rectory to Edmund Plowden, but the document only refers to Shiplake Rectory and its vicarage house; see Norsworthy, L.L. ‘The Plowden interest in Oxfordshire’, in Trans. Shropshire Arch. Soc., 52 (1947-48), pp. 179-90, at p. 181Google Scholar. The discrepancy in the dates appears to be due to confusion between Old Style and New Style. Other grants of Englefield property in Oxfordshire and Berkshire were made at this time, and may be followed in the particulars for leases in P.R.O., E. 310/22 and 23.
67 See Loomie, pp. 21-23; Cleary, J.M., ‘Dr Morys Clynnog’s Invasion Projects of 1575-76’, in Recusant History, 8 (1966), pp. 300-22, especially pp. 310-12CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the Memorial of Allen and Englefield for the Invasion of England [February 1576], printed in C.R.S. 58, pp. 284-92.
68 Blunden’s MS, p. 134. By this time Englefield was seriously troubled by defective eyesight; see Englefield to Roger Baynes, Madrid, 10 May, 1596 (extract printed in Knox, T.F., ed., Letters and Memorials of William Cardinal Allen (London, 1882), p. 137, note 1Google Scholar): ‘Being nowe more then 24 yeares synce myselfe could write or reade, and having in that tyme treated with so many greate personages of matters important by the eies and pennes of such servantes as I trusted, …’.
69 Thomas Wotton was a merchant and citizen of London who owned landed property at Broughton Malherb and elsewhere in Kent; he was a Justice of the Peace in Kent and one of the Commissioners for Rochester Bridge; in 1572, he was appointed an Ecclesiastical Commissioner (see, e.g., C.P.R. 2, pp. 37, 53, 438; 5, nos 88, 199, 1854, 1866, 1894, 2161, 3093).
70 Blunden’s MS, pp. 156, 157 (additional matter printed at the end of the MS).
71 A remainder is that remnant of an estate in lands or tenements which is expectant upon a particular estate created together with it at one time (cf. Co. Litt., 93a). For example, if A., an owner in fee simple, grants land to B. for life, and after B.’s death to C. and his heirs, C.’s interest is termed a remainder in fee expectant on the death of B. A ‘vested remainder’ is one that is ready to come into possession immediately the prior estate determines; a ‘contingent remainder’ is one that is so limited as to depend on an event or condition which may never happen or be performed, or which may not happen or be performed until after the determination of the prior estate.
72 See Sir Francis Englefield’s Case (1591), Poph. 18; Englefield’s Case (1591), 7 Co. Rep. 11b; and the preamble to the statute 35 Eliz. I, c. 5 (1592), ‘An Acte confyrming the Quenes Title to the Lands of Sir Frauncis Englefield’ (Statutes of the Realm, 4, p. 849).
73 See, e.g. the draft of a letter by Humphrey Sandford to Sir Francis Englefield, probably written soon after 25 April 1583 (printed in Blakeway, ‘Isle’, at p. 157): ‘He [young Francis Englefield] semythe very desirous to knowe and to be acquainted withe some of his fathers kinred, wherof he knowethe not any other in Barks but only Mr Burdet, nor well acquiented nor conversante withe any of theym in any other place by reason he hathe hitherto beene conversant as a scoller chefely in Mr Plowden’s house [presumably Shiplake Court] and in Oxford, til lately for a smalle tyme at London, nor withe any other of his mothres kinred but only her selfe and her brother Francys [Fitton].’
74 M.T.R., 1, p. 247. Francis Moore (or More) was the son of Edward Moore of East Ilsley, Berks (Ilsley was an Englefield manor). Francis Moore became an associate bencher of the Middle Temple in 1603, a serjeant-at-law in 1614, and was knighted in 1616; he was the author of Moore’s Reports (see J. Bruce Williams, The Middle Temple Bench Book, p. 92). It is of interest to note on 12 February 1627, two of young Francis Englefield’s sons, Anthony and William, were admitted to membership of the Middle Temple (M.T.R., 2, p. 717). The family of Englefield were no strangers to the Middle Temple: young Francis’s grandfather, Sir Thomas Englefield, became a bencher of the Inn in 1520, and his great-grandfather, also Sir Thomas Englefield, had been a bencher some time before 1500 (see J, Bruce Williams, op. cit., pp. 49, 57).
75 Blunden’s MS, p. 126.
76 Francis Fitton, one of the sons of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, subsequently became a priest. He went to Douai in 1599 (under the alias of Philip Bateman) and was ordained at Arras on 1 April 1600, and was almost immediately sent back to England; see G. Anstruther, The Seminary Priests, Elizabethan, 1558-1603, p. 117 (and references there cited); Wark, Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire, 114, 175; Gillow, 2, p. 345.
77 Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montague (1526-92).
78 Le. Humphrey Burdett, the steward of Sir Francis Englefield; he married Susan Englefield.
79 Richard Sandford had, it appears, only a life estate.
80 Humphrey Sandford (who was born in 1543) married Anne, daughter of Francis Lascelles, and sister of Sir Thomas Lascelles of Brakenburgh, Yorkshire; see Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry ((17th ed.; London, 1952), p. 2243 Google Scholar.
81 Blunde’s MS, pp. 126-29; the quotation is on pp. 128, 129. For the date of young Englefield’s promise, see ibid., 148. Plowden appears to have been indulging in a rather heavy leg-pull.
82 Francis Throckmorton was a nephew of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton but, unlike his uncle, was a Catholic.
83 C.S.P.D., 1581-90, pp. 130, 188.
84 Cf. Black, J.B., The Reign of Elizabeth (Oxford, 2nd ed., 1959), p. 363 Google Scholar, And see H.M.C., Salisbury MSS, 13, pp. 273-4: in the course of the trial of Francis Throckmorton, Sir John Popham, the Attorney General, who was prosecuting, stated that ‘about four years’ before the trial Englefield had advised the King of Spain to invade England; Popham here seems to be converting Englefield’s hopes into a statement of actual fact, since at the time indicated by Popham there was no firm Spanish plan for the invasion of England, although the English exiles, including Englefield, were doing their utmost to persuade the Spaniards to invade England (cf. Loomie, pp.41, 42). In a letter from Angel Angeliny to an unknown correspondent, written in May 1584 and intercepted (the version in P.R.O. is a decipher in Thomas Phelippes’ handwriting), the writer stated: ‘Last Thursday Throgmorton was sentenced to be hanged. The most important thing they charged him with was a letter which they say Sir Francis Englefield sent to Fu [a person whose identity is unknown] in which he said that he had spoken with the King [of Spain], who had promised him aid, and that musters should be made.’ (C.S.P.F., 1583-84, p. 501). For the trial, see also C.S.P.D., 1581-90, p. 179.