Sir Basil Brooke Miles, 1623, died 1646. + Etheldreda, d. and sole heir of Edmund Boudendil.” Sir Basil was one of the sporting friends whom Giffard of Chillington drew around him at his housewarming on the border of Brewood Forest, a house which subsequently gave shelter to the Earl of Derby and King Charles the First. It was built nominally as a hunting-seat, but really for purposes of concealment; and the site on the bolder of two counties, deep in the recesses of woods, traversed by no public roads, was exceedingly suitable. It is said that on the completion of the building the owner invited a few friends to dinner, to celebrate the occasion, and amongst them Sir Basil Brooke, of the Court House, Madeley, who had recently returned from Italy, and who on being requested by his host to supply a name for the place, suggested Boscobel, or Bos co Bello; and this was considered so appropriate, from the prospect it commanded of the beautiful woods around, that it is said to have been at once adopted. It will be seen from what we have previously stated that the family of Brooke continued to reside at Madeley till 1706, when, according to the benefaction-table in the church, Basil Brooke by will bequeathed the sum of £40, and for a further sum of £30, paid him by Audley Bowdler and eight other parties, sold three several cottages or tenements, with gardens and yards, at Madeley Wood, for the use of the poor. {40} The next tenant of the Court appears to have been the first Abraham Darby, for we find that he died there, after which time we find no tenants of more importance than the Purtons and the Triggers, who were farmers, and held the land around. Thus early, even in Madeley, did the great owners of the soil—who merely tilled the surface, and scarcely that—give place to miners and ironmakers who knew how to win wealth from beneath. With regard to this fine old mansion itself, having about it the symbols of ancient and distinguished Shropshire families, and associated at still earlier periods with the history of the wealthy monastery of St. Milburgh, it is fast going to decay. The last of the long and distinguished line of Wenlock priors lived and died here, as did the first great Shropshire ironmaster, the first Abraham Darby, afterwards, and one almost regrets that the wish of the late James Foster, who purchased the property, to repair and restore it, was not carried out. The temptation to get the mines underneath it, however, proved too strong: the whole has been undermined, and from attacks below and above, with all the usual elements of decay at work, must ere long disappear, rich as it is in associations of the past.