MEMORIALS OF THE COUNTIES OF ENGLAND General Editor: REV. P. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A., F.R.S.L., F.R.H. MEMORIALS OF OLD LINCOLNSHIRE [Illustration] [Illustration: LINCOLN CATHEDRAL, EVENING. _E. R. Taylor pinx._ _Andre & Sleigh Sc._] MEMORIALS OF OLD LINCOLNSHIRE EDITED BY E. MANSEL SYMPSON, M.A., M.D. _Author of “Lincoln” (Ancient Cities) Co-Editor of “Lincolnshire Notes and Queries”_ WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS [Illustration] LONDON GEORGE ALLEN & SONS, RUSKIN HOUSE RATHBONE PLACE 1911 [_All Rights Reserved_] Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL BROWNLOW LORD-LIEUTENANT OF LINCOLNSHIRE THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY KIND PERMISSION PREFACE Lincolnshire, perhaps, is known most widely as the second largest county in England, as pre-eminent in agriculture and stock-breeding on wold, heath, marsh, and fen, as well to the fore in the manufacture of agricultural and other machinery, as possessing the largest fishing-port in Europe (Grimsby), and as being associated with “The Handicap.” But, apart from all these, she can boast of very many attractions for the traveller and the antiquary. Flat and low though her shores may be, yet there is a fascination in the great extent of “yellow sands”; and there is a recompense for the level plain of marsh or fen in the vast expanse of sky, where “The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn,” are seen at their finest. And the views are wonderful: from Alkborough, over the junction of the Trent, the Ouse, and the Humber; from Lincoln, over the plateau eastwards to the wolds, or westwards over the valley of the Trent to the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire hills; or eastwards, from the edge of the “high wold,” over the great plain “That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main.” The county possesses the birthplaces of Newton, Tennyson, Henry of Bolingbroke, Archbishop Whitgift, and John Wesley. She has produced explorers like Franklin, and heroes of romance and reality like Sir John Bolles (the hero of the Spanish Lady ballad) and Captain John Smith of Willoughby (who was rescued by Pocahontas). St. Botolph, St. Guthlac, and St. Gilbert of Sempringham were all Lincolnshire in origin and life, and the latter founded the only monastic order (that of the Gilbertines) which originated in this country.