When Dr. Gilbert Sheldon was appointed to the bishoprick of London, after the restoration, he claimed the manor, _and rectory_ of Paddington. If he made his claim good, which he appears to have done, it is quite evident that Sir Oliver St. John stood in his former position with regard to this estate; and although he might not have had the opportunity to renew his lease between the restoration and his death, which took place in 1662, (and not in 1661, as is asserted both by Lysons and Collins vide Peerage, vol. vi.), it is very evident from the directions given in his will, which is dated twenty-eighth December, 1661, that he was desirous of doing so. I found Sir Oliver’s will at Doctor’s Commons; it was proved on the twenty-eighth of June, 1662. He therein directs the sale of certain estates for the purpose of paying his debts, and for enabling his trustees to take another lease of the manor, “which he held of the Bishop of London in Paddington” at that time, and the lease was to be taken either for three lives, or for twenty-one years. But the new bishop had nephews, to whom, it appears he was more willing to grant a lease of this manor than to those whose ancestors had purchased it, and in whose family it had remained for upwards of a century. It would appear that Bishop Sheldon’s relatives received the profits of the manor and rectory of Paddington for nearly eighty years; but Lysons has made a mistake in stating the manor was purchased by Sir John Frederick in 1741; for in the preamble of the first Act of Parliament {50a} which I can find relative to these lands it is stated that a lease bearing date the fifth of August, 1740, was granted by Edmund (Gibson), then bishop of London, to Sir John Frederick, during the lives of Judith Jodrell, widow; John Afflick; and John Crosier. {50b} This in all probability was the date of Sir John Frederick’s first lease; and as this may be considered the starting point in the modern history of the manor and rectory of Paddington, now, _par excellence_, “The Paddington Estate,” I shall reserve what more I have to say on this subject for a future chapter. On the ninth of November, in the thirty-eighth of Henry the eighth, an inquisition was held on the property of Henry Horne, who was found to have died, seized of “one capital messuage, three other messuages or tenements, and one close of land containing by estimation six acres, with appurtenances, in Paddington, which were holden of the lord king, as of his manor of Paddington by fealty, and twelvepence rent for all services, and not in chief; and they are worth by the year three pounds ten shillings.” Escaet 38th Henry VIII.