They claimed descent from a Saxon thane, Thurstan “de Bosco,” and “boscus” is Latin for “wood,” or “coppice.” This confirms the above meaning. The heraldic device of the family was “three asses coughing” (Guillim’s “Heraldry,” 1794), and the name, in some of their branches, is still pronounced like Ass-_coff_ and not Ass-coe. They have been distinguished in church, court, and camp, acquiring large property in Lincolnshire, and allying themselves with some of our oldest families, the Tailbois, Brandons, Hilyards, St. Pauls, Kymes, Clintons, Heneages, Foljambes, Saviles, Boucheretts, &c. They gave to this county, what the county may well be proud of, Anne Askew, who died at the stake, a Martyr for the Protestant faith, at Smithfield, 16 July, 1546. {115b} A Walter Ascoughe, and Henry his son, are named among those who succeeded to parts of the former Revesby Abbey estates, when the Duke of Suffolk’s family became extinct. (Dugdale’s “Baronage” ii., 300). And this family is still established in various parts of the kingdom, the name surviving in all ranks of life. Few families are without their humbler connections. For instance, in the case of the parish with which we are now concerned, we find in its former records a “Robert de Tumbi” who was a Bec, or a Bernak, or a Cromwell, lord of many a manor, and also a “William de Tumbi” who was a bondman of John Bec, lord of the manor, whose “body and chattels,” the said John reserves to himself, while giving the land on which the said William labours, to the Abbey of Kirkstead. (Charter of John Bec. Harley, MS. 45, H. 13). So in modern times, the late lord of the manor of Tumby, Sir Henry James Hawley, Bart., married, as his first wife, Miss Elizabeth Askew, in the south of England, while, in a humbler sphere in life, we find a small farmer, in the person of Mr. Thomas Askew, residing in Kirkby-on-Bain; an illustration in a new sense of Shakespeare’s saying, “a touch of nature makes the world akin” (“Troilus and Cressida” act. iii., sc. iii.) As these notes have now reached a considerable length, we will briefly notice the Church of St. Mary, at Kirkby; and indeed, it barely deserves more than a brief notice, as it has no claims to architectural beauty.