[417] See _Athenaeum_, Feb., 1896, p. 190, and my little volume on "Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries" (Stratford-on-Avon Press), p. 48. [418] State Papers, Dom. Series, Elizabeth, clxiii., 21 _et seq._ [419] Accounts of Treasurer of the Chamber, 1583-84. [420] Burke makes an extraordinary error in stating that Shakespeare's mother was a daughter of Sir Edward Arden, of Park Hall ("Hist. Landed Gentry," edition 1882, vol. i., p. 34). Now, Edward was never knighted, and must have been born about the same year as Mary, daughter of Robert Arden, who married John Shakespeare. [421] The Accounts of the Wardens of the Tower mention Francis Arden's board, up to June 24, 1585, and he sued shortly after for Pedmore, on the death of Sir George Digby, to whom it had been granted (State Papers, Dom. Series, Elizabeth, ccii., 40). [422] State Papers, Dom. Series, Elizabeth, clxxi. 35; also Patents, Elizabeth, 28, c. 10. [423] Dugdale's "Warwickshire," 927. I find also several pensions allowed by the Crown to a Robert Arden, early in James I. These may refer to Robert of Park Hall (Book of Patents, xi. 212). [424] Inventory of his property is at Lichfield, where also is that of his wife, Lady Dorothy Arden, 1635-36, and will of his son, Robert Arden. [425] Ashmolean MSS., 36, f. 125: "Robert Arden, Colonel and Sheriff of Warwickshire." An elegy upon his death in Oxford of small-pox, August 22, 1643: "Seeing these tapers and this solemn night," etc. Signed, "Peter Halstead." [426] She was a Lady of the Privy Chamber to the Queen-mother, and survived her husband. See the burial of her daughter, Mrs. Henrietta Maria Stanhope, October 23, 1674. CHAPTER II THE ARDENS OF LONGCROFT