Mr. Robinson, in the “Vitruvius Britannicus,” relates all that is known regarding the erection of the house. “The castle, embattled by license to Bishop Langton, in the reign of Edward I., was the occasional residence of successive proprietors. Sir William de la Pole, and Margaret Peveril, his wife, in 1358, dated a feoffment of their manors of Ashley and Little Brington at “Castell Assheby;” but when acquired by the family of Grey de Ruthyn, in the fifteenth century, its proximity to their patrimonial seat at Yardley Hastings, would naturally lead to its partial and, ultimately, entire desertion. A century had scarcely elapsed before Leland thus recorded its desolate condition. “Almost in the middle way betwixt Welingborow and Northampton I passed Assheby, more than a mile off on the left hand, wher hathe bene a castle, that now is clene downe, and is made but a _septum_ for bestes.” By a survey in 1565, it appears that George Carleton, Esq., under a lease granted by Sir William Compton for sixty-one years, held the site of the manor and farm of “Asheby David,” with all the demesne lands, “whereunto pertaineth the old ruined castle.” Camden, in his “Britannica,” says:--“From hence (Northampton) men maketh haste away by Castle Ashby, where Henry L. Compton began to build a faire sightly house.” The commencement of the present stately edifice may, therefore, be safely dated between the expiration of the lease in 1583 and the death of this nobleman in 1589. One of the requests of the rich heiress of Spencer to her lord was, to “build up Ashby House.” And the original pile may be presumed to have been completed when King James I. and his queen favoured its noble owner with a visit in 1605. The dates of 1624 on the east front and on the two turrets, must have reference to the subsequent alterations and erections by Inigo Jones. [Illustration]