The castles and abbeys of England; Vol. 1 of 2: from the national records, early chronicles, and other standard authorsBeattie, William
History
The castles and abbeys of England; Vol. 1 of 2: from the national records, early chronicles, and other standard authors
Beattie, William
Abbeys -- England; Castles -- England
Having then fallen into the hands of Oliver, the castle and manor were
divided amongst several of his officers, who, paying no respect either
to the splendour of the edifice, the richness of the furniture, or the
beauty of the landscape in which the castle was embosomed, regarded it
only in a pecuniary point of view; and apprehensive, probably, that
their tenure was very insecure, made haste to convert everything
available into money. They stript the castle of its princely
decorations, cut down the timber, drained the lake, and demolished the
very walls for the sake of the materials. They threw open the park and
chase, killed and dispersed the deer, and subdivided the whole into
distinct farms, the rental of which they continued to receive and
appropriate to their own use till the Restoration. These officers were
Colonel Hawkesworth, Major Creed, Captain Phipps, Captain Ayres, Captain
Smith, Captain Matthews, and four others, of the names of Hope, Palmer,
Clark, and Coles. “These new lords of the manor,” says the old record of
that day, “tyrannize and govern the parish as they list. They pull down
and demolish the castle, cut down the King’s woods, destroy his parks
and chase, and divide the lands into farms amongst themselves, and build
houses for themselves to dwell in. Hawkesworth seats himself in the
gate-house of the castle, and drains the famous pool, consisting of
several hundred acres of ground. Hope and Palmer enclose a fourth part
of the commons, called the King’s woods, from the inhabitants, and take
it as their own free estate. In 1657 these petty lords, attended by some
of the inhabitants of the parish, took a survey, and gave in an estimate
of all the lands within the liberties of the said manor, and in the
following year, on the fourteenth of June, made their perambulation, and
went their procession round the bounds of the parish. But, on the
twenty-seventh of May, 1660, King Charles the Second came to enjoy his
own dominions, and among others the lands and manor of Kenilworth.
Hereupon these soldiers soon scampered away, when the daughters of Lord
Carey, Earl of Monmouth, intercede and prevail to hold that said manor,
as their father before them, by lease or leases from the Crown.” But
this having nearly expired, he granted the reversion of the whole manor
to Laurence, Lord Hyde, second son to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, whom he
created Baron Kenilworth and Earl of Rochester. On the death of this
nobleman in 1711, he was succeeded in his estates and titles by Henry
his only son, who, at the death of Edward, the third Earl of Clarendon,
in 1723, succeeded to that title also. But leaving no male issue at his
decease in 1753, his grand-daughter, the Lady Charlotte Capel--daughter
of William Capel, Earl of Essex, and the Lady Jane Hyde, his wife, then
dead--became the representative of the Hyde family, and, in pursuance of
the will of the late earl, took the name and arms of Hyde. This lady
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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