Demonology -- Early works to 1800; Magic -- Early works to 1800; Witchcraft -- Early works to 1800
[*] My mother being a Dering, a daughter of the Thomas that was drowned
in the West Indies, when trying to reach his vessel H.M.S. _Circe_,
induces me to add, through the courtesy of Sir Edw. C. Dering, that a
portrait of this worthy is still to be seen at Surrenden Dering, and
that a family tradition has it, that preaching before her Majesty,
he had the boldness to tell her, “that she had no more controul over
her passions than an untamed heifer.” He was speedily unfrocked, and
is said to have emigrated to America, where an Edw. Dering is at this
moment the head of that branch, and a large landowner in Maine.
Returning now to Reginald’s father, Richard, the youngest of the three
sons of that Sir John who died in 1533, we find that he married Mary,
daughter of Geo. Whetenall, whose father was sheriff of Kent in 1527,
and whose family had lived for three centuries at Hextall’s Place,
near Maidstone. She survived her husband; and being remarried to Fulke
Onslow, Clerk of the Parliaments, died before him, 8th October 1582,
and was buried, as he afterwards was, in Hatfield church, Herts, where
a brass to their memory is fixed in the north wall of the chancel. Of
Richard himself nothing more is known. He probably died young, and
certainly before December 1554, his death being mentioned in the will
of his brother Sir Reginald, who died on the 16th of that month. In
this will, failing his own issue—a lapse which did not occur—he left
his real estate “unto Rainolde Scotte, son and heire of my brother
Richard Scotte, dec^{d}”, and Rainolde’s issue failing, it was devised
to a more distant branch. Hence, contrary to the table given on page
_xi_, from “The Memorials”, “Rainolde” was either the only son of
Richard, or the only son then living. The same conclusion follows from
the Inquis. post mortem of Lady Wynifred Rainsfoord, taken the 20th
March 1575/6, where Sir Thomas Scot and his brothers are said to be
co-heirs with Reynold of the lands held by her in gavelkind, the sons
having one moiety, and Reynold the other.
This Inquisition also gives Reynold’s then age as thirty-eight or more,
the words “et amplius” being, as was, usually at least, done in these
documents, attached to all the other ages mentioned. Hence he was born
in or before 1538 (not in 1541), and as, according to Wood, he entered
Hart Hall, Oxford, when about seventeen, he entered it _circa_ 1555;
the intention that he should do so having been probably entertained
by Sir Reginald, his uncle, who died 16th December 1554, and his
expenses borne by his cousin, Sir Thomas. I say probably, because we
have seen that, failing his own issue, he was named by Sir Reginald as
the next heir to the estate, and also because we know nothing of the
circumstances in which his widowed mother was left, nor as yet of the
date at which she was re-married to Onslow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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