The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the WestRogers, W. H. Hamilton (William Henry Hamilton)
History
The Strife of the Roses and Days of the Tudors in the West
Rogers, W. H. Hamilton (William Henry Hamilton)
Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603; Great Britain -- History -- Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485
And well it is so; in her tender keeping alone the memory of Bonville
is now seemingly vested, for of their former existence, residence, or
sepulture, otherwise not a vestige recalling their direct line, we
believe, remains. On the capitals of the pillars of Powderham church,
are shields displaying the _torteaux_ of Courtenay, impaling the
_mullets_ of Bonville, allusive to the marriage of Sir William
Courtenay, the Lord of Powderham, who died in 1485, with Margaret
Bonville, daughter of the noble and unfortunate victim of St. Albans,
and a further shield similarly charged, having relation to the same
alliance, is found on the capital of a pillar in Stockland church.
Beyond this, and until the girl-heiress of Shute had been many years
married, if not in her widowhood,--mementos which in due time will
engage our attention--no further trace has been discovered.
We descend from our pleasant elevation, and our steps lead us a short
distance over to what is now called Old Shute. The church stands on a
little acclivity to the left, but in addition to the tower, whose
supporting arches are of Early English type, coeval probably with the
first Bonville,--and were in being when the interesting christening
ceremony, previously recorded, took place,--there is apparently little
of the fabric that was in existence when the name was extinguished.
It is equally doubtful if any part of the present Old Shute House was
erected by them. The portion of the main fabric remaining, as also
the gate-house, are both of Elizabethan origin, and retain evidence of
having been erected by William Pole, Esq. (whose initials W. P. occur
in the spandrels of one of the doorways), who purchased the Bonville's
confiscated inheritance here of Secretary Petre, to whom Queen Mary
gave it, after the attainder and execution of the Duke of Suffolk,
last male representative of the Bonville blood.
And the mention of the name of the Duke of Suffolk brings us back
again to our little annals, and to Cicely, the girl-possessor of this
antient inheritance and a vast accumulation of other family property,
a baroness with the two titles of Bonville and Harington,--altogether
an heiress of the first magnitude.
After her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather's untimely
deaths, her mother the Lady Katharine, and her second husband Lord
Hastings, were constituted, as we have mentioned, her legal guardians,
and had custody of her estates until she was of age, which was fixed
at the mature period of sixteen. But this was considered quite a
marriageable age at that era; and which would have arrived at about
1476-7. We have also described how her stepfather Lord Hastings had
the wardship of her future husband, and so it fell out that in due
time "a convenient marriage was purveyed for her."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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