The feudal barony was held _in capite_ by the service of one barony, and consisted of 4,000 acres, with £200 yearly rental from free tenants. It was a beautiful August day in the year 1540. The reapers were in the fields about Cottingham, sickle in hand, cutting down the golden corn, and lumbering wains with solid wooden wheels, and drawn by oxen, were carrying away the sheaves to garner in the homesteads; the fruit of a thousand trees in the orchards surrounding the village hung, rich and luscious, pendant from the boughs, and ripening to perfection under the bright sunshine. The village consisted of a scattering of cross-timbered houses with wattled and mud-walled frames, latticed windows, and thatched roofs. From the midst thereof rose in proud and lofty dignity the majestic walls, turrets, and bastions of the Stutevilles, the Wakes, and now of the Holands, surrounded by a moat, which was crossed by a drawbridge, and the entrance defended by a barbican and a portcullis. Upon its battlements might be seen three or four men-at-arms, lounging lazily about, and amusing themselves by watching the passage of vessels and boats up and down the Humber. The pleasant clack of the baronial mill, and the occasional uplifted voices of the denizens of the farm-yards and pastures, alone broke the silence of the slumberous summer afternoon. In a hamlet within ken of the out-lookers on the parapets of the castle might be seen the now deserted house of the Augustinian Friars, at Haltemprice; for here no longer the Canons dropped their beads, muttered their prayers, or chanted their anthems; the ruthless hand of Henry had driven them forth upon the wide world to become supplicants for charity, alongside those who had erstwhile found succour at their gate. The priory and site had in the present year been granted to Thomas Culpepper, but he had not yet taken possession, and it lay desolate and silent, as did, at the same time, many another noble abbey and priory, scattered over the face of England.