4 THE OLD ASHBURNE FAMILIES. 
tary heiress, whose second husband was William Cavendish, the 
renowned Duke of Newcastle. Boothby was originally a Lincoln- 
shire family, and the first baronet was described as of Broadlow 
Ash, in 1660. Ashburne has been prolific of minor bards ; and in 
Sir Brooke Boothby, father of the beautiful Penelope, we hail 
another poet and political writer. His sumptuous book, ‘Sorrows 
sacred to the memory of Penelope,” printed by Bulmer, in 1796, is 
rapidly becoming very scarce. Of the shameless way in which the 
tombs in the Bradburne chauntry or chapel were treated in the so- 
called restoration of 1840, Mr. Cox has spoken in not too indignant 
terms. A print, by Wright, is extant, of Sir Humphry’s monu- 
ment, with its arms and quarterings. Breretons, of Hurdlow, a 
younger branch of the great Cheshire house, may be traced back 
to the beginning of the 16th’century; the Buxtons, to one 
Aubricius de Buckstone, 16th Henry II., who died seized of 
lands in Lincolnshire ; Dakins, or Dakeyne, to one Robert, of 
Bigging Grange, whose son John married a daughter of the very 
ancient house of De la Pole, of Hertyngton, and of which 
Cardinal Pole was accounted no unworthy member. Sir Symon 
Degge, the great lawyer, and author of “The Parson’s Counseller,” 
one of the intended knights of the Royal Oak, lived at the old 
hall at Fenny Bentley. A wide-spread race were the Fernes of 
Parwich and elsewhere ; of whom Sir John Ferne, a noted herald, 
published, in 1586, the ‘‘ Blazon of Gentry,” and later on the 
“Glory of Generosity.” Sir John Gell’s Moorland Dragoons are 
believed to have had one or two skirmishes under the very 
shadow of the church. Another took place near Tissington in 
1644, in which the Royalists came to grief, and lost 170 prisoners 
(Major Mollanus, Gell’s German afer ego, commanded the 
Parliamentarians, and spurs connected with this passage of arms 
will be shown us at the Hall). His is a name of mark, since he 
harried both this and the adjoining county, garrisoned Chatsworth, 
Hassop, and Winfield, keeping ‘‘ diurnall makers ” (among the 
earliest instances of special correspondents) in his pay, at great 
cost, to record his glorious exploits; took Lichfield by storm 
in 1643, and was rewarded with a baronetcy and two years’ 
