SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF LOWE. 165 
sister, the two younger daughters of Thomas Fawne, regardless of 
their father’s testamentary injunctions and “ blessyng,” and of his 
command to “‘luffe” their eldest and more fortunate sister, Joane, 
and her husband, Thomas Lowe, urged a claim against them for 
an equal share in their father’s lands, upon the plea that those 
lands were ‘‘entayled upon the heyres general.” The case was 
determined at Nottingham on the 1st of April, 1481, when 
Thomas Powtrell appeared as counsel for the claimants, whilst 
Lawrence Lowe, serjeant-at-law, defended the suit for his elder 
brother and his wife. The two younger co-heiresses entirely failed 
to establish their claim, and Thomas Lowe and his posterity have 
continued in undisturbed enjoyment of the Alderwasley estate 
ever since. In 1516, King Henry VIII., by royal letters patent, 
dated November zoth, in the sixth year of his reign, granted to 
this Thomas Lowe, whom he styles his servant, full license to 
impark and impale all his lands and woods at Alderwasley, 
together with a certain close, called “Shyninge Cliffe,” and to 
make a free warren thereof, notwithstanding that any part might 
be within the bounds of the forest of Duffield Frith. Thomas 
Lowe was dead in 1521, but the precise date of his decease has 
not been seen. Joane “lat wyff of Thomas Lowe of Alderwaslegh, 
in the p’ysh of Werksworthe,” by her will dated. August the 18th, 
1531, desires to be interred in the “ roode quiere of Werksworth 
nyght unto the sepulchare of my husband,” and gave the apparently 
not very munificent bequest of fourpence to each of the mother 
churches of Coventry and Lichfield. To her son, Anthony Lowe, 
she gave all the lands which came to her from her father, Thomas 
_Fawne, and charged her eldest son, Sir Avery Lowe, priest “ upon 
his fader’s blessyng and myne that he make’no clayme ne title 
‘ageynste my sayd son Anthony for the sayd lands nor any parcell 
thereof ;”’ and she further charged her sons, Sir Avery Lowe and 
Sir Marke Lowe, priests, that they should urge no claim against 
any of her sons “ except it fortune as god forbid that they or oder 
of them do fall in pov’ty necessytye or gret ned.” To every 
tenant on the estate she gave twelve pence, and “ two shelyngs” 
to each of her household servants. 
