By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 83 
dying left her childless, a young and beautiful widow: upon whom 
Sir George Rodney a gentleman in the west, suitable to her for 
person and fortune, fixing his love, had good hopes from her to 
reap the fruits of it. But Edward, Earl of Hertford, being en- 
tangled by her fair eyes, and she having a tang of her grandfather’s 
ambition,! left Rodney, and married the Earl. Rodney, haying 
drunk in too much affection, and not being able with his reason to 
digest it, summoned up his scattered spirits to a most desperate 
attempt: and coming to Amesbury in Wiltshire, where the Earl 
and Countess were then resident, to act it, he retired to an Inn in 
the town, shut himself up in a chamber, and wrote a large paper 
of well-composed verses to the Countess in his own blood, (strange 
kind of composedness,) wherein he bewails and laments his own 
unhappiness; and when he had sent them to her, as a sad catas- 
trophe to all his miseries, he ran himself upon his sword, and so 
ended that life which he thought death to enjoy; leaving the 
Countess to a strict remembrance of her inconstancy, and himself 
a desperate and sad spectacle of frailty: but she easily past this 
over, and so wrought upon the good-nature of the Earl her husband, 
that he settled above five thousand pounds a year jointure upon 
her for life.” 2 
The Earl’s grandson William, Marquis of Hertford, resided here 
in1611. (Wilts Mag. ii., 181.) The Marquis’s grandson William, 
third Duke of Somerset, dying without issue, this property passed 
4 
;" 

by Elizabeth Seymour the third Duke’s sister in marriage to 
Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury. In 1720, Charles Lord Bruce sold it 
to Henry Boyle, created 1714 Baron Carlton; and he, by will 1729 
bequeathed it to his nephew Charles third Duke of ee 
whose family made large additions by purchase. 
A Yorkshire clergyman taking a little tour through Wilts in 
1750, made the following note of his visit here.? 

1 Thomas Howard third Duke of Norfolk, who was only preserved from the 
scaftold by the death of Henry viij. 
* Sir George Rodney was of Stoke Rodney, co. Somerset. For the poetical 
j Epistle see the ‘* Topographer i, 398—405 
° MS. Letter by Rey. Richard Woodyeare ; 1750. 
a F2 
