Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 101 
traces the Stourton family at Stourton back to Saxon times. The recorded 
and unquestioned pedigrees commence with a certain Botolph, Lord of 
Stourton, at the date of the Conquest, and there is now contemporary 
and documentary evidence to show that they were landholders at Stourton 
in the reign of Edward I. The Barony of Stourton was created by patent 
in 1448, and is now the oldest barony by patent in existence. From the 
earliest Norman times the wealth and position of the Stourton family 
steadily increased. They were allied by ties of blood with the Royal 
House of Tudor, and with many of the powerful families in whose hands 
lay the government of the kingdom in the reign of King Edward VI., 
and the House of Stourton is one of the very few English families from 
which Her Majesty Queen Victoria is herself actually descended. With 
the execution and attainder of Charles, 8th Lord Stourton, came the first 
in the long catalogue of reverses and misfortunes. The wealth of the 
family at first slowly, then rapidly declined, and Edward, 13th Lord 
Stourton, finally disposed of the whole of the landed property he had 
inherited, including the castle, the manor, and the lands of Stourton. 
His brother succeeded to an empty inheritance. The property which is 
now enjoyed by Lord Mowbray and Stourton and the members of the 
Stourton family is due to a succession of fortunate marriages. Catholic 
in the beginning the family is Catholic now, and this surely is a record 
to be proud of, when the long succession of Catholic penalties and 
disabilities in this country are had in remembrance.” The book in fact 
aims at recording everything that is known or can be discovered about 
the-various members of the Stourton family from the earliest mention of 
the name down to the present day, and it is evident that neither time, 
trouble, nor expense has been spared. The labour, indeed, expended in 
compiling these two monumental volumes has been prodigious, for not 
only the Stourtons themselves but the various individuals and families 
- eonnected with them by marriage all receive as full mention as possible 
_—with the result that the book, and more especially the first volume, is 
a sort of quarry out of which you may dig genealogical information as to 
the early history of very many of the leading families of Dorset, Wilts, 
and Somerset. It is provided, moreover, with an admirable index, giving, 
apparently, the references to every name mentioned in the text. An idea 
of their number may be gained from the fact that the index fills 41 pages 
of three columns each, in very small print. So fully, indeed, is the 
subject dealt with, and so many are the digressions on the history of 
- eonnected families, or the historical circumstances of the time, that the 
_ main thread is sometimes a little difficult to follow. Moreover, the work 
thas been several years in passing through the press with the result that 
in the first volume statements made in the earlier pages have sometimes 
to be corrected, and sometimes amplified in the later—with the result, 
too, that there is a good deal of repetition, often more than once, of 
_ statements and facts already given. Indeed the impression gained from 
A the book itself is that the author, as the work progressed, grew into a 
more complete mastery of his materials; for the latter part of the first, 
and the second volume, seem in all ways an improvement cn the earlier 
