By the Rev. Canon J. EB. Jackson, FSA Let 
the Crown. They were bestowed upon Edmund of Langley, fifth 
son of King Edward III. Fasterne was then held by his son, 
Edward, Duke of York, who was killed at the Battle of Agincourt, 
and some time after that it became dower land to the Queens of 
England. Katharine Parr, widow of Henry VIII., had it, and 
leased it to Sir Henry Long, of Draycote.' Katharine had re- 
married Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of Protector Somerset. The 
Protector coveted Fasterne, and negotiated with Sir Henry Long to 
resign his lease. Katharine Parr, when she heard of this was 
highly indignant. She happened to be on very bad terms with 
the Protector, because he kept back from her some valuable jewels 
which, as she maintained, King Henry had given her for her 
own. She vowed she would stop this Fasterne hease job, and would 
go herself “tomorrow, Saturday, at three o’clock” to the young 
King Edward, and give full utterance to her feelings against the 
Protector his uncle. But the uncle-Protector of the realm was 
rather a formidable person to be meddled with. Whether she kept 
her promise, and how far she succeeded in getting the diamonds, 
my authority does not say; but Somerset certainly succeeded in 
getting Fasterne. Sir Henry Long somewhat unwillingly parted 
with it for a sum of money and the office of Ranger of Braden 
Forest for his life. 
In the reign of Queen Mary Fasterne and Wootton Manor were 
bestowed by her upon one of her most zealous supporters, Sir 
Francis Englefield. He belonged to an old and distinguished 
Roman Catholic family of Englefield House, near Reading. Asa 
compliment, he had been knighted at the coronation of Edward VL., 
when forty knights of the Bath were created, and fifty-four others 
who were called Knights of the Carpet. I do not know exactly 
what that means, unless it is that they were a kind of ornamental 
knights, to dance attendance at Court, or of those butterfly marquises 
f a later reign, whose chief duty was, not to brandish a sword on 
horseback, but a knife and fork at the dinner-table. But Sir 
Francis Englefield was of a very different quality. He was a deter- 
nined and thorough-going Romanist. He had been an officer in 
1 Retrospective Review, vol. i., 208. 
(OL. XXIII,—NO. LXVIII. N 
