By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S8.A. 179 
appropriate the rents. Englefield continued in league with malcon- 
tents abroad, especially with the Duke of Feria, who had married 
an English lady, but hated Elizabeth from the beginning, and stirred 
up Pope Pius to excommunicate her, and the King of Spain to 
be her enemy. Elizabeth allowed Englefield all the rents of his 
property, and assured him he would not be meddled with in his own 
country if he would merely be quiet, but the only reply he sent was 
in a bold letter to Dudley, Earl of Leicester, denying the Queen’s 
right to the throne, and, in short, wholly defying her authority. 
In 1584 he began a more dangerous game. He entered into cor- 
respondence with Mary, Queen of Scots. The letters were intercepted 
by Cecil, and the contents were of so treasonable a nature that, 
having somehow or other, I don’t exactly know how, come within 
reach,he was tried and executed in 1587,along with Lord Paget andSir 
FrancisThrockmorton. Hisbody was carried back to Spain and buried 
in the College of Valladolid, to which he had been a great benefactor. 
Fasterne was restored to the family, and the last Lady Englefield 
re-married Sir Robert Howard, who was living there in 1672. It 
was then bought by Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, son of 
Chancellor Clarendon, and continued in his representatives until 
sold a few years ago to the now owner, Sir Henry Meux. About 
the middle of the last century it was occupied by a family of the 
name of Franklin, and from old letters it appears that it was a 
favourite rendezvous for a club of friends and neighbours who used 
to meet every fortnight, not for croquet nor yet for tennis, but for 
the older game of bowls. The bowling green remains. Of the 
original and larger house the foundations are still visible. The 
walls are very thick. There is a Tudor door-way left, and in a 
chamber on the first-floor a stone chimney piece and fire-place 
surmounted by the arms of the Englefields. It is worth a visit 
from the passer-by, and if he happens to have heard my story and 
has not forgotten it, he will look upon the decayed mansion with a 
certain respect; and, as he turns away to leave, perhaps some 
thought of this kind may pass across his mind: “There are the 
__ Despensers, there are the Englefields, and here am I. Upon the 
whole I think that ‘living dogs are better than dead lions.’ ” 
N 2 
