398 Wilts Notes and Queries. 



Clarendon Park. — One of the rewards to George Monk, Duke 

 of Albemarle, for bringing about the Restoration of Charles II., 

 was the royal grant of Clarendon Park. The grant is recited in 

 full in " Sir It. C. Hoare's South Wilts," and dated 1665. The Duke 

 bequeathed it to his son and heir Christopher, who in 1688 

 bequeathed it to his cousin John Granville, Earl of Bath; from 

 whose heirs it was purchased in 1713, by Benjamin Bathurst, Esq., 

 in whose descendants the property remains : — All proving that the 

 first Duke of Albemarle never sold Clarendon park. 



Nevertheless, Pepys in his Diary in February 1663-4, the year 

 previous, relates a conversation with Allsop the King's brewer, who 

 told him that whereas Charles the first had mortgaged Clarendon 

 park for £20,000, and Charles the second had now given it to 

 George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, and Albemarle had subse- 

 quently sold it to Chancellor Hyde, Lord Clarendon, "whose title 

 of earldom" he adds, "is fetched from thence;" — therefore the 

 King did this day send his order to the privy seal for the payment 

 to Lord Clarendon of £20,000, to enable him to clear off the 

 mortgage aforesaid. 



And several months after, viz., in July 1664, Pepys represents 

 Clarendon as in a tempest of rage against the Navy-board, (and 

 against Pepys as one of them), for sending into Wiltshire, one 

 Dean, whom Clarendon calls "a fanatic rogue," to mark a quantity 

 of timber at Clarendon, preparatory to its being felled for the royal 

 navy. He narrates in full a long conversation with the Chancellor 

 while walking in St. James' Park, and endeavours to represent him 

 as a cunning grasping man ; one who, while seeking Pepys' services 

 in the affair, was extremely anxious that the King should not suspect 

 his own anxiety to keep the timber: — Which last passage affords 

 decisive evidence that Lord Clarendon was in possession after the 

 mortgage was paid off. And that the estate had not come primarily 

 to him in the form of a gift, is proved in his " Vindication," where 

 it is asserted that he acquired none of the crown lands, "but what 

 he purchased for as much as any body would pay for them." 



The question that arises is: — Where should Pepys, writing at a 

 period when he supposes Chancellor Hyde in undoubted possession, 



