184 Leland’s Journey through Wiltshire. 
The broke that renithe by Brooke is properly caulyd Bisse, and 
riseth at a place called Bis-mouth! a 2 myles above Brooke village 
an hamlet longynge to Westbury paroche. Thens it cummithe 
onto Brooke village; and so a myle lower on to Brooke Haule, 
levinge it hard on the right ripe, and about a 2 miles lower it 
orth FO... a. jape0? 
[Humfrey Stafford of Hoke, with the Silver Hand,’ that maried 
Sir Robert Willoughby (afterwards 1st Lord Broke) with many other Wiltshire 
gentlemen, Sir Thomas Delamere, Sir Roger Tocotes, Sir Richard Beauchamp, 
Walter Hungerford, John Cheney, &c., joined the Duke of Buckingham in his 
resistance to King Richard III. Their lands were seized, and the manors of 
Brooke and Southwick were bestowed by Richard upon his favourite Edward 
Ratcliffe. 15 Dee. 1R. III. [See Harl. MS. No. 433, art. 1621.] 
1 “Bisse.” The stream rises near Upton Scudamore under a hill called in 
the maps ‘‘ Beersmeer Hill,” which looks like a corruption of Bissemouth Hill. 
But the mouth of a stream is generally the name of the place where it issues 
into some other water, not of that where it first rises. 
2 North Bradley and Trowbridge. By Brook village, Leland probably 
means Brook farm and mill. 
3 ‘Silver Hand.” The meaning of this singular distinction is not known 
with certainty. That the person to whom it was given should have literally 
replaced the loss of a natural hand by a metallic substitute, wholly or in 
part, is possible, but not very likely. The epithet was more probably applied to 
him as a figurative compliment to his liberality. The eloquent Chrysostom was 
(as the word signifies) ‘‘ Golden-mouthed”: and we have had in our own 
days, the more familiar instance of an ‘‘Zron Duke.” There were two 
individuals of the noble family of the Staffords to whom this periphrasis of the 
‘‘ Silver Hand” has been ascribed ; Sir Humphrey, sen., and Sir Humphrey, 
jun., father and son, But if Leland is to be trusted, the point is settled : as he 
distinctly says that ‘‘ the Silver Hand” married the heiress of Maltravers, by 
which match he obtained the property at Hooke, county Dorset. This was 
undoubtedly Sir Humphrey, the son. [Hutchins, in his note upon the subject 
(Dorset, 1, 292, first edit.) seems to have misinterpreted Leland’s statement]. 
The rest of the paragraph in the text is partly imperfect, and partly incorrect : 
and may be thus rectified. ‘‘This Alice (Stafford, daughter of the ‘Silver Hand”) 
was married first to (Sir Edmund) Cheney (as mentioned in a former note), 
and had two daughters, Anne and Elizabeth. Elizabeth (not Anne) was 
married to Coleshill and had no issue. Anne was married to (St John) 
Willoughby (not Lord W. de Broke), and had issue. Alice (Lady Cheney) 
