104 Kington St. Michael. [John Aubrey. 



Orleans, and returned in October. Another bad full from bis horse, 

 Monday after Christmas.] 



" 1665. Nov. 1. I made my first address (in an ill hour) to Joan 

 Sumner. She lived with her Brother at Seend. The next year 

 was still more unlucky. 1666. This year all my business and 

 affairs ran kim kam : nothing tooke effect, as if I had been under 

 an ill tongue, treacheries and enmities in abundance against mc. 

 1667. December. Arrested in Chancery-lane at Mistress Sumner's 

 suit." 



In February following he obtained with some difficulty a verdict 

 against her, with £600 damages, in a trial at Salisbury ; but the 

 amount was reduced to £300 on a new trial at Winchester. In 

 1669, March 5, this trial came on ; lasting from 8 to 9. One Peter 

 Gale maliciously contrived to arrest him just before, but the trick 

 failed. He attributed the result of the trial to the "Judge being ex- 

 ceeding made against him by my Lady Hun gerford, (of Corsham)."^ 



In 1669-70, after being owner 17 years, ho sold his Easton Piers 

 Farm ; and his interest in the farm at Broad Chalk. The latter 

 had belonged to the Abbey of Wilton : and was held by the Aubreys 

 as lessees under tlie Earls of Pembroke. To Antony a Wood on the 

 2nd October 1669, he writes " I shall be the next wceke at Easton 

 Piers, where I should be glad to heare from you by the Bristowe Car- 

 rier in Jesus College Lane, to be left at MichacU's Kington." It was 

 during this visit that he made the Drawings of his Villa referred to 

 above, (p. 79). On the 28th April following he was again there, and 

 perhaps for the last time of residence, the Farm being transferred 

 to the new o^vncr, Mr. Shcrwin,' at Lady Day 1671. Aubrey 



1 lu his letters to A. "Wood, Aubrey names another person as a chief in the 

 conspiracy to defeat his advances to Mistress Sumner. "Dec. 1G68. The per- 

 son that yoii mentioned in your letter that is now Lancaster Herald, his name 

 is Chalouer, whose character I have heard of by one of his neighbours that liveth 

 at the Devizes. He hath been an officer in the army, a bustling man for tlio 

 world : of great acr[uaiutanee with the Gentry and one that xindcrstandeth his 

 trade well. lie will not stick to ask enough " (for the resignation of his place). 

 " He is one that the Office" (of Heralds) " and I think every body hates, or 

 ought to do, if they knew him as well ns I doe : for he hath been the Ixmtefcu 

 (iirebraiid) to sett my dame and me at variance." 



2 Also purchaser of the Priory. He left both during Aubrey's life time to a 

 daughter and heir. N. H, of W. p. 119. 



