A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



The surveyor who visited the castle in 1625 gave 

 a better report than that of 1586, saying that the 

 ' castle is very strong, built of stone, and moated about 

 with a double moat.' He then goes on to describe the 

 rooms in detail, and it is evident that the process of 

 dismantlement cannot at that date have been carried 

 very far." It is difficult from the description ten 

 years later by an anonymous visitor to tell the actual 

 state of the castle, for his sympathy for the Stuart 

 queen is such that he reads the effect of her fate into 

 the very walls, ' Her stately Hall I found spacious, 

 large, & answerable to the other prince-like rooms, 

 but drooping & desolate for that there was the altar 

 where that great queene's head was sacrificed ; as all 

 the rest of those precious sweet buildings do sym- 

 pathize, decay, fall, perish, & goe to wrache for that 

 unluckie & fatall blow.'^ 

 , By the time of Stukeley's visit in the early 1 8th 

 century the gradual process of demolition was nearly 

 complete, ' the castle seems to have been very strong ; 

 there was a high mount or keep environed with a 

 deep ditch ; the space around it is guarded by a wall, 

 double ditch, and the river; it is mostly demolished, 

 and all the materials carried off.' ^ Even then the 

 exact time of the castle's destruction must have been 

 forgotten, for Stukclcy mentions the impossible legend 

 of James I's revenge. The small remains of the castle 

 left in the latter half of the 19th century were used 

 up by the late Lord Overstone for farm buildings. 

 He also filled up part of the moat.* 



The advowson of the church of 

 /^DFOWSON St. Mary and All Saints ' at Fother- 

 inghay was granted by Simon de St. 

 Liz, the second earl of Huntingdon of the name, to 

 the nunnery of Delapre.* This nunnery is said to 

 have been first founded by him at Fotheringhay on 

 the site where the college was afterwards built, and to 

 have been removed later to its position near North- 

 ampton.' A vicarage was ordained at Fotheringh.iy 

 in the early 13th century by Bishop Hugh Wells, of 

 Lincoln.* In 141 5 the church was taken from the 

 nunnery and given to the new college of Fothering- 

 hay, the creation of the Yorkist princes, in return for 

 a pension.' The church was served from the college 

 until its dissolution by Henry VIII and Edward VI.'" 

 For a short time after this the church was served by a 

 curate paid by Richard Okeham on the strength of a 

 grant by Elizabeth in 1560 of the rectory and church 

 of Fotheringhay lately belonging to the college in that 

 place." Okeham transferred his rights to James Cruys, 

 to whom the site of the college and the land belong- 

 ing to it in Fotheringhay had been granted in 1558." 

 Gamaliel son of James Cruys brought a suit against 

 John Welby, who had been presented by the crown 

 to the vicarage of Fotheringhay on ground of lapse 

 because the patron, ordinary or metropolitan, had not 



presented. Gamaliel pleaded that there was not, and 

 had never been, an ordained vicarage at Fotheringhay, 

 and he was supported by most of the evidence of the 

 parishioners, the existence of the vicarage having 

 evidently been forgotten through the long service of 

 the college. The chancellor, however, found that 

 there had been an endowed vicarage, and since there 

 was no proof that this had been dissolved, John 

 Welby was lawfully vicar, and an endowment was 

 settled by commissioners." The rectory, with the site 

 of the college of Fotheringhay and the land which 

 had belonged to it, was sold by Gamaliel Cruys to 

 Henry Beecher in I 597, who, like his predecessors, 

 used the mansion or chief house of the college for a 

 dwelling-place. The rectory and the rest of the 

 property were conveyed by William son of Henry 

 Beecher to John Browne, of the Middle Temple, in 

 1629 ; he sold them five years later to Mountjoy 

 earl of Newport, lord of the manor of Fotheringhay, 

 and they have since followed the descent of the 

 manor." 



There was a chantry chapel outside the church in 

 Fotheringhay to which some land was attached as 

 endowment. The chantry was apparently founded 

 by one of the Balliol family, not improbably Devor- 

 guilla, in order that a priest should be found by the 

 abbey of Sawtrey to celebrate at the Hermitage on 

 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week, for the 

 souls of John Balliol and his ancestors." A ' hermi- 

 torium ' in Fotheringhay was, however, confirmed to 

 the abbey of Sawtrey by the pope in 1 1 76 ; it may 

 possibly have been given them by Simon de St. Liz, 

 second earl of Huntingdon of his name, lord of the 

 manor of Fotheringhay, and founder of Sawtrey." 

 After the dissolution of Sawtrey in the reign of 

 Henry VIII all its possessions were given in 1537 to 

 Richard Williams alias Cromwell." He alienated the 

 land in Fotheringhay next year to Clement Giles, 

 who passed them on in 1539 to Richard Warde and 

 John Gilberd." 



The church of our Lady and All Saints 

 CHURCH has a nave of five bays, 57 ft. 6 in. long, 

 by 29 ft. 9 in. wide, with aisles 12 ft. 

 6 in. wide, two-story north porch, and engaged west 

 tower, 18 ft. 3 in. east to west, by 27 ft. 3 in., all 

 measurements being internal. The chancel, which 

 was dismantled at the suppression of the college in 

 the 16th century and left to decay, was built about 

 the year 14 10, on the site of the chancel of the old 

 parish church." The contract for the rebuilding of the 

 body of the church, made between Richard duke of 

 York and William Horwood, freemason, is dated in 

 the thirteenth year of Henry VI (1434), and printed 

 in Dugdale's Monas/icon, vi, 1414. 



It provides for ' a new body of a kirk joyning to 

 the quire of the college of Fodringhey of the same 



1 Bonney, Fofheringhay, p. zj, 

 » Lansd. MS. No. 213, fol. 3-7. 

 8 Ifin. Curiotf p. 3 5. 



* Narthann N. and Q. i. Art. 13. 



* The full dedication appears to have 

 been * The Annunciation' of the B.V.M. 

 and All Saints. See will of Simon 

 Morton (1522) ; Northants Will Bk. B, 

 fol. 103. 



6 Chart. R. 2 



47- 



' See history 

 volume. 



8 hib, Antiq, de Qrdinatianihut Hugonh 

 mil' (Soc. Cant, et Ebor.), p. 31. 



Edw. Ill, m. 15, No. 

 of nunnery in this 



' Fine R. 2 Hen V, m. 4 ; Fcodera 

 ix, 204. 



1° See history of the college of Fother- 

 inghay in this volume. 



'1 Pat. 2 Eliz. pt. XV, m. 26. 



^* They had been leased to him in 1553 

 on the forfeiture of William, marquis of 

 Northampton, to whom the college had 

 been granted by Edward VII (Pat. I 

 Mary, pt. xi, m. i ; ibid. 5 and 6 Phil, 

 and Mary, pt. ii, m. 20). 



" Exch. Dep. East. 38 Eliz. No. 10 ; 

 ibid. Mich. 40-41 Eliz. No. 22 ; Exch. 

 Spec. Com. No. 1699. 



574 



" Feet of F. Northants. Mich. 39 and 

 40 Eliz. ; Close, 5 Chas. I, pt. xiv. No. 

 19 ; ibid. 10 Chas. I, pt. xix, m. 32. 



" Chan. Inq. p.m. 14 Edw. Ill (2nd 

 DOS.), No. 67. " Cott. Aug. il, 125. 



" L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii, pt. ii, 468. 



" Ibid, xiii, pt. ii, 407 ; xix, pt. ii, loi. 



" The evidence for this is taken from 

 the east wall of the present church, which 

 shows on its west side the line of the roof 

 of the nave of the former parish church, 

 destroyed when the existing nave was 

 built, while over it is a window belonging 

 to the destroyed quire, and formerly look- 

 ing over the roof of the parish nave. 



