WREST PARK 327 



Wrest has been the property of the De Grey 

 family since the time of Roger de Grey, who lived 

 in the fourteenth century, and many honours and 

 titles have been bestowed upon them. Edmund, 

 Baron Grey, Lord Treasurer of England, was 

 created Earl of Kent by Edward IV. in 1465. 

 The ninth Earl married Amabel, called " the good 

 Countess," who spent so many years of her widow- 

 hood at Wrest improving the Gardens that she 

 loved. The last Earl of Kent was Henry, born in 

 1671, and created Duke of Kent by Queen Anne. 

 Having no son to succeed him, many of his . titles 

 passed to his granddaughter, who married Philip, 

 son of the celebrated Earl of Hardwicke, Lord 

 High Chancellor of England. Horace Walpole 

 mentions this marriage thus : " What luck the 

 Chancellor has ! marries his son into one of the 

 first families of Britain, obtains a patent for a 

 Marquisate and eight thousand pounds a year 

 after the Duke of Kent's death ; the Duke dies in 

 a fortnight and leaves them all ! People talk of 

 Fortune's Wheel, that is always rolling! troth, my 

 Lord Hardwicke has overtaken her wheel and 

 rolled along with it ! " The path by the Fountain 

 is crossed by another at right angles, leading on the 

 right to the Orangery and the Yew hedge, per- 

 haps the finest in existence, and over 350 years 

 old, thick and broad, a veritable dense mass of 

 green. Another of these beautiful Yew hedges 



