EASTON LODGE, 



ESSEX. 



our present 

 is with Kaston 



Till- t\v,. Kaston> arc Ksscx parishes King in 154} obtained a grant of his father- in law's 



north- west of Dunmow, and because, of old, J ss t -\ earldom, which in the- interval had IK-CH 



(irc.it Kaston Church lacked a tower while held liy Thomas Cromwell tor three months lx.-t',,re 



Little Kaston 



Church proudly reared 



that feature, the latter 



parish took it as its distin- 



guishing attribute, and it 



was as ll.ir.i'i M i\ nard of 



I lines ad-Turriin that 



the second of this family 



to hold the manor was 



called to the I'ppcr 



I I >use in i'>:~. It is 



not, indeed, till late in 



the history of Little 



1 iston, and far down on 



the roll of its lords, that 



the Mavnards apjx-ar. 



But as 



interest 



Lo.lge, which was built 



by the first, and with its 



gardens laid out recently 



by the last of that family, 



we need not trace the 



devolution of the estate 



from l)omc->da\. We 



must not, however, p.iss 



over the Tudor Age, 



when, during the short 



space of half a century, 



it was successively held 



by members of five 



different families, all of 



whom were then busy 



making history. I'ndcr 



Henry VIII. we find it 



still in the possession of 



the Bourchiers, great men 



in the Kastern Countu 



who, in the fifteenth 



century, produced a 



cardinal archbishop who 



was l.ord Chancellor, and 



an Karl of K.ss t -\ who 



was Lord Treasurer. 



The last male descendant 



of the latter, a noted 



soldier and courtier to 



King Hal, died of a fall 



from his horse in 1 540, 



and Kaston. with other 



property went to William 



Parr, who had married his 



daughter Anne, and who I..\TKA.\Ct TO D.l/KY GAK/>K\. 



