THOMAS BROCAS, ESQ., THIRTEENTH MASTER. 93 



title was good in the 3rd year of Charles I. it must have 

 been equally valid in the two preceding and the two sub- 

 sequent years. It is an obstacle we cannot negotiate, and the 

 only way to clear it is by assuming that the Master was refused 

 the writ of Privy Seal to the Sheriffs of Surrey and Sussex, 

 and without the production of that warrant they were not 

 bound to pay up. This document could be withheld by the 

 King, and the Lord Privy Seal for the time being could fall 

 back on many excuses, and refuse to stamp it, which would 

 render it invalid. It is also possible in the latter years that 

 the sheriffs may not have had funds to spare for these pay- 

 ments, as many new claims were then being made upon their 

 resources by the Crown, and the impending civil war had 

 already cast its shadow on the land, to the great detriment of 

 the chase and all its concomitants. We shall have many sad 

 proofs of this presently, and it only remains to mention here 

 that Sir Pexsall Brocas died in the 5th year of the reign of 

 Charles I. (1630), leaving an only son, Thomas Brocas, the last 

 of his family who bore the Hereditary insignia of the Royal 

 Buckhounds. 



Thomas Brocas, Esq., thirteenth Hereditary Master of the 

 Royal Buckhounds, from 1630-1633, the son and heir of 

 Sir Pexsall Brocas, of Horton and Beaurepaire, county Hants, 

 succeeded to the diminished estates and hereditaments of his 

 family on the death of his father in 1630. His career was very 

 uneventful, and calls for little notice at our hands. The vast 

 estates once held by his ancestors had been gradually diminish- 

 ing, and when he assumed the horn of this branch of the royal 

 pack his territorial possessions were sadly curtailed. He sold 

 the Manor of Little Weldon in June 1633, and with it the 

 so-called Hereditary Mastership of the Buckhounds, which was 

 held by the Brocas family for 270 years, passed by purchase 

 to the Watsons of Rockingham Castle. In the meantime, 

 Mr. Brocas, following the lead of other courtiers of the period, 

 endeavoured to improve the shining hour in adding to his 

 income by means of the monopolies which were a considerable 

 source of revenue to Charles I., and to the favoured few who 



