SIR LEWIS WATSON, FOUETEENTH MASTER. 207 



1638 to 1641. The last-mentioned was the penultimate pay- 

 ment made to this Manorial or Hereditary Master of the 

 Buckhounds. He received no salary, fees, or allowances for 

 himself or his hunt-servants from the 16th to the 19th year 

 of the reign of Charles I. The next and final payment 

 to him was for the 20th year of the reign of Charles I., 

 when he was paid 50Z. by the Sheriff of the county of Surrey. 

 However, he did not receive the money until April 9 1648, 

 which was the 24th and last regnal year of Charles I.'s 

 reign, which terminated on the scaffold at Whitehall, on 

 January 30, 1649. 



There are many unaccountable circumstances attending the 

 payment of the salaries of the so-called Hereditary Masters 

 of the Buckhounds, but that last-mentioned one is the most 

 curious on record. At this date the Master was a belted 

 baron of three years' standing, rejoicing in the title of Lord 

 Rockingham, a knight and a baronet, and lately a Cavalier 

 of undoubted fidelity to the King, in whose cause, as we shall 

 presently see, he severely suffered. Yet we find him taking 

 this paltry salary from the Roundheads at the very moment 

 his King was a captive, arraigned before a tribunal where no 

 mercy was possible. The most contemptible element in the 

 case is the receipt given by the Master for the money to the 

 Sheriff of Surrey, in which acquittance he signs himself plain 

 Lewis Watson. From this entry we find that in 1644-45 

 the huntsman of this branch of the royal pack was Richard 

 Kilborne, and that the other two hunt-servants were Robert 

 Bowett and Edward Bradshaw, each of whom and the Master 

 enjoyed the same fees, liveries, and allowances as accustomed 

 heretofore. 



Reverting to other events relating to Sir Lewis Watson, we 

 find that he was commissioned on May 6, 1634, to report to 

 the Council of State upon the endowments of certain Church 

 lands in which he held an interest. On June 29, 1638, he 

 obtained from Charles I. a confirmation of tlie lands, tenements, 

 meadows, pastures, woods, and hereditaments known by the 

 name of Rockingham Park, etc., in the county of Northampton, 



