HISTORY OF HARTING. 63 



William Smith,* husbandman of Hartynge 



" My bodye to be beryde (buried) in the pish. Churche 

 of Hartynge before the auter of our Lady and 

 Gabryell." 



John Pen, of the pish, of Hertyng, 23 March, 1544. 



" I bequeath to the hey alt r - of Hertyng viii d - Item, 

 I bequeath to the copanions of the Churche of 

 Hertyng vi s - viii d - It(em), I bequeath herse light in 

 Hertyng, xii d - It(em), I bequeath to the Matricf of 

 the Brothers of the holy crosse and Saint Mychaell the 

 archagell vi s - viii d -" 



It should here be mentioned that one family of 

 yeomen, whose name occurs in the foregoing list, 

 seems to have enjoyed peculiar privileges. Their head, 

 John Pytt of Upperton (sometimes cited as Thomas 

 a Pit of West Harting), is always styled, from the time 

 of Henry VIII., "the heire of Harting;" and local 

 tradition records that two knights from London came 

 down to honour him in his stronghold of Upperton, 

 and that he had free licence to hawk and to hound as 

 far as the liberty of Arundel Castle, for some signal 

 service in battle. John Pytt is also called the " free- 

 holder." Another family of the same name are styled 

 " Pitts of Newbury," but they seem to have come into 

 Harting about the beginning of the i6th Century. 

 The date carved on the stone of the fine chimney-piece 

 at Upperton is 1634. 



After enjoying his property at Harting for twenty- 

 two years, Edmund Ford was buried 5th December, 

 1568, leaving two daughters, Magdalen and Dorothy, 

 coheiresses. Hardly was the breath out of her father's 

 body, in fact it was just two days after his funeral, 

 when Magdalen was married to her distant cousin 

 lawyer John Ford, who became afterwards Protonotary 

 of the Court of Common Pleas. Shortly afterwards 

 Dorothy Ford married Francis Fortescue, of Fawkes- 



* Vol. V. Wills, p. 24. 

 f Matric = " Matrix ecclesia," or the Mother Church. I. M. H. 



