HISTORY OF HARTING. 13! 



Harting, were the betes noirs of the family. " She has 

 great experience of the world and wants no witt, and 

 I hope has attained to so much discretion as to govern 

 herself suitably," wrote the Secretary of Mrs. Cope, in 

 1787: adding, "to ask me to lay down her portion, 

 who have been for so many years quite owted of my 

 estate in England, would be the same thing as to ask 

 me to fly without wings." Nevertheless, the old man 

 seems to have remembered her in his will, and her 

 annuity of 10 per ann. was charged on the Harting 

 Estate. 



Meanwhile " the Squire" was living quietly with his 

 young family at Lady Holt. He was now leading and 

 glazing the house, raising the outbuildings, planting 

 elms and ash and chestnut on the downs, in soil that 

 was too thin for them, setting " hopps" on the clays, 

 deepening his great well, and furnishing the mansion 

 with damask bed and chairs bought for him out of the 

 royal bedchamber at Old Windsor, by his friend and 

 cousin Mr. Tooker, of Idsworth. For this the Lady 

 Holt team went up to Windsor. Sometimes he would 

 kill a stag at Petersfield with Batt Starr his doctor, 

 and spend *$ IDs. 6d. on the junket ; sometimes he 

 would go-a-hawking at Nutley in Ashdown Forest, his 

 old neighbourhood, and spend 44 is. on the sport 

 exclusive of 5 to the Grinstead servants; at home, 

 the Lady Holt falconer had 8 a. year,* and was a 

 potentate at Harting. In 1701, on the death of the 

 Squire's father, Richard, the West Grinstead property 

 came to him ; and the family coach went up from 

 Lady Holt to town to be put in mourning. The 

 gradual raising of a sum which the Squire annually 

 gave to the poor on "St. Thomas his day," from 2 in 

 1697, to 4 153. Qd. in 1714, marks the corresponding 

 increase of his income. 



Ap. 22, 1700. Paid Jones y e faulconer a year's wages, 

 ending Lady Day last, ,8. CarylPs Account Book, Lady Holt. 

 Addi- 28, 245. 



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