174 THE BATH ROAD 



Colstons to William Darell, son of Sir AVilliam Darell, 

 of Sesay, in Yorkshire. A descendant of this emigrant 

 from the North Riding, the "Wild Will Darell" of 

 this blood-boltered history was born into an estate 

 comprising an ancestral home and many thousands of 

 acres in the counties of AVilts, Berks, and Hants, and 

 might have been accounted fortunate had it not been 

 for the rather more than triflinsf circumstances of an 

 unhappy up-bringing which included a shameful 

 treatment of himself and his mother by an unnatural 

 father ; the paternal extravagances which had alienated 

 much of the property ; the heavy charge made on the 

 estate for the benefit of the mistress of his brother, 

 who jn-eceded him in the estate ; and, finally, the 

 crop of lawsuits into which he was plunged imme- 

 diately upon succeeding to this singularly-encumbered 

 patrimony. At this interval of time it has become 

 quite impossible for serious historians to discriminate 

 between the facts and the — fancies, shall we call 

 them?— of the Wild Darell story. This difficulty 

 does not arise from lack of patient research on the 

 part of Darell commentators, who have ransacked the 

 Record Office to prove that he was not a villain of 

 the most lurid kind, or the industry of others who 

 have searched among musty muniment chests to 

 determine that he was. It would, considering the 

 fact of the records in the Littlecote muniment room 

 not having yet been explored for the benefit of these 

 historic doubts, be rash indeed for any one to pro- 

 nounce definitely for either of the very diverse views 

 held of Darell as Villain, or Darell as Good Young 

 Man. 



