BUDDLESGATE HUNDRED 



HURSLEY 



Giles, who in 1600 sold the castle and manor to 

 Thomas Clerke of Ardington in Berkshire, his father- 

 in-law, reserving to himself and his wife a life interest 

 in the lodge and park of Hursley." 



In 1602 Sir Thomas Clerke was living at Merdon, 

 and in that year his son was married in Hursley 

 church. 18 At this time the copyholders of the manor 

 were still required to perform their customary services 

 of reaping and carrying crops, and in Robert Morley's 

 manuscript there is an account of a quarrel between 

 the lord and his tenants on one of the ' hay dobyn ' 

 or service days. The lord was obliged to supply 

 breakfast and dinner for the workers, and one day 

 ' the cart brought afield for the reapers a hogshead 

 of porridge which stunk and had worms in it.' The 

 tenants headed by Mr. Coram, the holder of Cran- 

 bury, refused to work without better provision, and 

 he and Mr. Pye, Sir Thomas Clerke's steward, drew 

 their daggers, and rode at one another through the 

 wheat. At last Lady Clerke promised to dress two 

 or three hogs of bacon for them, and they quietly 

 retired to work.' 9 It is not difficult to imagine how 

 much these hay dobyn days were hated by the tenants, 

 especially as a hindrance to their own work, and 

 Morley writes how ' a heire went for a man on hay 

 dobyn days if able to carry a hook aforesaid.' * In 

 1 606 Sir Thomas Clerke sold the manor of Merdon 

 with the rest of his property to William Brock, ' a 

 great lawyer,' who died in 1618, leaving his only 

 child, a daughter and minor, under the joint guardian- 

 ship of Sir Thomas Savage and Sir Richard Tich- 

 borne,* 1 on whom settlement was made at the time 

 of the sale in 1606." In 1626 Anne Brock married 

 John Arundell, who in right of his wife became 

 lord of the manor. The Arundells do not, however, 

 seem to have lived at Hursley, 

 but leased the manor in 1623 

 to Richard Lumley, 14 in 1626 

 to Henry Hastings," and before 

 1630 sold it to Sir Nathaniel 

 Napier of Crichel (Dorset).* 6 



In the meantime, in 1621, 

 Giles Hoby had leased the 

 lodge and park of Hursley to 

 Nicholas Peascod." Giles died 

 in 1 626 and his wife in 1630, 

 and thereupon the lodge and 

 park reverted to the holder of 

 Merdon Manor, Sir Nathaniel 

 Napier.* 8 On the death of 



the latter some time before 1635," the manor 

 descended to his son Gerard, who sold it in 16389 

 to Richard Major, who was, according to the descrip- 

 tion of a contemporary, a man witty and thrifty even 

 to miserliness, and an unscrupulous oppressor of his 

 tenantry .'" More especially did he ' usurp authority 

 over his tenants," when ' King Charles was put to 

 death and Oliver Cromwell was Protector of England 



NAPIER of Crichel. 

 Argent a saltire engrailed 

 between four cinquefoils 

 gules. 



CROMWELL. 

 lion argent. 



Sable a 



and Richard Major of his Privy Council and Noll's 

 eldest son Richard was married to Mr. Major's 

 Doll." 1 The marriage there referred to was that of 

 Richard Cromwell with Dorothy Major, which brought 

 Merdon into the Cromwell family, and gave it a part 

 in one of the most interesting periods in English 

 history. Richard Cromwell lived at Merdon from 

 1649, the year of his marriage, until he became Pro- 

 tector on the death of his father in 1658. 



On his forced withdrawal from Whitehall in 1660, 

 he came to Hursley for a few months, but early in 

 the summer left England for 

 France," leaving behind him 

 a heavy burden of debts con- 

 tracted, as he himself stated, 

 upon the public account.* 3 

 While abroad he went by 

 another name, ' though he did 

 not disguise himself nor deny 

 himself to any man that chal- 

 lenged him.' 34 It was thus 

 under assumed names that he 

 corresponded with wife and 

 children at Hursley, where 



they lived in quiet seclusion, and where Mrs. Cromwell 

 died in January, 1675-6. During her illness Crom- 

 well wrote to his daughter Elizabeth, bidding her desire 

 her mother to quiet her conscience concerning him and 

 strive to be cheerful.^ Yet the letters that follow 

 show how little cheerfulness there was for the solitary 

 exile. In 1680 he returned to England, 38 but not to 

 Hursley ; so the letters to his children continue. His 

 great anxiety concerning the marriage of his son Oliver, 

 who was of age in 1677, became quite pathetic. To 

 his daughter Elizabeth he wrote in 1689 'it would 

 greatly please to see your brother answer a duty both 

 to God and his family. . . I would hope he would 

 not dalley any longer with Providence, but take a 

 resolution to fixe his minde. 3 ' ' In the next year he 

 wrote Pray let your brother settle, and that will be 

 the best step for us to enjoy each other, according to 

 what you desire." 8 About this time there was 

 evidently some thought of Richard joining his family 

 at Hursley, 39 but the idea fell through and the letters 

 continue. 



In the meantime Oliver, on the death of his mother, 

 had claimed Merdon in right of her marriage settle- 

 ment and took possession of the estate. It was then 

 that the customary tenants, possibly taking advantage 

 of his youth, determined to win back some of the 

 privileges and customs they had lost under the oppres- 

 sion of Richard Major. The Chancery suit was in 

 progress in 1692, and lasted on until after the death 

 of Oliver in 1705. In 1707 Imber, on behalf of 

 the tenants, since the Chancery decree was ' written in 

 chancery hand and part thereof being in Latin and 

 therefore not able to be read and understood by the 

 tenants,' made an English abstract of the same in 



V Feet of F. Hants, Trin. 42 Eliz. 



18 Extract from parish register given 

 in Marsh, op. cit. 



19 Extracts from Robert Morley's MSS. 

 in Marsh, op. cit. p. 9. 



30 Ibid. The tenants continued to per- 

 orm these services until they were com- 

 muted in 1650. 



21 Brock had married Anne Tichborne, 

 sister of Sir Richard. 



M Feet of F. Hants, Mil. 4 Jas. I ; Com. 

 Pleas Recov. R. Hil. 4 Jas. I, m. 17. 



28 Marsh, op. cit. 9. 



M Feet of F. Hants, Mich, 21 Ja. I ; 

 Com. Pleas Recov. R. Mich. 21 Jas. I, 

 m. 10. 



25 Feet of F. Hants, Trin. 2 Chas. I. 



M Marsh, op. cit. 9 and 10. 



"' Feet of F. Hants, Hil. 19 Ja. I. 



a8 Marsh, op. cit. 7. 



m Ibid. 



80 From a MSS. account of the cus- 

 toms of the manor written by a tenant, 

 Richard Morley. 



81 From Robert Morley's manuscript. 



83 Ludlow, Memoirs, 360. 



88 Engl. Hist. Rev. (1887), 152. 



84 Pepys' Diary, 19 Oct. 1664. 

 M Engl. Hist. Rev. (1898), 95. 



86 Mark Noble, Mem. of the House of 

 Cromwell, 173. He lived at Cheshunt, 

 near London, under an assumed name 

 of Clark. 



W Engl. Hist. Rev. (1899), 101 . 



88 Ibid. (1898), 105-6 ; Letter xv. 



88 Ibid. Letter xvi. 



