14 J&dPfo&am @ourt 



Melksham Court in Stinchcombe, on the verge of all 

 that remained of the once great forest. It was a beau- 

 tiful spot, embosomed in trees, and moated according to 

 the olden fashion, with its terrace-walks and parterres. 

 There his descendants continued to reside, and their 

 days seern to have passed tranquilly, till the stormy 

 reign of Charles I. 



The valleys of Gloucestershire lying remote from the 

 metropolis, and being in many respects almost inac- 

 cessible, from the steepness of the hills, having also no 

 great public road near at hand, nor the sea within reach, 

 had been often spared from much suffering in very 

 disastrous times ; it was otherwise at the present day. 

 The forest, one of their great bulwarks, had been cur- 

 tailed during successive generations, and much of the 

 moor country having been brought into cultivation, 

 towns and villages were built, and roads were made from 

 place to place. This opened a communication with the 

 thickly peopled parts of Gloucestershire, with such 

 counties also as lay contiguous : the quiet of the valleys 

 was therefore broken up, and the cities of Gloucester 

 and of Worcester, having taken active parts in the 

 stirring incidents of the time, bands of armed men 

 overspread the country. Thomas Tyndale, the fifth 

 in descent from the purchaser of Melksham Court, was 

 then residing on his patrimonial estate : he married a 

 lady on her mother's side, of the knightly family of 

 Poyntz of Iron Acton; but whether for the mists of time 



