326 THE OLD BERKS HUNT 



Mr. William Lenthall, of Besselsleigh, his 

 brother Edmund the present " Father of the 

 Hunt," being the eldest, and the late Mr. 

 Frank Lenthall, Recorder of Woodstock, an 

 office formerly held by his kinsman, the great 

 speaker of the Long Parliament, was the 

 youngest. It was Speaker Lenthall who re- 

 plied to the peremptory demand of King 

 Charles I. with the memorable words, " Sir, 

 in this house I have neither ears to hear nor 

 eyes to see, but as this house is pleased to 

 direct me." The Lenthall family is a very 

 ancient one and derives in direct male descent 

 from Roger de Lenthall, of Lenthalls Earls, 

 and Lenthalls Starks, in Herefordshire. This 

 Lenthall was Sheriff of Notts and Derby in 

 1232. William Lenthall, the Speaker, who 

 was born in 1591, purchased the Manor of 

 Besselsleigh. His son. Sir John Lenthall, 

 Governor of Windsor Castle, a Colonel in the 

 Parliamentary Army, M.P. for Gloucester and 

 Abingdon, was buried in the chancel of the 

 church there in 1682. In 1789 W. Lenthall, 

 of Besselsleigh, married a daughter and co- 

 heiress of Sir Thomas Kyffin of Nacuen, Car- 

 narvon, a descendant of Einion Effel, youngest 

 son of Madog, last Prince of Powys. 



On March the 2nd, 1893, ^.n interesting 

 event took place, when the Royal Buckhounds 



