THE REAL OWNER OF SPYE PARK. 45 



was singularly unfortunate with them. I think the 

 whole were a failure ; but this, of course, no one could 

 help, not even the generous seller. 



From what Mr. Starkey himself told me. I should 

 think that from first to last he never received from 

 those friends who so generously helped him in every 

 time of need, much, if anything, above £50,000 in 

 cash and £5,000 in horseflesh — a statement borne oat 

 by what his chief creditor himself has told me. And 

 yet for this trivial sum his ancestral estate of Spye 

 Park passed from the hands of this misguided man to 

 those of his trusted friend Mr. Padwick, who, on the 

 same authority I hear, ultimately sold it for £275,000, 

 leaving its owner without sufficient means to pay his 

 debts, beside a small annuity previously secured for 

 his widow and children. I believe that at one time 

 £300,000 was offered and refused for the estate. The 

 offer, I am perhaps correct in saying, was made on 

 behalf of the Prince of Wales before the purchase of 

 Sandringham was decided upon. At the time its 

 owner proudly said, ' He would never go out of it till 

 he was carried to the churchyard.' But he thought 

 better of this, or Mr. Padwick did so for him ; for it 

 was the latter who made the bargain for the sale of 

 the property. For a long time before that event, the 

 legend — 



' Henry Padwick, Esq., 

 ' Spye Park, 



' Wilts/ 



