244 NOTES TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 



men and gentlemen as be appointed to attend upon the King's 

 own person," when he was required to furnish thirty men at 

 arms (Gairdner, vol. xi. p. 233). 



He had for a near neighbour at Harrow-on-the-Hill, Dr. 

 Richard Layton, rector of Harrow, archdeacon of Bucks, and 

 visitor of monasteries, who, like himself, was devoted to hawk- 

 ing. This appears in a letter from Dr. Layton to Thomas 

 Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, dated " Harrow-on-the-Hill, 25 Sep- 

 tember, 1537," wherein the following passage occurs : — 



" Mr. Cheseman dined with me at Harrow last Thursday, and 

 when he showed me that the Friars of Hownsley [Hownslow] 

 would have sold him their house and lands, I advised him to go 

 to your lordship, the King's High Vicar-General, to whom it 

 pertained to redress their misgovernance. Nevertheless, the 

 morrow after, he obtained this lease [a lease for 99 years] as the 

 minister [of the Friars] confessed, whom I sent for to Harrow as 

 soon as I heard of this bruit. The Prince, their founder, and 

 your lordship will best know what to do. I send by this bringer 

 perisse [pears] of Harrowe, graffed by my Lord of Duresme his 

 own hands, and partridges my own hawk kilhr (R. O., No. 

 748, Gairdner, xii. p. 268.) In a subsequent letter to Cromwell 

 he writes : " If you had come to Harrow on Friday your bed 

 was ready. You shall have twenty beds in the town, where 

 there has been no sickness this year, and a dozen in the 

 parsonage. I send by the bearer half-a-dozen partridges. If 

 you come not soon there will be none to fly at. / send out my 



hawk to-day to kill some for your supper on Monday 



Harowe this Saturday." (R. O., No. 749, Gairdner, xii. p. 269.) , 



As Cheseman accompanied the King in his hawking excur- 

 sions, it is not unlikely that he was present on the occasion 

 of the memorable accident mentioned in Hall's " Chronicle," 

 already referred to {^Introduction, p. xv). He died 3 July 1547, 

 as appears by the Inquisition /^5/ mortem (i Edward VI. part 2, 

 Middlesex, No. i), wherein, as usual, the will is recited. It would 

 seem that he did not hold the office of Royal Falconer until his 

 death, for three years after his portrait was painted — namely, in 

 1536 — Henry Norris, Esquire, was Master of the Hawks, with a 

 salary of ;^4o per month. (Cal. State Papers, Dom., vol. x. 

 p. 364.) 



