BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Although the family from which Catharine Parr Strickland 

 (Mrs. Traill) is descended was one of considerable note and 

 standing in the northern counties of England, her immediate 

 ancestor was born and spent the greater part of his life in 

 London. 



The cause of the migration of this branch of the Strickland 

 house was the unexpected return of Catharine's great-grand- 

 father's elder and long4ost brother. He had been hidden at 

 the Court of the exiled Stuarts, at St. Germains, and returned, 

 after an absence of upwards of twenty years, to claim the 

 paternal estate of Finsthw r aite Hall and its dependencies. He 

 not only established his claim, but, with an ungenerous hand, 

 grasped all the rents and revenues accruing to the property, 

 and his nephew, then a student at Winchester College, dis- 

 daining to ask any favors of his uncle, left the now reduced 

 comforts of Light Hall, his mother's jointure house, and went 

 to seek his fortune in the metropolis. Being successful in 

 the quest, he, after a time, married Elizabeth Cotterell, of 

 the loyal Staffordshire family of that name, and maternally 

 descended from one of the honest Penderel brothers, who 

 protected Charles II. in the oak at Boscobel, and succeeded, 

 through their intrepid loyalty to the house of Stuart, in 

 effecting his escape. 



