Recent Wiltshire Boohs, Pamphlets, and Articles. 101 



traces the Stourton family at Stourton back to Saxon times. The recorded 

 and unquestioned pedigrees commence with a certain Botolph, Lord of 

 Stourton, at the date of the Conquest, and there is now contemporary 

 and documentary evidence to show that they were landholders at Stourton 

 in the reign of Edward I. The Barony of Stourton was created by patent 

 in 1448, and is now the oldest barony by patent in existence. From the 

 earliest Norman times the wealth and position of the Stourton family 

 steadily increased. They were allied by ties of blood with the Royal 

 House of Tudor, and with many of the powerful families in whose hands 

 lay the government of the kingdom in the reign of King Edward VI., 

 and the House of Stourton is one of the very few English families from 

 which Her Majesty Queen Victoria is herself actually descended. With 

 the execution and attainder of Charles, 8th Lord Stourton, came the first 

 in the long catalogue of reverses and misfortunes. The wealth of the 

 family at first slowly, then rapidly declined, and Edward, 13th Lord 

 Stourton, finally disposed of the whole of the landed property he had 

 inherited, including the castle, the manor, and the lands of Stourton. 

 His brother succeeded to an empty inheritance. The property v/hich is 

 now enjoyed by Lord Mowbray and Stourton and the members of the 

 Stourton family is due to a succession of fortunate marriages. Catholic 

 in the beginning the family is Catholic now, and this surely is a record 

 to be proud of, when the long succession of Catholic penalties and 

 disabilities in this country are had in remembrance." The book in fact 

 aims at recording everything that is known or can be discovered about 

 the various members of the Stourton family from the earliest mention of 

 the name down to the present day, and it is evident that neither time, 

 trouble, nor expense has been spared. The labour, indeed, expended in 

 compiling these two monumental volumes has been prodigious, for not 

 only the Stourtons themselves but the various individuals and families 

 connected with them by marriage all receive as full mention as possible 

 — with the result that the book, and more especially the first volume, is 

 a sort of quarry out of which you may dig genealogical information as to 

 the early history of very many of the leading families of Dorset, "Wilts, 

 and Somerset. It is provided, moreover, with an admirable index, giving, 

 apparently, the references to every name mentioned in the text. An idea 

 of their number may be gained from the fact that the index fills 41 pages 

 of three columns each, in very small print. So fully, indeed, is the 

 subject dealt with, and so many are the digressions on the history of 

 connected families, or the historical circumstances of the time, that the 

 main thread is sometimes a little difficult to follow. Moreover, the work 

 has been several years in passing through the press with the result that 

 in the first volume statements made in the earlier pages have sometimes 

 to be corrected, and sometimes amplified in the later — with the result, 

 too, that there is a good deal of repetition, often more than once, of 

 statements and facts already given. Indeed the impression gained from 

 the book itself is that the author, as the work progressed, grew into a 

 more complete mastery of his materials ; for the latter part of the first, 

 and the second volume, seem in all ways an improvement on the earlier 



