150 Wulfhall and the Seymours. 



" And thus I bid you heartily farewell." But my Lord's Grace the 

 Protector's new style is — " W e have received your letters/'' and " We 

 bid } r ou heartily farewell." I have brought two of his letters which 

 show this. Still, though he may not have often visited the old 

 family house, he bought all he could round it ; and the greater part 

 of his vast possessions certainly lay in this county and in Somerset. 



Besides Wulfhall and Tottenham Lodge, the Duke of Somerset 

 had a residence at Easton, a dissolved Priory near Pewsey. [Appen- 

 dix, No. vii.) But from the Longleat Papers I have made the rather 

 interesting discovery, that it certainly was his intention to build a 

 new house, upon some very large scale, not exactly on the site of 

 Wulfhall, but very near it, rather more towards Great Bedwyn. 

 Those who are acquainted with that neighbourhood will know the 

 high ground consisting of two wooded hills, with Wilton Common 

 lying between them, called Bedwyn Brail. The word Brail used 

 often to be pronounced Broyl, which is merely a provincial variety 

 of one and the same word, signifying [in old French, " Breuil," in 

 mediseval Latin, " Brolium," or " Bruelletum," and in Anglo-Saxon, 

 C( Broel,") open pasture ground studded with thickets and limber. 

 Near Ringmer, in Sussex, there is an old house, with large well- 

 timbered park, called Broyle Place, most likely of the same origin. 



The two hills called Bedwyn Brail, or Broil, command a fine view 

 down the Vale of Pewsey, westward ; and on one of them this new 

 palace was to have been built. In the letters written to Sir John 

 Thynne by stewards and other local agents {Appendix, No. viii), are 

 described the large preparations going on — the providing of water, 

 searching for stone, enclosure of a park, brick making, orders for 

 Purbeck stone, &c. &c. One letter in particular dwells upon the 

 progress they are making in a large conduit or channel for bringing 

 water to the new house, and reports that this conduit had been dug 

 to the length of 1600 feet, and part thereof 15 feet deep. (Appen- 

 dix No. viii., 3 and 10.) 



There were so many references in these letters to local names of 

 mills and commons and the like, to be enclosed within the new park, 

 that I determined to use my own eyes and tongue, and see if we 

 could not make out something more about this palace which Protector 



