By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A 177 



the Crown. They were bestowed upon Edmund of Langley, fifth 

 son of King- Edward III. Fasterne was then held by his son, 

 Edward, Duke of York, who was killed at the Battle of Agincourt, 

 and some time after that it became dower land to the Queens o£ 

 England. Katharine Parr, widow of Henry VIII., had it, and 

 leased it to Sir Henry Long, of Draycote. 1 Katharine had re- 

 married Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of Protector Somerset. The 

 Protector coveted Fasterne, and negotiated with Sir Henry Long to 

 resign his lease. Katharine Parr, when she heard of this was 

 highly indignant. She happened to be on very bad terms with 

 the Protector, because he kept back from her some valuable jewels 

 which, as she maintained, King Henry had given her for her 

 own. She vowed she would stop this Fasterne Lease job, and would 

 go herself " tomorrow, Saturday, at three o'clock " to the young 

 King Edward, and give full utterance to her feelings against the 

 Protector his uncle. But the uncle-Protector of the realm was 

 rather a formidable person to be meddled with. Whether she kept 

 her promise, and how far she succeeded in getting the diamonds, 

 my authority does not say; but Somerset certainly succeeded in 

 getting Fasterne. Sir Henry Long somewhat unwillingly parted 

 with it for a sum of money and the office of Ranger of Braden 

 Forest for his life. 



In the reign of Queen Mary Fasterne and Wootton Manor were 

 bestowed by her upon one of her most zealous supporters, Sir 

 Francis Englefield. He belonged to an old and distinguished 

 Roman Catholic family of Englefield House, near Reading. As a 

 compliment, he had been knighted at the coronation of Edward VI., 

 when forty knights of the Bath were created, and fifty-four others 

 who were called Knights of the Carpet. I do not know exactly 

 what that means, unless it is that they were a kind of ornamental 

 knights, to dance attendance at Court, or of those butterfly marquises 

 of a later reign, whose chief duty was, not to brandish a sword on 

 horseback, but a knife and fork at the dinner-table. But Sir 

 Francis Englefield was of a very different quality. He was a deter- 

 mined and thorough-going Romanis t. He had been an officer i n 



1 Eetrospective Review, vol. i., 208. 

 VOL. XXIII. — NO. LXVIII. N 



