By the Rev. Canon J. B. Jackson, F.8.A. 



179 



appropriate the rents. Englefield continued in league with malcon- 

 tents abroad, especially with the Duke of Feria, who had married 

 an English lady, but hated Elizabeth from the beginning, and stirred 

 up Pope Pius to excommunicate her, and the King of Spain to 

 be her enemy. Elizabeth allowed Englefield all the rents of his 

 property, and assured him he would not be meddled with in his owa 

 country if he would merely be quiet, but the enly reply be sent was 

 in a bold letter to Dudley, Earl of Leicester, denying the Queens 

 right to the throne, and, in short, wholly defying her authority. 

 In 1584 he began a more dangerous game. He entered into cor- 

 respondence with Mary, Queen of Scots. The letters were intercepted 

 by Cecil, and the contents were of so treasonable a nature that, 

 having somehow or other, I don't exactly know how, come within 

 reach.he was tried and executed in 1 587,along with Lord Paget andSir 

 FrancisThrockmorton. Hisbody was carried back to Spain and buried 

 in the College of Valladolid, to which he had been a great benefactor. 



Fasterne was restored to the family, and the last Lady Englefield 

 re-married Sir Robert Howard, who was living there in 1672. It 

 was then bought by Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, son of 

 Chancellor Clarendon, and continued in his representatives until 

 sold a few years ago to the now owner, Sir Henry Meux. About 

 the middle of the last century it was occupied by a family of the 

 name of Franklin, and from old letters it appears that it was a 

 favourite rendezvous for a club of friends and neighbours who used 

 to meet every fortnight, not for croquet nor yet for tennis, but for 

 the older game of bowls. The bowling green remains. Of the 

 original and larger house the foundations are still visible, the 

 walls are very thick. There is a Tudor door-way left, and in a 

 chamber on the first-Boor a stone chimney piece and fire-place 

 surmounted by the arms of the Euglefields. It is worth a visit 

 from the passer-by, and if he happens to have heard my story and 

 has not forgotten it, he will look upon the decayed mansmn with a 

 certain respect; and, as he turns away to leave, perhaps some 

 thought of this kind may pass across his mind: "There are the 

 Despensers, there are the Euglefields, and here am I. Upon the 

 whole I think that ' living dogs are better than dead lions. 



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