194 



C|« ^%Ww of Inittoijmm. 



By the Eev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 



RITTENHAM is a manor in the parish of Brinkworth, in 

 North Wilts. Of the manor-house once there only a 

 fragment now remains ; and of the Ayliffe family, to whom it be- 

 longed for about two hundred years, nothing. Their estates at 

 Grittenham, Winterbourne Basset, Norton, and Foxley, passed 

 early in the last century, in a manner that will be described, to the 

 family of Fox, Lord Holland, and now belong to the widow of the 

 last lord, who died without issue in 1859. The right of the Ayliffes 

 so to transfer them was indisputable, but the exercise of the right 

 was the cause, at least, a chief cause, of leading into evil courses, 

 and at last to an untimely end, an unwise and misguided pretender 

 to the estates, the circumstances of which will form the principal 

 subject of this paper. 



There were in different counties in England two or three families 

 of the name of Ayliffe. One in Kent claimed to be descended from 

 one Aluph, a Saxon, whose name still continues to be attached 

 to the village of Bough ton- Aluph, near Wye. Another, with a 

 baronetcy which expired in 1781, was of Braxtead, Brittaynes, and 

 Chissell, Co. Essex : but in their pedigree there does not seem to be 

 any link with the Ayliffes of North Wilts. 1 These begin with Sir 

 John Ayliff, of Blackwell Hall, London, sheriff and alderman, a 

 famous surgeon, knighted by King Edward VI. : whose portrait 

 appears in Holbein's great picture at Barber Surgeons Hall in 

 Monkwell Street : being the second person from the king on his 



1 The coats of arms of the two families are different. Ayliffe of Braxtead used 

 Sable a lion rampant between three crosses pattee or. The Wilts family, Argent 

 on a chevron raguly sable between three etoiles gules, three bucks' heads. Crest, 

 out of a ducal coronet an oak tree. For pedigrees see Harl. MS. No. 1165, f. 28 : 

 also No. 1443, f . 16 b : and the Visitation of Wilts of 1623, lately printed by Dr. 

 George W. Marshall. 



