The Ayliffes of Gritienham. 



195 



right hand. This worthy's epitaph, inspired by the Muse of Stern- 

 hold and Hopkins, was in St. Michael's Church, Basinghall Street, 

 and is printed in Stow's London. Book III., p. 67 : — 



"In chirurg'ry brought up in youth, a Knight here lyeth dead, 

 A Knight and eke a surgeon such as England seld hath bred. 

 For which so sovereign gift of Grod wherin he did excell 

 King Henry VIIJ call'd him to Court, who lov'd him dearly well. 

 God gave the gift : the King gave goods, the gift of God t'enhance 

 Where God and such a prince do join, such man hath happy chance. 

 King Edward for his service sake bad him rise up a knight 

 A name of praise, and ever since he Sir John Ayliff night." 



&c, &c. 



The " goods " given by King Henry were the lands at Grittenham, 

 part of the confiscated property of Malmesbury Abbey. From him 

 descended John AylifP, Sheriff of Wilts, 1609, and Sir George, 

 1635, described as "of Rabson, in Win terbourn Basset." There 

 were marriages with the families of St. John, Danvers, Goddard, 

 and others in the county. Anne Ay line, daughter of Sir George, 

 was the first wife of Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Chancellor 

 Clarendon: and dying 1632 was buried at Purley Church, Co. Berks. 1 



We have a few notices of some members of the Grittenham 

 family who obtained a little notoriety. The first occurs in Mr. 

 Forster's Life of Sir John Eliot (Vol. I., 8). Speaking of the fatal 

 encounters that were common between gentlemen in the reign of 

 King James L, he says : — " Not even the latest display of de- 

 termined disapproval by James, which had brought to the very foot 

 of the gallows young Mr. Ayloffe of Wilts for slaying the cousin of 

 the Countess of Bedford, availed to suppress or check those blazings 

 forth of temper/' &c. 



The Countess of Bedford of James the First's time was a very- 

 celebrated lady : by birth Lady Lucy Harington, the elder of the 

 two daughters of the first Lord Harington, of Exton, and coheirs 

 of the second lord, their brother. She married Edward, third Earl 

 of Bedford, in 1594. She was a lady of great taste and spirit, but 



1 Her monument with portraitures of herself and infant, with a touching Latin 

 inscription, is mentioned in Ashmole's " Berks," I., 2. See also " Wiltshire 

 Collections," Aubrey and Jackson, p. 155. 



