By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



287 



dinal Allen that many English Priests murmured loudly that " my 

 Lord Cardinal was much to blame." When he was in the 30th year 

 of his age, " on his mother's persuasion and offer to make provision 

 for him," he married " Mary, one of the descendants of Edward 

 Langford, of Trowbridge, esquire, by whom in present and after 

 her mother he had a good fortune, in the account of that age." 

 The entry in the Troicbridge Register corresponds exactly with this 

 statement. It runs thus: — "The year, 1597, Aprill, Mr. Henry 

 Hide and Mistris Marie Langeforde was married the 3rd daie." 

 They lived at Dinton, in a house, it is supposed now pulled down, 

 and there their son Edward was baptized, in March, 1608. 



I need hardly say that in all this there is not the slightest war- 

 rant for thinking that the fair tub- woman, or vintner's widow, can 

 be found among the Trowbridge connexions of Lord Clarendon. 

 A few passing observations in his life concerning the habits of his 

 parents effectually preclude the possibility of the tale in any sense 

 being true of them. They lived at Dinton, where no less than 

 nine children were born to them, They afterwards, it appears, 

 lived at Purton. His father's duties as a Burgess in Parliament 

 required him at times to go to London, but he always went alone. 

 His mother, " though married for more than 40 years, was never in 

 London in her life." In his will Henry Hyde speaks of the " great 

 house at Trowbridge, and lands and tenements in Studley, Hil- 

 perton, and elsewhere, which he had by Mary his wife." 



But another fact that we may notice, as testifying to the good 



standing and social position of the Trowbridge connexions of Lord 



Clarendon, is the custom that he seems to have introduced, and 



which was followed by his family, of invariably quartering the arms 



of Langford (and these only), with those of Hyde. 1 There were 



other coats which they might have borne in their shield, but 



we never find them using them. The coat of Hyde, quarterly 



with Langford, is to be seen in an old copy of the folio 



"History of Rebellion." They are to be seen also carved in 



wood by Grinlin Gibbons, on the pediment of the Corinthian 



altar-piece in the chapel at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire. In 



1 In Sandtord's Genealogies under " Edward, Earl of Clarendon," there is a 

 plate in which we have Hyde quartering Langford ? 



