282 



Charles, Lord Stourion, fyc. 



Mary Stourton, was Mr. Thomas Gore the writer on Heraldry, 

 who with very great diligence compiled and in 1666 completed a 

 MS. History of the Gore family with proofs and testimonies most 

 precisely drawn out. At page 140 of the volume (now in the 

 possession of G. P. Scrope Esq., of Castle Combe), Thomas Gore 

 produces the following proof that his ancestor Mary, daughter of 

 William Lord Stourton and Agnes Ryce, had been legitimately 

 born. 



" William Lord Stourton was married unto the said Agnes on Wednesday 

 the sixth day of January in the 37th year of the Raigne of King Henry the 8th. 

 Anno que Domini 1545 (? 1546) in a certaine chappell within the mannor of 

 Stourton aforesaid, by one Sir Richard Harte then parson of the parish church 

 of Weston Stourton within the County of Dorset." * 



In the margin of his MS. Mr. Gore gives his authority for this 



statement : viz., " From the depositions of certain witnesses on 



behalf of Agnes Rice versus Charles Lord Stourton in the Court of 



Chancery, in Edw. VI." ("Ex depositionibus quorundam ex 



parte Agnetis Ryce contra Dominum Carolum Stourton in Curia 



Cancellarise temp. Edw. VP." 1 



* Weston Stourton : now called Buckhom Weston. " William Harte, Presbyter, was presented to 

 the Rectory by William Lord Stourton and instituted 28 May, 1540. [Hutchins's Dorset, Old Ed., 

 vol. ii., p. 331. 



1 Agnes Ryce afterwards married Sir Edw. Baynton of Rowdon near Chip- 

 penham, Kt, by whom she had 13 children. She died on Thursday 19th August 

 16 Elizabeth (1574), and was buried in the Baynton's Aisle in Bromham Church 

 Wilts. (See Kite's " Wilts Brasses," p. 63.) 



In the Gore Family Register above quoted are also two deeds relating to the 

 marriage of Richard Gore and Mary Stourton. By the second of them, in 

 1573 in right of Mary his wife, Richard Gore appointed William Askew his 

 Attorney "to enter into all those lands, &c, in Wilts, Somerset, Gloucester, 

 and Dorset, wherof William Lord Stourton deceased died seised, and which 

 after his death did and ought to descend to the said Mary as daughter and heir 

 of the said William Lord Stourton. Dated Oct. 9th." 



Richard Gore (the husband), certainly seems to have considered his wife a 

 legitimate daughter of William Lord Stourton ; for in this last deed he is pre- 

 paring, in 1573, to put forward her claim as "heir," to the Stourton estates. 

 On what ground, is not quite clear. Possibly this. Tf William Lord Stourton's 

 first wife Elizabeth Dudley had really been, before William Lord Stourton 

 married her, the wife of his brother Peter (see note above p. 243) Charles Lord 

 Stourton would have been illegitimate. Charles being attainted, and his son 

 not being of age nor restored in blood till 1575, Richard Gore may have been 

 anticipating a chance for his wife Mary Stourton. But Charles Stourton's 



