xvi 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
ence in colour and in feature may be traced to this ; 
viz, that the first has had too much, and the 
second too little, sun. 
In remote times, some of my ancestors were suf- 
ficiently notorious to have had their names handed 
down to posterity. They fought at Cressy, and 
at Agincourt, and at Marston Moor. Sir Robert 
Waterton was Governor of Pontefract Castle, and 
had charge of King Richard II. Sir Hugh Water- 
ton was executor to his Sovereign's will, and guar- 
dian to his daughters. Another ancestor was sent 
into France by the king, with orders to contract a 
royal marriage. He was allowed thirteen shillings 
a day for his trouble and travelling expenses. An- 
other was Lord Chancellor of England, and preferred 
to lose his head rather than sacrifice his conscience. 
Another was master of the horse, and was deprived 
both of his commission and his estate, on the same 
account as the former. His descendants seemed 
determined to perpetuate their claim to the soil ; 
for they sent a bailiff* once in every seven years to 
dig up a sod on the territory. I was the first to 
discontinue this septennial act, seeing law and length 
of time against us. 
Up to the reign of Henry VIII., things had gone 
on swimmingly for the Watertons ; and it does not 
appear that any of them had ever been in disgrace. 
— — " Neque in his quisquam damnatus et exsul." 
But, during the sway of that ferocius brute, there 
was a sad reverse of fortune : — 
« Ex illo fluere, ac retro sublapsa referri, 
Spes Danaum." 
