MK. T. SOUTHWELL ON EARLY DUTCH AND ENGLISH DECOYS. 607 
the fashion which has survived to the present day, but also that 
lie imported a Dutch decoyman to superintend the work, in- 
dicating that the art was at that time better understood by the 
natives of the Low Countries than in England. The employment 
of foreigners for this purpose may not have been unusual at that 
time, for we find that King Charles II. employed a Dutchman 
named Sydrach H ileus * in the same capacity in 1665, and 
that professional Falconers were introduced for a like reason. 
It would also seem that the same rigid seclusion was main- 
tained, and mysticism observed in Holland at that time in the 
practice of decoying as prevailed long after in this country. 
Sir William Brereton was a scion of an ancient and distin- 
guished family, whose chief seat was the Manor of Brereton in 
Cheshire, with branches in Wales and Ireland ; the .Norfolk 
family of Breretons is also descended from Sir Randle Brereton 
of Malpas. The Sir William Brereton in question — for the 
Christian name of William was frequent in the family — was 
born at Handford in or about the year 1604, was created 
a Baronet in 1626 ; lie represented Cheshire in the Parliaments 
convened in the 3rd and 15th and 16th of Charles I., and 
greatly distinguished himself, as has already been said, in the 
wars of the Commonwealth. On the conclusion of Peace he 
did not go unrewarded, but received liberal grants of money 
and land, including the Archiepiscopal palace of Croydon. 
In allusion to this, in an old pamphlet published in 1663, 
entitled “ The Mysteries of the Good Old Cause,” he is 
described as a “ notable man at a thanksgiving dinner, having 
terrible long teeth and a prodigious stomach, to turn the 
Archiepiscopal Chapel at Croydon into a kitchen ; also to 
swallow up the palace and lands as a morsel.” In Sir F. 
Dwarris’s “ Observations upon the History of one of the old 
Cheshire Families ” + he thus speaks of Sir William Brereton : 
“He sedulously collects information upon the subject [of ducks 
and decoys in his travels] in Holland, and contrasts, with 
the chuckle of conscious superiority, foreign ponds and decoys 
* See ‘ Handbook of London ’ vol. ii. p. 434, as quoted by Payne-Gallwey, 
‘ The Book of Duck Decoys,’ p. 126. 
t ‘ Archselogia ’ vol. x.xxiii. p. 77. 
