176 LETTERS FROM HAMON LE STRANGE AND ROBERT MARSHAM. 
a mark proper to Hastings formerly lords of Gressenhall and 
Elsinge, which is now used by Sir Anthony Browne to whom 
I am willing to relinquish the same, and would have a distinct 
marke peculiar to my name and family, and to that end I 
crave that }T>ur Lordship will please to afford me that favour 
and as speedy a grant or direction for disposing thereof 
as conveniently may be. I hear also that sundry stray 
swans are taken up betwixt Linn and me and some aieries 
lately erected there by meane persons. If your Lordship 
have not granted your power there I would desire also that 
additament from you.” The remainder of the letter is an 
expression of thanks for his addition “ to the number of your 
deputy lieutenants in Norff.” Thomas Earl of Arundel and 
Surrey was Lord Lieutenant of the County of Norfolk from 
1615 to 1642 and from his subsequent request that Sir Henry 
Hobart would be “ aquiescent from any further motion to 
my Lord of Arundel for me ” it is evident that Le Strange 
owed his appointment as deputy Lieutenant to Sir Henry 
Hobart’s interest with that nobleman. As to the result of 
the application I can obtain no information. Mr. le Strange 
tells me that he has never found any papers in his Muniment 
Room at Hunstanton relating to a swan mark, and has never 
heard that his family made use of one. Swans have been 
kept by them from time immemorial ; but as the swans only 
ranged over waters belonging exclusively to their property in 
the parishes of Hunstanton and Holme, there was no possibility 
of their getting mixed with any other people’s swans and 
therefore no necessity for marking them. It seems not 
unlikely as Sir Henry Hobart died in Dec., 1625, only six 
months after the letter was written, that it may never have 
received his attention. 
The Gressenhall estate referred to came to the family of 
le Strange by the marriage of Sir Hanron le Strange who died 
in February, 1579, with Elizabeth Hastings, co-heiress of 
Sir Hugh Hastings of Elsing of whom the writer of the letter 
in question, Mr. le Strange informs me was grandson ; Sir 
Anthony Browne who used the Hastings’ swan mark was 
descended from another co-heiress of Sir Hugh Hastings. 
