House and Garden 
It was otherwise with the early home of Sir 
Ralph’s mother, Hillesdon House,only some 
three miles distant, where her brother, Sir 
Alexander Denton, then lived. There was 
an anxious day for the household at Claydon 
in March of 1644. Noise of battle was 
heard over at Hillesdon. Ralph’s brother 
Tom, and two sisters were at the time stay¬ 
ing there with the Dentons. Soon the sky 
was red with the glare of the burning house. 
Sir Alexander had fortified it as a royal out¬ 
post, and that vigorous parliamentary colonel 
of growing reputation, Oliver Cromwell, had 
come out to attack it. He lay with his 
forces for a night roundabout the Church of 
Steeple Claydon, and next day carried the 
outworks of Hillesdon, and then the house, 
which was given to the flames. Many of 
its defenders were slain, and forty taken 
prisoners, including Sir Alexander himself, 
and Tom Verney. For the master of Hilles¬ 
don House the even tenor of country life 
had come to a sudden end. A few months 
earlier he had been bereaved both of his 
wife, a cousin of Johfi Hampden’s, and his 
mother. Now his home had disappeared in 
this spasm of blood and fire. A few months 
The Library 
PLASTER CEILINGS 
later his eldest son, John, was killed fighting 
bravely in battle, and not long afterwards the 
broken gentleman himself followed him to 
the grave. Even amidst such scenes as these, 
love intrudes, and his sister, Susan Denton, 
was wooed and wed, all in three days, by an 
officer of the attacking force. Their tomb 
is among those of the Denton’s in Hilles¬ 
don Church. Thus did the Civil War write 
history across the English shires. 
Both before and after these times of trou¬ 
ble, various sons of the family had found the 
home boundaries and interests too narrow 
for them. The roving spirit of Saxon and 
Viking forefathers moved men of the race 
then, as it does still on both sides of the 
Atlantic. Thus, Sir Francis, a fine figure 
of a man to look at, and brother of the 
Standard Bearer, selling out all his available 
estates, took to a life of piracy with the 
Moors of the Mediterranean, and, after two 
years of slavery at the oar in Sicilian galleys, 
died miserably at Messina. Sir Edmund’s 
second son, Tom, whose visit to Hillesdon 
H ouse ended so unpleasantly, was a very typi¬ 
cal scapegrace. He, too, wanders unfruitfully 
abroad ; now in Virginia, now in Barbadoes, 
7 
