Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/418

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. xn. OCT. so, 1909.

Although it is not mentioned in any Visitation, Christopher Alleyn had, appa- rently in rather strange circumstances, married again, late in life, a certain Dorothy Crooke, who, after his death, married Roger Manwood. With Holywell secured to Giles, Christopher looked out for some property he might leave to his wife. He went to the town of Colbrook, to settle with Mr. Thomas Windsor about some land near there, for which he paid over 200Z., and told Mr. Windsor the property would be secured to his wife. Giles Allen contested something in this settlement in a Star Chamber case, of which the complaint and answer are lost. One set of depositions appears as the first Star Chamber case in Elizabeth's reign, vol. i. Bundle I. No. 1, 25 June, 3 Eliz. Another set of depositions I found to belong to the same case in the Star Chamber Proceedings, Add. A 17/4, 7 May, 3 Eliz. Allen had gone to stay at " the Swan," Colbrook ; Windsor to " The George Inn," and there Allen went to pay over the money in the presence of Edmund Dickenson, John Wood, Richard and William Allen of Colbrook, and others. The coins were chiefly Spanish money. Written papers were handed over, but there were no signatures. Allen had to go through things first with Mr. Haddon.

In the more interesting depositions of 20 June, Robert Saunders, innholder of Shoreditch, deposed that he had been servant with Mr. Christopher Allen (father to Giles) till he died. He was present when he married Dorothy Crooke " on Monday in Easter last was six years, in the parish of St. Faith, London." Allen did not ride out of London to Colebrook or anywhere else between the day of his marriage and midsummer. He was the only servant, and used to fetch his master's horse when he wanted it from Littlebury in Essex, where they pastured. Allen may have walked on foot to Islington or Newington, but he never rode a horse till he went to " Calice " at midsummer, and Saunders only attended him as far as Gravesend, where he took ship to " Calice." Chris- topher did not make any great business of the day of his marriage, but he made a great and solemn dinner on the Sunday following, when divers worshipful men and women came, whom Saunders himself had bid to dinner.

Two former maidservants supported the man's testimony. Christopher Alleyn had married Dorothy Crooke on Easter Monday six years ago, in a chamber of his house in Paternoster Row in the parish of St. Faith.

To the great Sunday feast came Sir Harry Hubblethorne and his wife, Mr. Argall and his wife, and the chief parishioners. One of the interrogatories was : " Did Roger Man- wood, husband of the said Dorothy, receive dower out of Colbrook by the arbitrament of Mr. Gerard and Mr. No well ? " The case shows, therefore, that by this date Chris- topher was dead, and his wife married again. No decision is found.

Giles Alleyn, besides other smaller cases, brought a pitiful complaint before the Court of Requests, 18 (?) Eliz., 93/14. He said that, about thirteen or fourteen years before, he had been seised in the manor of East Leigh, alias Leigh Court, in Kent, and he bargained and conveyed it to one Edward Blackwell, and bound himself by a heavy bond to fulfil all the conditions. Blackwell died, and it came to his son William Black- well. Meanwhile, " by colour that it was gavelkind land, and partitive among the male heirs of the said Agnes Allen deceased," his brothers George, John, and Edward Alleyn, " intending to defraud and beguile your subject," agreed that Edward and John should privily enfeoff George of their shares, and George sued for a writ of par- tition, and afterwards offered to release their shares to William Blackwell for a sum of money. Blackwell therefore sued Alleyn for his bond against breach of covenant, and Giles was about to lose on both sides and

Spayed for help. The result is not given, ut it is of some interest to us to remember that it was while he was being worried by the late and unexpected action of his brothers that he let part of the Holywell property to James Burbage, knowing it was to be the site of a theatre. See my

faper ' Burbage' s Theatre,' Fortnightly, July, 909. Possibly the disturbances there made him migrate to Essex. He was seised in fee of the manor of Haseley by deed dated 1 May, 23 Eliz. (1581). See Inq. P.M. His residence there is referred to in the later Theatre litigation.

Giles Allen of Haseley in the county of Essex pitifully complained in Chancery that his father Christopher Alleyn, Esq., and Agnes his wife, being seised by the right of Agnes in the manors of Olyves and Garnetts in Rottyng Margetts in co. Essex, had in 33 Henry VIII. granted a lease of twenty-one years to John Wale and Elizabeth his wife. During this lease his parents died, the manors descended to him, and he let them for a second term of twenty-one years, during which term his tenants died, and their sons William and John Wale succeeded.