Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/12

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io. s. v. JAX. e,

rrebellion of 1569; but I know of no record of our Sir Thomas among those implicated.

Two daughters of Sir Thomas are recorded in the Visitation of Essex of 1558 : Frances, ^married to Edmund Lucas, and afterwards successively to Bingham and Adames ; and

, married to Sir Humphrey Wingfield, of

'Brantham (she is called Elizabeth in the .Suffolk Visitation of 1561). Both are described as daughters and heiresses.

No mention is anywhere made of the Thomas who was nine in 1545, so that he probably died early.

By a deed in Close Rolls, 2 Eliz, part xii. !No. 16 (1559), Sir Thomas made over to Edmund Lucas all his property, including a 'leasehold house he had bought in Holborn and an estate he had bought at Clifton Reynes, in Bedfordshire. This was for various considerations and in settlement of all claims in dispute According to Morant, Pigott's Ardley was in the hands of the Cardinall family in 1568. It is possible that Sir Thomas meditated taking part with .Norton, and took the usual steps to secure his property.

I have not been able to trace his further career, except that he died, aged seventy- nine, on 2 May, 1582, and was buried at ^Grantchester, Cambridge, on 14 May ; the entry in the register records his descent. By his will (P.C.C. Tirwhite 26) he leaves every- thing to his wife Isabel, but there is no ) mention of any property. Dame Isabel by will (P C.C 2 Windsor, 1585) leaves various estates, that she had bought, to the children of her former husband Edward VVeldon.

Sir Thomas is certain to have followed the custom of the time and married quickly after the death of Maria Tey ; it seems certain that Isabel was a wife of his old age, and probably the third wife. It is quite possible that Sir Thomas may have had a family by a second wife, and that the Thomas, ancestor of the Ridgewell family, may have been a son of this marriage.

There did appear in the neighbourhood of Halstead about this time several Nevills who made marriages of some importance, and whom I cannot yet connect with other Essex Nevills, unless in the manner already sug- gested, which might, indeed, be part of the pedigree from Hugh of the Lion mentioned under the heading of Cromwell Fleetwood already referred to.

The existence of a second family of Sir Thomas, who would have no interest in the Tey estates and little inheritance from their father, would very well account for the Hal- stead family. As the Ridgewell family had,

rightly_ or wrongty, already established a connexion with Hugh Nevill of the Lion, and had used his arms, there was no great temptation to discard that in favour of an unfounded claim from a well - known man who had only been dead a little over a hundred years. Holman, on whose researches Morant's history is largely founded, was rector of Halstead about 1710 to 1730, and may have, at this time, made the discovery that induced John of Ridge- well to throw over the pedigree and arms assumed by his great-uncle George of Berk- hampstead, and carved upon his monument.

I have notes of several generations of other descendants of John Nevill of Halstead, the ancestor of the Ridgewell family ; from them it does not seem likely that these branches died out, as stated in Harl. MS. 3882. I shall be thankful for any further light upon the subject. RALPH NEVILL, F.S.A.

Castlehill, Guildford.

'THE EPICURES ALMANACK.'

IN MR. W. P. COURTNEY'S article on the career of Benson Earle Hill (10 th S. iii. 162) the above-mentioned work is quoted among "the works of his [Hill's] composition which are entered under his name in the British Museum Catalogue." I apprehend that Hill edited the 'Almanack' for the years 1841, 1842, and 1843; at any rate, the work was not first issued in 1841.

of Good Living : containing A Directory to the Taverns, Coffee- Houses, Inns, Eating- houses, and other Places of AJimentary Resort in the British Metropolis and its Environs : a Review of Artists who ad- minister to the Wants and Enjoyments of the Table ; a survey of the Markets ; and a Calendar of the Meats in Season during each Month of the Year,' was first published in 1815. The words "To be continued Annually " occur upon the title-page. The author's name does not appear in any part of the work in my copy ; however, written indistinctly in pencil are the words, so far as I can decipher them, '* By R. Rylance."
 * The Epicure's Almanack ; or. Calendar

The preface states :

"The manual here offered to the public is formed on the Model of a Work published annually at Paris, under the title of 'Almanach des Gour- mands.' It lays great claim to that indulgence

which the Public are ever disposed to afford to a

new Work on a vast and important subject Had

the Editor been gifted with the eyes of Argus, and the palate of Apicius Celius ; had his organs of vision and taste been multiplied an hundred fold, he must have failed to accomplish the undertaking in a single attempt."