Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/350

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. APR. so, 1910.

Major of Hursley Park was a great man on the Parliament side,' 1 which introduces the following document :

" Southton, ff. Decline quinto die Novembris 1043. Then received of Richard Maijor, ,Esq., fower horses completely armed, with greate sadles, pistolles, carbias, and buff coats. Valued, with the furniture, at 20Z. apiece, which, with the 201. in money then received of him, amounts in the whole to 100Z., which were employed in the troope of Captain Francis St. Barbe for the service of the Parliament, and for which he is to have the public faith. John Ewer and Richard Wallop."

Richard Major had two daughters : Dorothy, who married, on May Day, 1649, Richard Cromwell, and Anne, who married in 1650 John Dunch of North Baddesly, near Romsey, a property inherited by his mother, Dulcibella Moore, who was a half - sister of William Pawlet (aforesaid). Richard Morley, the Hursley poet, says (vide the Rev. John Marsh's account of Hursley) that the two daughters of Richard Major, with their husbands, lived there with him until Major's death in April, 1660.

It is therefore now clear that, far from being the Royalist standard - bearer of Romsey tradition, Francis St. Barbe was a captain of a troop of Parliament horse in 1643, and the sequel will be found in the Romsey Burial Register :

" September ye 22nd, 1643, ffrancis Saintbarbe, sonne of Henry, Esquire, hurt at ye fight of New- bury."

He is said to have died at Broadlands. It would be interesting to discover who was living there at that date, and also when John St. Barbe married Grissell, daughter and coheiress of John Pynsent (of Carleton Curlieu, co. Leicester, by Mary, daughter of Simon Clifford of Boscombe, Wilts). She must have married very young, as she was only twenty- two at her death, and already the mother of four sons. Her portrait bust on the coloured tomb represents her with the flowing curls of Stuart times and a round, pleasant face ; that of John St. Barbe, beside her, has also flowing hair, but a Puritan collar. The following is part of the inscription :

An anagram on the names of John St. Barbe and Grissell.

Bein shares in Blest glorie.

The memory of ye wicked shall rott but

ye remembrance of ye just shall live for ever.

" John St. Barbe, Esquire, and Grissell his wife, the daughter of John Pynsent, Esquire, he about the 42nd of his age, and she about the 22nd of her age, leaving fower sonnes, Henry, John, Francis, and Edward."

The Burial Register of Romsey points to a joint interment : " John St. Barbe and Grissell -his wife were buryed September ye second, 1658."

John's will, dated 18 Aug., 1658, appoints Grissell his wife executrix, and leaves her all his lands, &c., in trust for fifty years, making provision for her possible re- marriage, so that they were both alive at that date.

The following very interesting original letter, preserved among the Cromwell family papers, is addressed by Richard Cromwell to his brother-in-law John Dunch, and dated " August the 28th, n 1658.

SIR, I received the sad intelligence of the death of Mr. John St. Barbe and his lady. I am persuaded they are out of a troublesome world and certainly happy. The loss is not so much theirs as their neighbour's. His friendship will make me to rejoice in his and his wife's happiness. It is a provential streacke [sic], and ought to teach the most healthy and happy. I am fullv persuaded the country hath a loss in him .... Your loving friend

RICHARD CROMWELL.

In the same packet of letters, but of an earlier date, are several from the Protector to Col. Richard Norton, the famous daredevil Parliament general "idle Dick," as Crom- well calls him ; and they relate to the prospective marriage of Dorothy Major to Richard Cromwell. In the years to come, when King Charles II. was on the throne, and " idle Dick " forgiven, the King (in 1663) conferred a baronetcy on John St. Barbe, the only survivor of the ' ' fower sonnes ^ of John and Grissell. He married Honor Norton, a daughter of the second marriage of "idle Dick,' ? and her brother Col. William Norton long lived at the Manor House of Wellow, and was buried in its church on 2 Dec., 1693.

Mr. T. W. Shore in his ' History of Hamp- shire * (p. 259) repeats the local tradition that

" at East Wellow Col. Norton, the Regicide, is said to still occasionally walk from the site of the old Manor House, formerly the seat of his family, to the parish church."

But, as William Norton was not born until after the execution of Charles I., this i manifestly an error.

Mr. Pink in Hampshire Notes and Queries, I vol. vi. p. 126, says that Mabella, daughter! of Sir Richard Norton, first Baronet Rotherfield (a cousin of "idle Dick" married Sir Henry Norton, Bt. (of another family), who was a son of i Gregory Norton the Regicide, and inherit his father's baronetcy (an Irish creation