Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/19

 11 S. X. JULY 4, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Henry of whom more later succeeded to his father's estates and baronetcy, and married Mabella, daughter of Sir Richard Norton, Bart, /of Rotherfield in East Tysted (Hants) a match which has given rise to great confusion in the Norton of Rother- field pedigree. Sir Henry Norton was apparently no blood relation of his wife.

At Somerset House, in the Will Register for 1652 (Bowyer, fol. 179), is a reference to the will of " Sir Gregorie Norton of the Parish of Pauls Covent Garden in the Co untie of Middlesex Baronet." The will itself is dated 12 March, 1651, and contains these words :

' : First whereas I have mortgaged my land in Perm in the Countie of Bucks to Robert Johnson of Lo nd on Esquire I leave the redemption thereof to my unnaturallie dysobedient sonne Henrie Norton."

The testator confirms settlement by deed of his other property, and expresses the wish to be buried in or near Richmond. He was buried in the Richmond Parish Church- yard on 26 March, 1652. The will was proved on 24 Sept., 1652, by Dame Martha Norton, the relict, who on 20 Oct., 1655, married Robert Gordon, Viscount Kenmure. This nobleman was born in November, 1622, and succeeded to the peerage in October, 1643. It is said he suffered much on account of his loyalty to the King, and was excepted from Cromwell's " Act of Grace," 1654. He died at Greenlaw in 1663. His widow died about 1671, the will being proved in November of that year. Accord- ing to Robert 'Baillie,

4 Kenmure cast himself away on a foolish mar- y.iage which would accomplish the ruin of his family."

The " disobedience " of Sir Gregory Norton's son referred to above was most likely no more than his disapproval of his father's extreme anti-Royalism, for, as we shall see later, Henry's wife speaks of her husband's abhorrence of the deeds per- petrated by the father, Sir Gregory. Suc- ceeding to his father's baronetcy and estate, Henry legally held these until the Restoration, when the post-mortem attainder of his father in 1660 deprived him of both alike.

On 10 March, 1658, Sir Henry was enrolled in the Register of Gray's Inn; and in January, 1659, he was elected M.P. for Petersfield, Hants, in the Parliament of Richard Crom- well, but unseated by resolution of the House on 22 March of the same year.

ALBERT A. BABKAS.

Richmond, Surrey.

(To be continued.)

CHAPEL-HOUSE (US. ix. 489). If R. A. H. will refer to road-books such as Keareley's ' Traveller's Entertaining Guide through Great Britain,' 1801 ; Cary's ' New Itine- rary,' 5th ed., 1812 ; Paterson's ' Roads/ 18th ed., by Edward Mogg, 1826, he will find that Chapel House, Oxfordshire, is, or was, between Enstone and Long Compton r being about ten miles north-west of Wood- stock, and about one mile north-east of Chipping Norton.

It was apparently a place where a good' inn might be expected, seeing that it was where the road from Banbury entered that between Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon,. which was part of the road from London to Shrewsbury.

Kearsley (col. 133) says " a good inn," but gives no name. Gary (col. 236) gives " Shak- speare's Head " ; W. C. Oulton in his ' Traveller's Guide,' 1805, which is a gazet- teer, not a road-book, the same name, spelt " Shakespeare." At Chapel House was a- receiving-house for letters.

Another name appears to have been " Chapel house on the heath." See Gough's 'Camden's Britannia' (1789), i. 294.

" Chapel house before-mentioned was an antient chapel used by pilgrims ; in later times it was converted into a public house, and by the industry of the present proprietor it has arisen to an inn of the better sort. In digging to enlarge it bodies were found in stone coffins ; in one a number of beads and a silver crucifix : three urns in a small vault like oven : many fragments of stone mul- lions and painted glass. The cemetery is under the present high road." Ibid., p. 295.

If we may assume that the said " present proprietor," or some one like him, was in. possession of the inn at Chapel House,, called, perhaps, the " Shakespeare's Head," in 1776, it is easy to account for Johnson's remarks on " the felicity of England in its taverns and inns " (Boswell's ' Life of Samuel Johnson,' ninth edition, 1822, iL 436, under date 21 March, 1776).

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

The following is taken from Mr. H. A.. Evans's ' Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds ' (1905), pp. 382-3 :

" The direct road [from Chipping Norton] to- Knstone and Oxford ascends to the right at the northern extremity of the main street, but in order to visit Great Tew we must go a few niiles out of our way. Accordingly, we keep straight on by the Banbury road, and at the first cross roads we pass, a few yards on our right, all that is left of the once famous coaching inn at Chapel House. It had its gardens and its bowling green,, and was well known to all frequenters of the road as one of the pleasantest houses of entertainment in the Midlands. But in the 'forties, when the coaches came to an end, Chapel House, like many