Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/113

 12 s. m. FKB. 10, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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^Scenes to hear the Padlock the Play and En- tertainment both most miserably performed. The House was very mean, both our scrub Box and the Pit stinking of Hops and Grain. This was so full a Night there were Forms* on the "Stage. Returned to oxir Inn as soon as the Mob -waiting to see Lady C. would permit, supper.

PENRY LEWIS.

JAMES I. AND SIR HENRY MILDMAY' s MARRIAGE. DR. J. L. WHITEHEAD (12 S.
 * ii. 332) refers to the marriage of Sir Henry

Mildmay and Anne Halliday. I notice the -following letter, in connexion with this -marriage, in Betham's ' Baronetage.' The original is still, I believe, in the possession -of the head of the family :

JAKES BEX.

Trusty and Well-beloved, we greet you well "We understand that Sir Henry Mildmay, our 'Servant, is a suitor to your daughter, who for his person and other external parts may well appear to you worthy of the match with any gentle- woman of good quality. As for our opinion of "him, it may be seen by this, that we have preferred him from a place of ordinary attendance about our person to a place of great charge and trust, which we never before bestowed on any man of 'his years ; and therefore we cannot but wish him
 * -a.U advancement of his fortunes, and particularly

"in that match with your daughter, whereunto if ye shall give your best furtherance you shall not only give us great cause of acknowledging your Tespect unto us herein, but that as we have been, and will be a father unto him, so we will be unto your daughter.

Given at our Court at Theobalds, fourth day Oct. 1618.

If ye knew how far your conformity to our pleasure in this will be acceptable unto us and profitable to yourselves, you would be willinger 'to perform rt than we to desire it of you, for ye may Ire sure that, however this may succeed, we will prefer him to a better place than he yet

After reading this most interesting letter T went to Somerset House and discovered the will of Alderman William Halliday, ^vhich was proved in (I think) 1624. I think that is the exact year. I copied the following extract :

" Whereas at the long and earnest solicitation of my lord's grace the now Duke of Buckingham '[this presumably was "Steenie"] I was contented "to give my consent that there should be a marriage between Sir Henry Mildmay and my eldest daughter ANNE [the marriage is registered at Great St. Bar- itholomew's in 1619], and withal he promised both with myself and my wife that I should be free from -giving or yielding him any part in my estates, which I hope his grace doth well remember, yet I have been contented to give unto him in marriage - . . .her, and did give unto him, the said Sir Henry Mildmay, a competent sum of money, which was /bestowed towards the purchase of lands for the


 * ? Illegible.

benefit of him and his wife : but I have made no further promise to leave or give to them or either of them further part, portion, or estate of my goods."

Halliday proceeds to say that he leaves a sum of 14,OOOZ. to be expended in the purchase of lands within 100 miles of London for the benefit of his daughter, Dame Anne Mildmay, and her heirs, but that the property is to belong to her, and that Sir Henry is not to have any hold over it, though no want of affection to Sir Henry is to be understood by this.

This 14,OOOZ. was expended in buying the manors of Twyford and Marwell, near Win- chester (see ' V.C.H. Hants '), which remained for more than two centuries in the Mildmay family. It was no doubt owing to this pro- vision in William's will that these estates, together with that at Newington Green, now called Mildmay Park, escaped confiscation when Sir Henry's great possessions were forfeit at the Restoration.

It would be interesting to hear if there is on record any parallel case where the sovereign has actively and directly supported the matrimonial plans of a member of his Court.

In .the great dining-room at Dogmersfield Park are four huge pictures presented by Charles I. to this same Sir Henry .Mildmay, who was Master of the Jewel Office. These are of King James I. ; Villiers, Duke of Buckingham ; Vere, Lord Tilbury ; and Gustavus Adolphus. Two of these pictures gain a special interest from King James's letter, and from the extract given from William Halliday's will. There are also at Dogmersfield two pictures of Sir Henry Mildmay himself one painted after his death. I remember that some years ago this was on view in London at one of the loan exhibitions. O. O. O.

REMARKABLE LONGEVITY. The following appeared in The Freeman's Journal, Dublin, Jan. 11, 1917:

" Mrs. MaryM'Quade, of Omeath, Newry, died at her residence on Friday, aged 110 years. She was the oldest woman in Ireland, and had resided all her life at Omeath. Her age had been verified by church records."

WILLIAM MACARTHUR.

THREE GENERATIONS IN Two CENTURIES. MR. HORACE BLEACKLEY in his interest- ing sketch of Mrs. Esten (ante, p. 61) writes as follows: "It is amazing that a lady whose grandfather was born in the reign of Charles II. should be alive two years after the marriage of Queen Alexandra ! ' Apropos of this, I, personally, have had the