Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/262

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 8 . m. MARCH 31, 1917.

the anniversary of the condemnation of King Charles.

Pepys, in his ' Diary,' under date of Jan. 27, 1662, records that

" On going to take water at Tower Hill we met with three sleddes standing there to carry my Lord Monson, and Sir Henry Mildmay, and another, to the gallows and back again, with ropes about their necks ; which is to be repeated every year, this being the day of their sentencing the king "

In the ' Beauties of England and Wales ' (vol. v. p. 262), under " Moulsham Hall in Essex," is a description of that " ancient mansion," as a property sold by King Henry VIII. to Sir Thomas Mildmay (the great-grandfather of Sir Henry) :

" It was of quadrangular form, enclosing a court in the centre and commanding a view of DanburyHill

from the grand front Among the portraits [at

Moulsham in 1803] was one of Sir Henry Mildmay, represented as dead, and covered with a black velvet pall "

According to Burke' s Halliday pedigree, Anne, daughter of Alderman Halliday, had two sons and three daughters. Of these Henry Mildmay of Shawford House and Stoke Newington, High Sheriff for Hamp- shire in 1669, was apparently the builder of the present Shawford House. He was married on Aug. 30, 1674, to Alice, daughter of Sir Moundiford Bramston, and by her, who died in January, 1691/2, had a son, Halliday Mildmay, born 1675, who died in his father's lifetime, leaving an only daughter, baptized Letitia on Aug. 17, 1694. There is an interesting tradition as to the introduction of the little heiress of Twyford and Stoke Newington to her future husband in 1706, when she was 12 . years of age. Her father's kinsman Mr. Carew Hervey Mildmay (b. 1658, d. 1743) was at that time living at Marks, near Romford, with his two sons Carew Hervey Mildmay and Humphrey (b. 1692, d. 1761).

The two boys were taken to Twyford for Letitia to make choice of a husband, and Humphrey, the younger, being pur- posely the more gaily garbed, attracted her childish mind, and he was selected. The marriage was celebrated at Twyford on Aug. 20, 1706, the bridal pair returning to their respective studies, and their first child was not born until six years later.

It is not a little curious that their eldest son, Carew Mildmay (b. 1717, d. 1768), should have been connected with both the old Essex houses known respectively as " Marks " and " Marks Hall." The former is described in the ' Beauties of England and Wales ' as two miles from Romford,

long uninhabited, falling to decay, and said to be haunted. At that date it was

"a very ancient fabric, forming a quadrangle^ thef oundations of brick, but the superstructure of timber and plaster, with two embattled towers ; the whole building being surrounded by a moat, the water standing close to its walls."

It was to this house, in September, 1656, that Francis Hervey Mildmay (b. 1630, d. 1703) took his bride, Mathew, post- humous daughter and sole heir of Mathew Honywood of Charing, and niece of Sir Thomas Honywood, Knt., of Marks Hall. By this lady, who lived until Mar. 16, 1717, Mr. Mildmay had a large family, among them a son and heir, Carew Hervey (b. 1658,, d. 1743), the father of Carew and Hum- phrey (who married Letitia aforesaid).

In an interesting book, ' Memoirs of Old Romford,' by Mr. George Terry (1880), it is said that Carew Hervey Mildmay (b. 1691, d. 1784) " entertained largely at Marks, which was regarded as an antiquarian curiosity." Dr. Scott, F.R.S., in 1775, wrote :

" We are to dine at Marks by invitation of Mr. Mildmay, and see old England, for Marks is what England was 300 years ago, and most worthy of contemplation."

" With Carew Hervey Mildmay," says Mr. Terry, "passed away the laat surviving male descendant of the Mildmay family, the rapid extinction of which, in its numerous branches, is a remarkable fact.

" In the reign of James I. no less than nine families of the name (all springing from one stock^ flourished in the county of Essex, yet in the death of Carew Hervey Mildmay of Marks, considering, the great house of Mildmay was in the main built upon Church property, those who are believers in Spelman's theory will find in the later history of this family further illustrations of the fate of sacrilege "

Mr. Terry adds that portraits of CoL Carew Hervey Mildmay, Francis Mildmay, and Mathew (Honywood) his wife, were in 1880 in the possession of Mr. Burne of Loynton Hall. M. M. M.

" A RING, A KING OF ROSES " (12 S..

iii. 129). I have been hoping to see an expert answer to the above interesting query, because this dance-song is the commonest and, on account of its simple rhythm, the first jingle lisped by all the cottage children throughout (at least) East Suffolk. The central parts of this county were pretty certainly first settled by the Saxons probably within a century of their coming to England, " whech was in the yere of oure Lord 455," says the precise Capgrave ; and doubtless he is approxi- mately correct. It is just such simple customs that are likely to have survived