Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/158

 124 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.vm.F E B.i2,io2i. -tower is said to have been completed in 1512, and is surmounted by a spire of open- work, the total height of which is 278 ft. 'The building is of red brick with stone dressings, and consists of choir, transepts, aisled nave, and west tower. A smaller spire, which stood originally at the inter- section of nave and transepts, was demo- lished in 1767. Except for the disappear- ance of this feature the church is to-day externally pretty much as shewn in Blaeu's view. Internally, however, it underwent a somewhat drastic change in the last century, when plaster ceilings were erected and other alterations of a like nature made. The structure suffered little or nothing during the bombardment of 1918. The buildings of the Hospice-Hopital are also of red-brick. The older wing, which is an excellent example of Flemish Renaissance design, is dated 1616, and the later and smaller wing 1718. The whole was restored in 1868 and again in 1895-6. 'The convent was suppressed in 1793, and for some years the building was used as a kind of tenement house by all sorts and conditions of people. Considerable damage was done to the interior and it was not till 1800 that the building was cleared, and put to other uses. After the destruction of the old town hall in 1801 the convent was used for municipal purposes till the new town hall was completed (1820), since when it has served as a hospital. The earlier convent of the Grey Sisters mentioned by Blaeu, founded in the fifteenth century, stood on a site behind the present town hall, now occupied by the Maison d'Arret. It was suppressed in the Revolu- tion and the buildings demolished. In February, 1814, a corps of Saxons and Cossacks staved three days in Hazebrouck, camping in the open air, but appear to have left the town unharmed. After the final overthrow of Napoleon Hazebrouck was occuoied for two years (1815-17) by an English dragoon regiment. The name of the regiment is not given by M. de Tersud, but it is gratifying to know that "les documents qui reposent a la mairie attest- ent que les rapports entre les habitants, les officiers Sb les soldats n'etaient pas tendus et que de part et d'autre on se faisait toutes les concessions possibles pour vivre en bonne intelligence. ''A cantury teter British troops were once more in occupation of Hazebrouck, but under conditions at once more pleasing and mors difficult. F. H. CHEETHAM. (To &e continued.) AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE ARCHIVES. (See ante, pp. 23, 45, 66, 83.) THE DEATH OF RICHARD SHAKESPEARE. ATTENTION was drawn to Snitterfield in Dec., 1559, by the death, of Master Thomas Robins of Northbrooke. His will was signed on the 7th of that month, and proved in London on the 23rd by Richard Charnock on behalf of the executor, Edward Grant. The testator's prayer to the Trinity and bequest of his soul to Jesus Christ, and his instruction that his body should be buried "without pomp " before the choir-door in the parish-church "in the place which I have been accustomed to walk in," point to his being a Protestant. But his son-in-law and heir, Edward Grant, was a Catholic, and the will was witnessed and supervised by that "unlearned and stubborn priest " whom Bishop Sandys soon after deprived, William Burton. Master Robins was a widower at the time of his death and had lost his daughter, his only child, wife of Edward Grant. This Edward Grant was son to Master Richard Grant of Briary Lands, and father by Master Robins' daughter of three children, Mary, Thomas and Richard. He had married again, taking for his second wife Anne Somerville, daughter to Master Robert Somerville of Edstone. She bore him a son, Edward. To the four children of his son-in-law Master Robins made bequests to Mary of 40Z, a gilt bowl and a ring of gold "which was my wife's wedding-ring, to be delivered when she shall be married or at her father's pleasure," and to the three boys of 61 13s. 4d. apiece. The residue of the estate after their father's death was to be bestowed " so that Mary have two kine more besides her own two in my keeping and six pair of flaxen sheets," and Edward " all such household stuff whatsoever that I have in Northbrooke, the standing beds, cupboards, .tables, forms and joined-stools excepted." To his son-in-law's second wife, whom he calls his "daughter-in-law," Anne Grant nee Somerville, he left "my little silver salt which I bought lately at Coventry Fair." We shall hear of the Grants and their connections the Somervilles. Thomas Grant inherited Northbrooke, Edward Grant his mother's property of Kingswood at Rowington. Edward Grant's cousin, John Somerville, born about the time of Master Robins' death, married an Arden of Park