Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/22

 xviii INTRODUCTION

SKETCH OF LADY WINCHILSEA'S LIFE

Anne Kingsmill was descended from a very ancient Hamp- shire family. This family, whose original name was Caste- layne, resided at Basingstoke from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. One of its members, for a personal service done to King John, had the grant of the Royal Mill at Basingstoke, and he took thereafter the name of Kingsmuln. Early in the reign of Edward I. the mill was alienated by Hugh de Kingsmuln, but the name was retained. During succeeding generations the family held a position of importance in Hants. It was at the house of Richard Kyngesmylle, bailiff of Basingstoke, that Catherine of Aragon and her suite were entertained for a night on her way to be married to Prince Arthur. Richard's son, Sir John Kingsmill, was judge of the common pleas, and one of the feoffees in the will of Henry VII. His son, Sir John Kingsmill, was high sheriff of Hants and pur- chased from the crown various manors, among them that of Sydmonton, with which this branch of the family is after- ward associated. Of the seventeen children of this Sir John several were of high distinction. Thomas was pro- fessor of Hebrew at Oxford; Richard was attorney at the court of wards under Elizabeth; Sir George, judge of the common pleas, married a direct descendant of Edward I. by Eleanor his wife. One daughter married Sir James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, and another married Richard Cooper, ancestor to the first Earl of Shaftesbury. The Con- stance Kingsmill who married the son of Sir Thomas Lucy, the supposed original of Shakespeare's "Justice Shallow," was probably a niece of this Sir John. A cousin, William Kingsmill, was the last prior of St. Swithun's Priory, Win-