Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/557

 ���NOTES 419 �years of age. This poem was probably in honor of his eighteenth birthday. �L. 16: "And trace his blood, until itt mix with Kings." [A Daughter of Henry the Sevenths, when Queen Dowager of France, married to the Earl of Suffolk, by whom she had a Daughter that married to the Earl of Hartford, Great-grand-Father to the late restor'd Duke of Somersett, from a Daughter of whom my L d Winchilsea is descended.] �UPON MY LORD WINCHILSEA's CONVEBTING THE MOUNT, ETC. �The Lord Winchilsea here eulogized is the Charles of the pre- ceding poem. The improvements made by him at East well may be approximately dated by the following letter from Edward Southwell, who wrote from Eastwell, July 22, 1702, " My Lord Winchilsea has been making very fine gardens which added to the beauty of the Park makes it a very fine seat." �L. 25: " Where late it stood the Glory of the Seat" In Murray's Handbook for Kent and Sussex, 1868, under " Eastwell " there is a parenthetical reference to " an edifying story of the mis- fortunes which resulted from the felling of a most curious grove of oaks here by one of the Earls of Winchilsea." The authority for Murray's " edifying story " is probably the following passage in John Aubrey's The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey (London, 1718), Vol. II, p. 37: �I cannot omit here taking notice of the great Misfortunes in the Family of the Earl of Winchelsea, who at Eastwell in Kent, felled down a most curious grove of Oaks, near his noble seat, and gave the first blow with his own hands. Shortly after, the Countess died in her Bed suddenly, and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon-bullet. �The destruction of the oak-grove took place, then, about 1669 or 1670. The earl referred to would be Heneage Finch, the second Earl of Winchilsea. In the MS. after 1. 77 the following lines have been crossed out: �When by a Consort's too prevailing Art, �The Park was rifl'd of so fair a part, �Which now restor'd like itt's new Master's Mind �Is with the whole, but in just bounds confin'd. �The " consort " here referred to would be the second of the Earl's four wives, Mary Seymour, daughter of William, Duke of Somerset. ��� �