Tamworth to Meriden

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ABOUT four miles farther lies Tamworth, between the conflux of the Tame and the Ankor, which formed at this place the appearance of an island; its Saxon name being Tameneordige and Tamanweorthe; ige signifying an island. It had long been the residence of the Mercian princes, who preferred it on account of its pleasant situation, and the quantity of woodland, which afforded them in plenty the pleasures of the chase. Offa dates a grant, in 781, to the monks of Worcester, from his royal palace at Tamworth. Ceonulf, Bernwulf, and Burthred, date other charters, in the years 814, 841, and 854, from the same place.¹ The precinct of their residence was an enormous ditch, forty-five feet wide, protecting the town on the north, west, and east; the rivers serving as a defence on the other side. The ditch is filled up in many places, yet still there are vestiges of it, and also of two mounts, on which probably stood two small towers.

Tamworth was totally ruined by the incursions of the Danes; at length it was restored by the celebrated Ethelfleda, who, in the spring of 913, erected a tower² on the artificial mount on which the present castle stands. Here, in 920, she finished her glorious life, and in 922 she received, I may say, posthumous honors, by the assemblage of the Mercian tribes she had conquered, who, with the princes of North Wales, here acknowleged the sovereign power of her brother Edward ,³ probably obtained by her valour and prudence.

THE town, or borough, as it was called on the Conquest, continued part of the royal demesne, but was afterwards set at a certain rent to the lords of the castle; the first of whom, after that event, was Robert Marmion, one of the followers of the Conqueror, on whom it was bestowed. His posterity remained masters of it for some generations, holding of the crown in capite, by the service of finding three knights at their own costs, for forty days, in the wars of Wales .

ON the death of Philip Marmion, in 1291, the twentieth of Edward I. this fortress descended to his eldest daughter Joan, wife of William Mortem; who dying without issue, it fell three years after, by agreement among the co-heirs, to Joan, a relation of Philip Marmion, and wife of Alexander Frevile. The Freviles by this means owned it till the year 1419, or seventh of Henry V., when Sir Baldwyn Frevile dying childless, Thomas Ferrers, second son of William Lord Ferrers, of Groby, became master of it, in right of Elizabeth his wife, eldest of the three sisters of Sir Baldwyn. The Ferrers held it till the beginning of the present century; when it passed into the family of the Comptons, by the marriage of James Earl of Northampton with Elizabeth, sister to Robert Lord Tamworth, grandson and heir apparent to Robert Earl Ferrers, who had obtained it by his marriage, in 1688, with Anne, daughter of Sir Humphrey Ferrers, of this place. Lady Charlotte Compton, sole surviving daughter of the match, Baroness de Ferrers, in right of her mother, married the present Lord Townshend, whose son, now Lord De Ferrers, enjoys the place. I must not forget to add, that Sir John Baldwyn, Knight, on the coronation of Richard II. clamed the honor of being the king's champion, by virtue of tenure of this castle (a service performed by his predecessors the Marmions); but it being found that the Marmions held their right only from the tenure of Scrivelsby manor, it was challenged by Sir John Dymock, the then owner, and adjudged to him.⁴

TILL the present century the castle was the seat of its lords. The rooms are numerous, but inconvenient and irregular, except a dining-room and drawing-room; each with large projecting windows. Around the first are painted great numbers of coats of arms of the family of the Ferrers, and its alliances. The chimney-piece of the drawing-room is richly carved, in the old taste, and beneath the arms is the motto. Only one .

THE beauty of the situation of Tamworth is seen from the castle to great advantage, varied with rich meadows, two bridges over the Tame. and the Ankor, and the rivers wandering picturesquely along the country. Michael Drayton, born on the banks of the last, most elegantly paints out his love-complaints, and celebrates the last in the sweetest strain.

Clear Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore
My soul-shrin'd saint, my fair idea lies:
A blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore
Thy crystal stream refined by her eyes;
Where sweet myrrh-breathing zephyr in the spring
Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers;
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing
Amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers.
Say thus, fair brook, when thou shalt see thy queen:
Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wand'ring days,
And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft has been,
And here to thee he sacrific'd his tears.
        Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone;
        And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon .

THE town is large and well-built; part is situated in Staffordshire, and part in Warwickshire; for which reason its members are returned by the sheriffs of both counties.⁵ It first sent representatives in the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth: and was made a corporation two years before; which consists of two bailiffs, a recorder, and twenty-four capital burgesses. The right of voting is in the inhabitants paying scot and lot.

THE church is large, built at different times. Near the chancel are two great round arches, with zigzag moldings, which were prior to the reign of Henry III. when this species of arch fell into disuse. Here are numbers of monuments, some antient, of the Freviles and Ferrers, with their figures, and those of their wives. Here is also a handsome monument of John Ferrers, Esquire, who died in 1680, aged 52; and of his son Sir Humphry Ferrers, knight, who died in 1678, aged 25. Their figures are represented in marble, as large as life, in a Roman dress, long flowing hair, and half-kneeling. Sir Humphry was the last male heir of his line.

THE church is dedicated to St. Editha, daughter to king Edgar; who, preferring the cloistered life to the troubles of a throne, received after death the honor of saintship. It has been said, that she founded here a nunnery, and that Robert Marmion, lord of this place, received from her very sensible marks of resentment, for daring to remove the holy sisters. St. Editha descended from heaven, and, while Marmion was lying down, after a costly feast, in Tamworth castle, she admonished him to restore them to their rights, and, by way of memorandum, gave him such a blow with her crosier on his side, that he rose in extreme torment; which instantly ceased on repentance and restitution.⁶ It is probable that this very Marmion made the church collegiate, and placed here a dean and six prebendaries, each of whom had his substitute, or vicar; for it is the opinion of Leland, this foundation arose from the piety of one of the name.⁷ The idle legend might have been formed from some real offence,⁸ which might have been expiated in the manner usual in old times.

SAINT Editha had also an image here. After the dissolution, the seven incumbents had pensions, as late as 1553.⁹ Queen Elizabeth granted the college, and all its prebends, to Edward Downing and Peter Ashton. At present, this great church is only a curacy.

IN 1286, the fifteenth of Edward I. Philip Marmion dedicated here an hospital to St. James, intending to found a house of Premonstrensians; but, till he could execute his design, granted it to William of Combery-hall, with all its appurtenances, and pasture in Ashfield for four oxen and two horses, on condition that it should celebrate mass for his soul.¹⁰ There is now an hospital founded for more useful purposes, by Mr. Guy .

FROM Tamworth I returned to Lichfield, and resumed my journey along the London road.

ABOUT two miles from the city, see on the left Swinfen, the seat of a gentleman of the same name; happy in its beautiful demesne, ornamented with an extent of water, meads, and hanging-woods. This place was once the property of the Spermores; but in the time of Henry VI. by marriage of Joyce, daughter and heiress of the family, with William Swinfen, it came into that name. The executors of the last of that line, a Doctor Swinfen, sold it, in the present century, to Mr. Swinfen, of London; in whose family it continues.

A LITTLE farther, the great Watling-street crosses the road near Weford, or the ford on the way. This is seated on Blackbrook, a small stream, now furnished with a bridge. The stream runs through a beautiful tract of narrow but rich meadows, prettily bounded by low and fertile risings. This spot had been the scene of much civil rage. A Purefoy was here slain by Sir Henry Willoughby, in the cause of Edward IV.; and Sir Henry in the same place fought, and was desperately wounded by, Lord L'Isle .¹¹ Weford Common ,¹² a black heath, succeeds; and a little beyond, on the left, stood Canwell priory, founded about the year 1142, by Geva, widow of Jeffry Riddel, and daughter of Hugh Earl of Chester, for Benedictine monks. It had ten pounds a year in spiritualities, and fifteen pounds ten shillings and three-pence in temporalities. It became at length a cell for a solitary monk; was suppressed, and granted by Henry VIII. to Cardinal Wolsey, towards the endowment of his two colleges.¹³

NEAR this place I entered

WARWICKSHIRE,

in the parish of Middleton; from which the Willoughbies take their title. The road is over part of the common of Sutton Colfield, which is finely bounded on the left by a long-continued range of woods.

There is a common report (which passeth for currant amongst the vulgar) that the great heape of stones, which lyeth near the road way from Litchfeild towards Coleshill, upon Bassets heath, called the Bishops Stones, and those other lesser heapes, which lye in the valley below; were at first laid there in memorie of a bishop and his retinue, who were long since rob'd and killed, as they were travailing upon that way: but this is a meere fabulous storye: for upon an inquisition made in King James his time, concerning the extent of common upon that heath, betwixt Weeford and Sutton; there was an old woman, called old Bess of Blackbrooke, being then above an hundred yeares of age, who deposed (inter alia) that the Bishop of Exeter (of whom mention is made in pag: 667. of this booke) living then at Moore Hall: taking notice how troublesome such a number of pibble stones as then lay in the roade thereabouts, were to all passengers, caused them to be pickt up, and thus layd upon heapes.¹⁴

A FEW miles farther, I passed Moxhull hall, the neat-dressed seat of Mr. Hacket, a descendant of the worthy bishop of that name; whose son, by marriage with Mary, eldest daughter of John L'Isle, became owner of it, after it had been in the L'Isles, or de Insula, for some hundreds of years.¹⁵ On the right is the parish-church, Wishaw, and a little farther, that of Curdworth. That manor was possessed, in the time of the Conqueror, by Turchil de Warwik, son of Alwine, a potent Saxon in the time of Edward the Confessor. Turchil is recorded to have been the first in England who, in imitation of the Normans, took a surname, stiling himself Turchil de Eardine ,¹⁶ or Arden, from his residence in that part of the country then called Arden, or the forest; a word, according to Camden ,¹⁷ by which both Britons and Gauls expressed a woodland tract. He was ancestor to the antient and respectable family which flourished under the same name till the year 1643, when it was lost in the male line by the death of Robert Arden .

ABOUT half a mile from Curdworth, I crossed the Tame at Curdworth Bridge ,¹⁸ and a mile farther the Cole. The view from hence, of the stream watering a range of rich meadows, bounded on one side by hanging-woods, is extremely agreeable; as is, a little further, the town of Coleshill, covering the steep ascent of a lofty brow, on whose top appears the handsome church and elegant spire.

THE place had been long a royal demesne; was possessed by Edward the Confessor, and afterwards by the Conqueror. It fell, either in his reign or that of William Rufus, into the hands of the Clintons, in whom it continued till the year 1353, the twenty-seventh of Edward III; when it passed to Sir John de Mountfort, by virtue of his marriage with Joan, daughter of Sir John Clinton .¹⁹ The Mountforts held it till the reign of Henry VII. when, by the cruel attainder and execution of Sir Simon Mountfort, for sending thirty pounds, by his younger son Henry, to Perkin Warbeck, on supposition that Perkin was the real son of his former master Edward IV., this brought ruin on himself and family. He was tried at Guildhall in 1494, and condemned to be drawn through the city, and hanged and quartered at Tyburn .²⁰ His manor of Coleshill was immediately bestowed on Simon Digby, deputy-constable of the castle, who brought the unfortunate gentleman to the bar. He was a younger son of the house of Tilton, of Leicestershire, ancestor of the Lord Digby, the present worthy possessor.

IN the upper part of the town is a small PLACE, neatly built. The church-yard commands a fine view of a rich country. The vicarage was formerly belonging to Markgate, in Bedfordshire, but is now in the gift of its lord. The spire, lofty as it is, was fifteen feet higher, before it had been struck with lightning in 1550; when the inhabitants sold one of the bells towards the repairs.

IN the church are numbers of fine tombs of the Digbies, with their figures recumbent. Among others, that of the above-mentioned Simon, and his spouse Alice, who lie under a tomb erected by himself. He died in 1519: she survived him, and left by her will a silver penny to every child under the age of nine, whose parents were housekeepers in this parish (beginning with those next the church) on condition that, every day in the year, after the sacring of the high mass, they should kneel down at the altar and say five paternosters, an ave, and a creed, for her soul, that of her husband, and all Christian souls; and the annual sum of six shillings and eight pence to the dean, for seeing the same duly performed, and likewise for performing the same himself. At the reformation this custom was changed. The inhabitants purchased from the crown the lands charged with this money: part maintains a school: the rest is distributed to such children who repair to the church every morning at ten o'clock, and say the Lord's prayer; and the clerk has an allowance for seeing the performance, and for ringing the bell to summon them.²¹

THE figure of Simon Digby is in armour, with lank hair, and bare-headed. His grandson John, and his great grandson George, knighted at the siege of Zutphen, are represented in the same manner, with their wives. The first died in 1558; the last in 1586. These are of alabaster, and painted.

THE tomb of Reginald, son of Simon, who died in 1549, differs. His figure, and that of his wife, are engraven on a flat slab of marble, with twelve of their children at their feet.

ON a pedestal, with an urn at the top, is an inscription to Kildare Lord Digby, of Gedshil, in the kingdom of Ireland, who died in 1661; and on the opposite side is another, in memory of his lady, who died in 1692, drawn up by Bishop Hough, forming a character uncommonly amiable and exemplary; the integrity of that Worthy prelate giving sanction to every line.

I FELT great pleasure in perusing an epitaph, by a grateful mistress,²² to the memory of a worthy domestic, Mary Wheely; whom she stiles an excellent servant and good friend; for what is a faithful servant but an humble friend?

BENEATH two arches are two antient figures of cross-legged knights, armed in mail, with short surtouts; in all respects alike, only one has a dog, the other a lion, at his feet. On their shields are two fleurs de lis, which denote them to have been some of the earlier Clintons; and by Dugdale ²³ it appears, that one was John de Clinton, lord of this place, a strong adherent to the barons against Henry III. who suffered a temporary forfeiture of his estate; but was restored to it by the famous Dictum de Kenelworth. He became a favorite of Edward I. and clamed for his manor of Coleshill by prescription, "assize of bread and beer, gallows, pillorie, tumbril, a court-leet, infangthef, outfangthef, mercate, faire, and free warren." He died in the year 1291, the period of crusades, and is buried cross-legged.

I OBSERVE, that the piety of the Catholics has given the same attitude to several of the Sherborns, in the church of Mitton, in Yorkshire, who were interred in the seventeenth century; so that I suspect it to have sometimes been considered merely as a reverential sign of our SAVIOUR'S suffering.²⁴

THE deserted seat of the Digbies lies about a mile or two from the town, in a fine park. The house consists but of one story, besides garrets; yet the apartments are numerous, approachable by ways strange and unintelligible to all that are unacquainted with them, according to the stile of old buildings.

FROM Coleshill I descended to pay a respectful pilgrimage to Blithe Hall, the seat of the great antiquary Sir William Dugdale; from whose indefatigable labors, his successors in the science draw such endless helps. In respect to this county, he has fairly extinguished all hope of discovering any thing which has escaped his penetrating eye.

THE house lies about a mile below Coleshill, on the river Blithe; was purchased by Sir William from Sir Walter Aston, and made his place of residence. It at present belongs (by female descent) to Richard Guest, Esquire; whose politeness to an inquisitive intruder I shall ever acknowlege. He was so obliging as to show me an excellent half-length of his ancestor, dressed in black, with a bundle of manuscripts in his hand, painted at the age of sixty, by Peter Bosscler ,²⁵ in 1665.

ANOTHER portrait of his wife, Margery, daughter of John Huntback, Esquire, of Sewal, in Staffordshire; a head of Lord Keeper Bridgeman, a thin primitive face; another of Lord Clarendon; and a third of Lord Keeper Littleton, with a jovial open countenance. As a judge (for he had been chief justice of the common pleas) he was, as Sir Edward Coke said, a well-poised and weighed man .²⁶ As lord keeper, dispirited, from the melancholy apprehensions he had of the approaching calamities of the times. For a while he temporized with the views of the opposition. At length, finding the resolution of the leaders to seize on. the seals, and make use of them against his royal master, he gave them up, to a messenger, appointed for that purpose, and followed them, at the hazard of his life, to the king at York ;²⁷ where he loyally resumed their use, till his death, at Oxford, in 1645; when he at once performed the functions of lord keeper, privy-counsellor, and colonel of a regiment of foot.

A HALF-LENGTH of the famous Elias Ashmole, whom Antony Wood stiles "the greatest virtuoso and curioso ever known or read of in England. Uxor solis took up its habitation in his breast, and in his bosom the great God did abundantly store up the treasures of all sorts of wisdom and knowledge."²⁸ It is well for poor Ashmole, that the peevish historian never read the wonderful diary of his life, in which is a most minute and filthy detail of all his ails and strange mishaps;²⁹ otherwise Antony never would have been so profuse of his praise. Yet, amidst his foibles, he was an able botanist; of most uncommon knowlege in the study of antiquity and records; a physician, herald, chemist, and astrologer. On rectifying his nativity, he found his birth to have been on the 23d of May 1617, about three in the morning, or "3 hours 25 minutes 49 seconds A. M. the quarter 8 of 11 ascending; but, upon Mr. Lilly's rectification thereof, anno 1667, he makes the quarter 36 ascending."³⁰ This jargon should not deprive him of his real merit. To him we owe a most elaborate treatise on the institution of the order of the Garter, he having been Windsor herald; various manuscripts respecting county antiquities, still extant; and, above all, the foundation of the Museum at Oxford, which bears his name, finished in 1682, on purpose to receive the vast collection of curiosities bestowed by him on that university, which he had defended in 1646, as comptroller of the ordnance. Mr. Ashmole was doubly engaged to the worthy owner of this house: first, by the friendship resulting from the congenial turn of their studies; and again, by his alliance with Sir William, in his marriage with his daughter Elizabeth; which proved a source of great generosity, on his part, towards his fatheiv in-law and his family. By his portrait, drawn by Nave ,³¹ in 1664, in his herald's coat, he appears to have been a good-looking man, with long hair; there is a view of Windsor in the back-ground.

FROM hence I visited Maxstoke castle, three miles south-east; most of the way lies through fields. The castle is very entire, and stands on a plain, in a most sequestered spot, surrounded with trees, and guarded by a moat. It is of a square form: at each corner is an hexagonal tower, and at the entrance a fine gateway, with a tower of the same form with the rest on each side. The gates are in their original state, covered with plates of iron. Above, are the holes for pouring hot sand, or melted lead, on assailants, and the cavity which once held the portcullis. These gates were made in. the time of Humphry Stafford Earl (afterwards Duke) of Buckingham. He fixed on them his arms (still remaining) impaled with those of his wife, Anne Nevil; supported by two antelopes, derived from his mother, as one of the daughters of Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; and added the burning nave, or knot, the cognizance of his own ancestors. Within the court the walls are pierced with divers cells, the antient casernes of the garrison.

MUCH of the habitable part is still standing, but part was burnt by accident; what remains is the dwelling-house of Mr. Dilkes, in whose family it has been for several generations. The great vault ribbed with stone, the old chapel, and kitchen, still remain; the noble old hall, and a great dining-room with a most curious carved door and chimney, are still in use.

AFTER the Conquest, it was given to Turchil de Warwick; from one of his posterity it was granted to the Limesies, lords of Long Ichinton and Solihull; from them to the Odingfells; and from the Odingfells, by Ida, eldest daughter of the last of the name, to the great family of the Clintons before mentioned, who made it their chief seat. In 1437, the sixteenth of Henry VI. Sir William de Clinton exchanged it with Humphry Earl of Buckingham, with whom it became a favorite residence. On the execution of his son Henry Duke of Buckingham, in 1483, the first of Richard III. it was seized by the king. Richard, on his march towards Nottingham, ordered all the inner buildings of Kenelworth castle to be removed here.³² After his defeat and death in Bosworth field, this place reverted to Edward, son of the last duke; who fell a victim, in 1521, to Henry VIII. a tyrant greater and more inexcusable, than him who destroyed the father. The estates, again forfeited, were granted to Sir William Compton, a favorite, and gallant tilter, in the reign of the former, and ancestor of the Earl of Northampton. In 1596, his great grandson, William Lord Compton, conveyed it to Lord Keeper Egerton, who, in two years after, sold it to Thomas Dilke, Esquire, in whose family it remains.

I DID not visit the neighboring priory of Maxstoke; so shall say no more of it, than that it was founded in 1336, by Sir William de Clinton, afterwards Earl of Huntingdon, and peopled with canons regular of St. Angustin .³³

RETURNED through Coleshill, and at a small distance, on the left of the road, digressed to Packington, the seat of the Earl of Aylesford. The manor antiently belonged to the priory of Kenelworth, being granted to it by Geoffry de Clinton, lord chamberlain to Henry II. At the dissolution it was sold for the sum of six hundred and twentyone pounds and one penny, to John Fisher, Esquire, gentleman-pensioner to Henry VIII. and four succeeding monarchs. By the marriage of Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir Clement Fisher, Baronet, with Heneage, second Earl of Aylesford, the place was transferred to that noble family. The situation has of late years been highly improved by the change of the road. The grounds are prettily sloped by nature, are well wooded, and the bottom filled with two pleasing pieces of water. The house has also undergone many alterations; it is a plain convenient building, except on one side, where opens a loggio, most admirably adapted (in our climate) for the encouragement of rheums and rheumatisms.

WITHIN is a good portrait of its founder, John Fisher; a half-length, with a square white beard, close black cap, upright ruff, and black jacket.

A BEAUTIFUL picture of Henrietta Maria, consort to Charles I. She is represented sitting, in blue, with roses in her hand, and her thorny crown by her.

HERE is also a portrait of Charles Duke of Somerset, in his robes, father to the Countess Dowager of Aylesford .

THE country here begins to lose the comforts of a gravelly soil, and changes to the wet-retaining clay. At the pleasant village of Mireden it is uncommonly deep, but by the assistance of turnpikes the road is rendered excellent. The pretty houses on each side of the way, and the magnificent inn, famed for time immemorial for its excellent malt-liquor, with the various embellishments (made by the old inn-keeper, Reynolds) of gateway, little ponds, statues, and other whims, enliven the spot greatly.

THE church is seated a little higher up, on an eminence. Within is a handsome alabaster tomb of John Wyard, in armour and mail, with sword and dagger by his side; his arms a cinquefoil on his breast. This gentleman had been 'squire (as the inscription relates) to Thomas de Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, and founder of a chauntry in this church, near which he had his residence. He was also knight of the shire for this county, in the second year of Richard II.

HERE is another tomb, with a figure in stone, supposed to have been that of one of the Walshes, the. antient lords of this manor. This figure, as well as the former, is recumbent, with the hands in the action of supplication: but this gentleman has a short skirt over the lower part of his armour.

THE antient name of this place was Alspath, or Ailespede, even till the beginning of the reign of Henry VI; about which time, becoming a great thoroughfare, it got the name of Myreden; den signifying a bottom, and myre, dirt: and I can well vouch for the propriety of the appellation, before the institution of turnpikes.

IN March 1739-40, I changed my Welsh school for one nearer to the capital, and travelled in the Chester stage; then no despicable vehicle for country gentlemen. The first day, with much labor, we got from Chester to Whitchurch, twenty miles; the second day, to the Welsh Harp; the third, to Coventry, the fourth, to Northampton; the fifth, to Dunstable; and, as a wondrous effort, on the last, to London before the commencement of night. The strain and labor of six good horses, sometimes eight, drew us through the sloughs of Mireden, and many other places. We were constantly out two hours before day, and as late at night; and in the depth of winter proportionably later.

FAMILIES who travelled in their own carnages, contracted with Benson and Co. and were dragged up in the same number of days, by three sets of able horses.

THE single gentlemen, then a hardy race, equipped in jack-boots and trowsers, up to their middle, rode post through thick and thin, and, guarded against the mire, defied the frequent stumble and fall; arose and pursued their journey with alacrity: while in these days their enervated posterity sleep away their rapid journies in easy chaises, fitted for the conveyance of the soft inhabitants of Sybaris .

I CONTINUED my way to Coventry through Allesey, a village with a church and spire-steeple. The place was originally a member of that city, Bishop Clinton having permitted a chapel to be built here for the use of the poor, reserving the right of burial to the mother church.³⁴ In a place called The Parks, stood a castle, doubly moated, probably the residence of the Hastings, who possessed this place in the time of Edward I. The present handsome seat is owned by —— Neale, Esquire.

---

¹ Dugdale's Warwicksh. ii. 1130. Plot's Stafordsh. 410.

² Saxon Chr. 104.

³ The same, 110.

⁴ Dugdale's Warwicksh. ii. 1134.

⁵ Willis Notitia Parl. iii. 51.

⁶ Dugdale's Baron. i. 375.

⁷ Itin. iv. 121.

⁸ As it is very doubtful whether there had been any nunnery here, the offence might be the expulsion of the nuns from Polesworth convent, dedicated to Saint Editha; which were restored by Robert Marmion and his wife. Stevens, 1251. Tanner, 566.

⁹ Willis, ii. 218.

¹⁰ Tanner, 502.

¹¹ Leland Itin. iv. 120. Probably one of the neighboring L'Isles of Moxhull .

¹² Now inclosed, and in a state of excellent cultivation, as is the common of Sutton Colfield, mentioned below. ED.

¹³ Tanner, 497.

¹⁴ The note above written is in Sir William Dugdale's own hand, in a copy of his Warwickshire, in Lord Stamford's library at Envil .

¹⁵ Dugdale, Warwicksh. ii. 936.

¹⁶ Dugdale Warwicksh. ii. 925.

¹⁷ i. 606.

¹⁸ Near Curdworth the road crosses the Birmingham and Fazeley canal. ED.

¹⁹ Dugdale Warwicksh. ii. 925.

²⁰ Dugdale Warwicksh. ii. 1012. Digby Pedigree, viii. 15.

²¹ Dugdale Warwicksh. ii. 1013, 1014.

²² Mrs. Charlotte Bridgman, with whom Mary Wheely lived thirty-eight years: she died in 1747. ED.

²³ Dugdale, &c. 1009.

²⁴ The circular font in Coleshill church merits notice; round it are rude bas reliefs, representing the crucifixion, saints, and ornamental mouldings. ED.

²⁵ I imagine, the same with the person Mr. Walpole calls Bustler, ii. 26.

²⁶ Lloyd, ii. 322.

²⁷ Clarendon, ii. 574.

²⁸ Athen. Oxon. ii. 289.

²⁹ Mr. Ashmole's Life, 287.

³⁰ Mr. Ashmole's Life .

³¹ Probably Neve .

³² Dugdale, ii. 995.

³³ Tanner, 583.

³⁴ Dugdale, i. 129.

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