smith, in which his son Vincent was certainly engaged in the year 1650. During the Commonwealth this Vincent Kidder joined the Parliamentary forces under Cromwell, and was actively engaged in the reduction of Ireland. He was an enterprising and successful officer, and attained to the rank of a major in the army. A grant of 1000 acres had been made him at Rochestown, Kilkenny, of which he was deprived at the Restoration, but which was, upon his petition, restored and confirmed to him and his heirs for ever on the 6th of October, 1676, by the commissioners appointed under the Act of Settlement, it having been proved to their satisfaction that the land in question was allotted and assigned to him, or to those for whom he claimed, for his and their services as soldiers in the late war in Ireland, and that they were in the actual possession of them May 7th, 1659.3 He married Ellen, daughter of Adam, second son of Sir Thomas Loftus, Bart., of Kyllian, county Meath, and grand-daughter of Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1678. By her mother, who was the daughter of Richard Cosby, of Stradbally, Esq., she was lineally descended from Thomas of Woodstock, seventh son of Edward III. Adam, their eldest son, who married Cecilia, daughter of Thomas, and grand-daughter of Sir Dudley Loftus, and who resided at Parke, county Meath, was attainted by James II. in the memorable Parliament held in Dublin, 1693. In the will of his widow, proved in 1735, he is described as "Lieut. Adam Kidder, of General Steward's regiment of foot." Vincent, their second son, who pursued his father's business of a silversmith, was a lieutenant in Captain Collingham's company of Irish Volunteers, and greatly distinguished himself at the battle of the Boyne, for which he was made a colonel; and hence the adoption of the word "Boyne" as a motto to their coat of arms.

"January 15th, 1810. Grant of coat of arms under the seal of Ulster King at Arms, to the descendants of Vincent Kidder::

Vert-3 crescents-or-2 and 1.

Crest-A hand couped below the elbow proper valed azure holding a packet, thereon the word 'standard.' 3 Certificates of Adventurers, roll 24, memb. 25.

Motto-' Boyne.'

"Recorded in the College of Arms, London, May 22, 1827." The arms on Bishop Kidder's tomb in Wells Cathedral are those of the family of Kyddall in Lincolnshire, namely, Sable, a saltere ragulè argent." See York's Union of Honour. Other authorities (Burke, and Berry) describe the saltere as "embattled, counterembattled."

Vincent was admitted a freeman of the Dublin Goldsmiths' Company in 1690, became master of the same company in 1696, and assay-master in 1697. As a mark of esteem for him a piece of plate was presented to him, in 1717, by the corporation; and his full-length portrait was for some years placed in the Goldsmiths' Hall, but is now in the Assay Office in the Custom House, Dublin. The crest of the Irish branch of the family-a hand holding an assay ticket, with the word "standard" written on it-is an allusion to the office of assaymaster which Colonel Kidder held in this company. Of his eight children, Thomas alone survived him, and was ten years old at his father's death in 1736. Having been defrauded of his patrimony by his guardians, he was sent to England, and settled as a tanner in Lancashire. He had a large family. His two surviving sons, Thomas and Edward, were both citizens of London-the latter dying in 1817, the former in 1820, and both were buried at Maresfield. Of his six daughters, Anne married James Crosby, to whose son of the same names, a Fellow of the Antiquarian and a Member of the Sussex Archæological Society, I am under considerable obligations for much information embodied in this memoir.

The descendants of John, the third son of Richard, who died in 1549, appear to have left Maresfield about the time of the migration of his cousins, descended from the two elder brothers, when the spirit of enterprise seems to have taken possession of the family, and to have carried them forth into the world in search of a larger field of active utility. James, the grandson of this John, removed, about the year 1599, into the adjoining parish of East Grinstead, where the family of William Kidder had been previously settled. His son James emigrated to America in the year 1630, and, settling himself at Cambridge, was a landowner there in 1649. He married Anna, the daughter of Elder Francis Morne, one of

the most opulent and respectable residents of that place. He was probably among the first settlers in that state, where he combined a military life with the peaceful pursuits of agriculture. His descendants are now very numerous in America, being spread over the broad expanse of territory from the Penobscot to the upper Mississippi, and from Canada to Louisiana, some of whom have been legislators of the particular states to which they belong, and two have been members of Congress. By marriage they have become connected with some of the leading families in that country.

His grandson, Reuben Kidder, was the successful and popular founder of the New Ipswich colony, in Hillsbury county, New Hampshire.

Other members of the Kidder family left Maresfield, and settled themselves in the counties of Surrey, Kent, and Gloucestershire, during the seventeenth century; while the heads of the house continued to reside in their native parish, and on their slender patrimonial estate, until 1724, when the last, a hale and venerable man, died, and was buried at the advanced age of eighty-three, shortly after which the property was purchased by, and merged in the estate of, the owner of Maresfield Park.

Although the family are now so widely dispersed, yet so endeared to the different members of it is the parish of Maresfield, from whence they sprung, that as many as can be are brought to Maresfield to be interred; and their tombs, after recording the fact of their death and burial, and any remarkable events that may have happened to be connected with the history of their lives, do not fail to set forth that they were "descended from the ancient family of Kidder, of this parish."

THE CHANTRY OF BRAMBLETYE, AND SEDITION

IN SUSSEX, TEMP. ELIZABETH, 1579.

BY WILLIAM DURRANT COOPER, F.S.A.

THE following extracts from the State Paper Office give us a curious insight into the apprehensions felt in Sussex, whenever the dignity of Elizabeth was questioned. The disturbed state of the county in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, has been noticed on a former occasion. (Archæol. Coll. Vol. V. p. 195.) From the examinations sent up to the Council by the justices in quarter sessions assembled, it seeins that their fears were very much excited by the charge made by an angry woman against a poor attorney, who set up a right derived under the crown itself against the interest of the very gallant Mrs. Pykas. Fortunately the Council saw nothing so formidable in the matter as to take any further notice of Lord Buckhurst, or his relative or attorney, or the querulous leader of the little host of servants.

The papers were kindly pointed out to me by Mr. Robert Lemon, F.S.A., of the State Paper Office, where the Justices' letter and the examinations had become disconnected, till he brought the several parts once more together.

Of the manor of Brambletye no accurate particulars have been published. It formed a portion of the large possessions of the St. Cleres, till the death of Thomas St. Clere, on the 6th May, 1435, leaving his three daughters his coheiresses: Elizabeth, then aged twelve; Eleanor, then aged eleven; and Edith, then aged nine years.2 The manor was holden of the King as of his duchy of Lancaster by military service, and was worth

Inq. p.m. taken at East Grinstead, 13th March, 17th Henry VI. No. 56.

2 Sussex Archæol. Coll. Vol. VIII., p. 131.