and heir, notoriously cruel to his own wives, and subsequently sent to the scaffold for an ignominious offence, is considered, and when it is further recollected that he was not the son, but only step-son of this lady, certain suspicions arise which more than ever excite one's curiosity to raise still higher the curtain that hides this tragedy. We have also yet to learn of what family this lady was; for so far we have only just succeeded in obtaining accurately her Christian name. It is to be hoped that the particulars of the trial may hereafter come to light among the public records.'

The Inventory describes an extraordinary accumulation of valuable property, and is therefore proportionally curious. in illustration of the manners and habits of the times. It commences with a list of plate and jewels. Much of the former was adorned with the Hungerford arms, and with the knot of three sickles interlaced, which was used as the family badge or cognizance. A spoon was inscribed with the motto, Myn assuryd truth;' which same

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motto, under the form Myne trouth assured, occurs also on the beautiful seal of Margaret Lady of Hungerford and of Bottreaux, who died in 1476.1

1 The ancient badge of the Hungerfords was a single sickle, or handled gules (Collectanea Topograph. et Geneal. iii. 71). The sepulchral brass in Salisbury Cathedral of Walter Lord Hungerford (ob. 1449) and his wife, and another supposed to be that of his grandson Robert Hungerford (ob. 1463), were both semé of sickles (see their despoiled slabs or matrices engraved in Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, vol. ii. plate lvii.). The Hungerford knot was formed by entwining

H

Among the plate we notice 'forks with spones, to ete grene gynger with all,' the usual destination of the forks mentioned in English inventories. Thus, in an inventory of plate belonging to Edward III. and Richard II., we find these forks set with sapphires, pearls, etc. The forks are mentioned also as spoons: they may have either had prongs at one end and a bowl at the other, or have been made like the folding spoons of a more recent period, where a bowl fits over the prongs of the fork.

The vestments and ornaments of the chapel are next described; and then the furniture of the hall, parlour, an adjoining chamber, the nursery, the queen's chamber, the middle chamber, the great chamber, the chapel chamber, the lily chamber, the knighton chamber, the wardrobe chamber, the gallery, the chamber within the gallery, the women's chamber, the cellar, the buttery, the kitchen, the

three sickles in a circle. Three sickles and as many garbs, elegantly disposed within the garter, formed one of the principal bosses of the cloisters to St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. The standard of Sir John Hungerford of Down Ampney (temp. Hen. VIII.) was as follows: Red and green in the first compartment out of a coronet, or a garb of the same (charged with a mullet), between two sickles, crest argent, handled gules, banded or; and in the same compartment three similar sickles, each charged on the blade with a mullet; in the second compartment, three sickles interlaced around a mullet; in the third, three like knots of sickles between two single sickles charged as before. The Hungerford crest was a garb between two sickles, all within a coronet: the garb is supposed to have come from the family of Peveril, one of whose co-heirs married Walter Lord Hungerford, K.G., who died 1449. By that alliance the silver sickle met the golden wheatsheaf.

storehouse, and the brewhouse. In the parlour furniture we notice a joined cubeboard'—a joined cupboard. It must be remembered that cupboards were not, as they are now, closets set even into the walls, but literally a board or table on which plate was set out, more like the modern sideboard. A considerable list of cupboard clothes may be found in the inventory of the wardrobe stuffs of Catharine of Aragon.

Then follows a list of the agricultural stock 'belonging to the Grange Place,' and the particulars of some parcels of armour left in the Castle of Farley,' including brigandine, formed of small plates of metal quilted with linen or other tissue. Among the curious items is boyde money, or bent money. In the will of Sir Edward Howard, Knight, Admiral of England, 1512, occurs: 'I bequeath him [Charles Brandon] my rope of bowed nobles that I hang my great whistle by, containing ccc. angels.' Money was often bent or bowed when intended to serve as love tokens, a custom perpetuated to the days of Butler :

'Like commendation ninepence bent,

With "from and to my love" he went.'

In the present instance it appears to have been bowed for offerings to saints.

A long and curious catalogue of the lady's own dress and personal ornaments is next given, with a list of some obligations or bonds for money, some items of household stuff remaining in her husband's house at Charing Cross (where the Hungerford name still lingers); and lastly, the raiment

of her husband, which was in the keeping of her sonin-law.

The particular dwelling-house at which the principal part of the goods and furniture here described lay, is not positively mentioned by name; but as, from the expression above quoted regarding the arms and armour, it would seem not to have been Farleigh Castle, there is every probability that the document chiefly relates to the manorhouse of Heytesbury, where Sir Edward Hungerford died. The manor is thus described in a survey made upon the attainder of Walter Lord Hungerford in 31 Henry VIII.: 'The sayde lordship standeth very pleasauntly, in a very swete ayer, and there ys begon to be buylded a fayre place, whiche, if it had bene fynyshed, had bene able to have receyved the kynges highnes; a fayre hall, with a goodly new wyndow mad in the same; a new parlor, large and fayre; iiij. fayre chambers, wherof one is gyhted, very pleasant; a goodlie gallerie, well made, very long; new kitchen; new larder; and all other houses of office belonging unto the same; moted round aboute; whereunto doth adjoyne a goodly fayre orchard, with very pleasaunte walkes in the same' (Sir R. C. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire).

This account seems to describe a house that had been erected by Walter Lord Hungerford within the space of the last five years. However, it is certain that his father Sir Edward had also resided at Heytesbury, and the present document shows that in his time the manor-place was already out of good receipt' and ample furniture.

reason.

The reader will not be surprised at further scandal being attached to the family of the Hungerfords, instances of whose degradation we have just recorded. Hence has arisen the popular story of the device of a toad having been introduced into their armorial bearings; but we are assured that this report is in every way nonsensical. 'Argent, three toads sable,' says the Rev. Mr. Jackson, 'is certainly one of their old quarterings, as may be seen upon one of the monuments in the chapel at Farley Castle. But it was borne by the Hungerfords for a very different Robert the second Lord, who died in 1459, had married the wealthy heiress of the Cornish family of Bottreaux; and this was one of the shields used by her family, being in fact nothing more than an allusion, not uncommon in heraldry, to the name. This was spelled variously, Bottreaux or Botterelles; and the device was probably assumed from the similarity of the old French word Botterel, a toad (see Cotgrave), or the old Latin word Botterella,—the marriage with the Bottreaux heiress, and the assumption of the arms, having taken place many years before any member of the Hungerford family was attainted or executed (as some of them afterwards were), so that the toad story, which is in Defoe's Tour, falls to the ground.'

The town house of the Hungerfords, and which we have already mentioned, was one of the stately mansions which formerly embellished the north bank of the Thames, and stood between York House, and Suffolk, now Northumberland House. The estate had now devolved to Sir Edward