Tuesday, Aug. 18, 1591, its noble and loyal proprietor, Lord Montague, though still attached to the same ancient forms of faith as the nuns, received Queen Elizabeth as his guest in their former refectory, during her visit to Cowdray. "On Tewsday her Majestie went to dinner at the priory, where my lorde himselfe kept house, and there was she and her lordes most bountifully feasted." 38 สา Among the original relics of the nunnery may be noticed two bells still in the belfry of Easebourne. On one is inscribed Sanc . ta . An na. ora pro . nob. is. This bell measures 3 ft. 4 in. in diameter at the lip, and 3 ft. 4 in. in height. It is not improbable that it belonged to Midhurst Chapel, on St. Ann's Hill. Its tone is B flat. The other bell measures 2 ft. 7 in. diameter at the lip, and is 2 ft. 6 in. high. It has the simple motto, te. deum. deum. laudamus, 36 Grimm delin. 1780. Add. MSS. 5675, £ 8, No. 13. 38 See Nichols's, Progresses, iii. 90. Sussex Archæol. Coll. V. 186. followed by two lions' heads, and a cross inscribed within a circle. Among the Burrell MSS. is a drawing of the oval seal of the priory; but no reference is there made to the original from which it was taken. This has been professedly copied by Dallaway (i. p. 237), and also in the new edition of the Monasticon (iv. pl. xxiv.), but with variations. In the upper part it represents the crowned Virgin and Child, seated under a Gothic arch upon a long flat altar, which has a series of arches in front, and bears a tall candlestick on each side the Virgin. Beneath is a seated figure, who may be St. Benedict, or the founder, John de Bohun, delivering a book to a prioress standing. The inscription is variously given as Sigillvm. Bombs s...e de Esseborna, or, as drawn by Howlett, 1825, SIGILL COMUNE: SANCTE: MARIE: DE: ESEBORNA. The authority for the drawing of this seal was probably its impression attached to the final surrender; but it has been separated, and may perhaps be among the large collection of unarranged detached seals now in the Carlton Ride Record Office. PRIORESSES.-The names with an asterisk are not in Dugdale or Dallaway. *Alicia, before 1279. *Margerita Wyvile, 1362. Agnes Tawke, 1478. Margaret Sackfilde, 1521-1524. NOTICES OF THE FAMILY OF MILLER, OF BURGHILL AND WINKINGHURST. BY MARK ANTONY LOWER, M.A., F.S.A. READ AT THE WORTHING MEETING, 1855. By favour of our member, Robert Mercer, Esq., of Sedlescomb, I have before me a manuscript purporting to be:"The pious and affectionate Father's Advice to his Children; being the dying counsel of the late Mr. HENRY MILLER, of Winkinghurst, in Hellingly,' Sussex, to his surviving Family, in a letter addressed to his son, &c. Found among his papers after his death. By it, he being dead yet speaketh.' Heb. xi. 4.” The original document was dated July ye. 22a. 1723; the transcript was made in 1748, "by Thomas Mercer, grandson of the said Henry Miller." Mr. Mercer was a respectable medical practitioner at Lewes, and was patronized by the celebrated Duke of Newcastle, then of Halland. Opposite the title-page, by way of frontispiece, is the book-plate of the writer, "Henry Miller, Gent. of Winkinghurst" : ARMS; Ermine a fesse Gules between three wolves' heads erased Azure: Crest; a wolf's head erased Azure, collared Ermine. These arms are identical with those of Nicholas Miller, of Wrotham, sheriff of Kent, 8 Charles I., and show Mr. Miller to have descended from an ancestor of that gentleman. The Millers of Oxenheath in the parish of West Peckham, in the same county, also bore these arms, and were unquestionably collateral relations of Mr. Miller's family. Nicholas Miller, Esq., was a great acquirer of lands in the reign of James I., purchasing largely of the Chowne, Culpeper, and other families. His nephew Sir Nicholas Miller enlarged the mansion of Oxenheath" with all the circumstances both of art and magnificence."-Philipott's Villare Cantianum, p. 269. 1 Subsequently the seat of the Mason family-now of Mrs. Woodward. In addition to what Mr. Miller tells us about himself, we learn, from a note affixed by the transcriber of the MS., that "he was educated in the principles of the Church of England by his parents, who were sober members of that community, though he afterwards saw reason to alter his judgment; the occasion of which Mr. Crosby, with great truth, gives an account of, with some brief account of his character, &c. Speaking of a public disputation in the parish church of Waldron, in Sussex, between one Matt". Caffin and the minister of the said parish, on the point of infant baptism, he says:- It issued in the conviction of Mrs. Fuller and one M'. Henry Miller, a gentleman who was an able practitioner in the law. Soon after they were both baptized on the profession of their faith. Mr. Miller quitted his employment, adhered to the study of divinity, became an eminent preacher, and at length was ordained pastor to a Baptist congregation at Warbleton, in Sussex.' (History of the Baptists, vol. iv. pp. 330, 331.") Mr. Mercer adds, that "Mrs. Fuller was mother of John Fuller, Esquire, afterwards representative of the county of Sussex in Parliament." The time when the polemical discussion above referred to took place, is not mentioned, but it must have occurred during the period of the Commonwealth; and the Waldron minister was probably an Independent intruder. I do not call to mind any other instance of a Baptist having challenged the officiating clergyman to a discussion of creeds, but the "Friends were great disturbers of the peace in "steeplehouses." A curious anecdote of an occurrence of this kind in the neighbouring church of Burwash, is related in Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. ii. 459. Mr. Thos. Goldham, (the vicar) "was once disturbed by a Quaker, who entering his church, and walking towards the pulpit like a ghost, said to him, I am sent with a message from God to thee.' Mr. Goldham, who was a quick and ready man, said, 'What! to me?' 'Yea,' said the Quaker, to thee.' Mr. Goldham then asked him, 'Dost thou know my name?' 'Nay,' said the Quaker, I know it not.' Mr. Goldham replied, 'If God sent thee to me, he could surely have told thee my name!' and endeavoured to convince him that he might be mistaken in the person he was sent to. At this the man was con founded, and the people were satisfied without any dispute." The MS., which occupies 71 closely written octavo pages, is divided into three parts "1. Respecting our Family, that you [his two children addressed] may know something more relating to them. "2. Respecting Religion, and the true worship of God, &c. "3. Respecting a prudent management of worldly affairs. The first of these portions, which is by far the shortest of the three, is the only one, which-as a trustworthy genealogy of an old and respectable Sussex family-is here first printed. The other divisions show that the writer was a man of genuine piety, a cool, dispassionate, and candid reasoner, an able theologian, and a wise and prudent man of business. Whatever view may be taken of his peculiar sentiments on some points of religious doctrine, most readers would cordially assign him a place among the Christian country gentlemen of a period rather notorious for its characteristics of laxity, ignorance, and the grossness of public morals. He died January 15th, 1728-9, aged 63, and on the 20th of the same month (after a funeral sermon, "preach'd to a numerous and crowded auditory of his sorrowful relations, friends, &c., by Mr. Richard Drinkwater"), was buried in Hellingly churchyard, near the remains of his wife and some of his descendants. His monument still exists at Hellingly, in good preservation, and contains a poetical epitaph of his own composition, but no great merit, and subscribed-"Sic cecinit ipse Henricus." "SECT. I. Respecting our Family. "OUR ancestors came from a place called Seal, in Kent (as I have been inform'd), where they had a large estate; a moiety of a large farm, wth. an ancient seat of the family on it, descended down to my own father, who sold it many years before I was born, for £1600, or thereabouts. And also, as I have been inform'd, there now is a commission of Master of the Ordnance, or something of that nature, amongst the ancient writings of the family, in custody of my cous". Henry Miller, |