COLNE PRIORY. 3 with stars picked out in flint, which sparkle in the sun. The sluggish Colne, winding through pastures, skirts Colne Priory, a monastery founded by Aubrey de Vere, A.D. 1100; its chapel enriched with four richly carved tombs, three of which are to the Earls of Oxford. These are the same monuments about which there was a controversy in the public journals, June, 1884. More than a hundred years ago the Priory chapel fell into disuse, when it rapidly became a ruin: the four tombs were removed, and were lent by Henry Carwardine to Colne Church, pending a rebuilding of the Priory; he subsequently removed them back to a sort of cloister on the Priory. The monuments to the De Veres received many embellishments from the bucolic claspknife during their incarceration in Colne Church; in fact, had they been allowed to remain there, would have been well nigh destroyed: beyond doubt, Henry Carwardine was well within his legal rights in the matter. The earliest and most beautiful tomb is that surmounted by the effigy of Robert de Vere, the fifth Earl of Oxford, who died A.D. 1296. It is carved in stone. The Earl lies with his legs crossed; he is clothed in a hauberk or shirt of mail, reaching nearly to the knees, with a hood, or coif de maille, secured round the forehead by a fillet, or, perhaps, covered with a basenet, or iron skuil cap. 'Both the opening for the face and the lower edge of the hood terminate in a point. The legs and feet are encased in mail, the knees being further protected by poleyns or genouillières. The spurs are attached to the heels by straps which pass round the instep. The shield is gone, but the guige by which it was slung from the right shoulder remains, and passes under the coif de maille. A sleeveless surcoat, worn over the mail, reaches below the knees, is fastened round the waist with a narrow belt, and is open below, showing the lower part of the hauberk and the legs. A large sword is suspended at the left side by a broad belt, the buckle of which is in front. At the feet is a boar, couchant, with his head turned towards the figure. The free-stone tomb supporting it is of Decorated work of high artistic merit, apparently of the middle of the fourteenth century.' Round the Priory we find art and nature playing into each other's hands. One marvels at some dainty sculptured angel shining through an ivied setting; at figures impregnated with the religious sentiment which is among the sweet possessions of Gothic art. And what of the humanity? the succession of soldiers and ecclesiastics whose feet have trodden this ancient ground; of the loves, the quarrels, the intrigues, and of those silent workers recording their deeds in stone? Round this monastery stands a Norman wall: what experiences its battered face could tell! Of all this, it is not in our power to chronicle; though one brief word we will give, tracing the Holgates and Carwardines ab ovo. Alberic de Vere, son of Alphonsus de Vere, and Earl of Ghisnes in Normandy, came over with William the Conqueror, who gave to the Earl in marriage his halfsister Beatrix and the manor of Colne. The occasion of the foundation of Colne Priory is said to have been owing to the skill in physic of the Abbot of ANN HOLGATE. 5 Abingdon, who by it recovered Geoffrey, eldest son of the above-named Aubrey, from illness. William Harla kenden came over at the Conquest as Esquier' to Alberic de Vere; and the former seems also to have received a present of land (at Woodchurch, Kent) from the Conqueror. Some of Harlakenden's descendants lived at Colne, and for many years were landstewards to the Earls of Oxford, till at length these Harlakendens in their turn became land proprietors; they bought the monastery with its lands from the De Vere family. In Colne Church there is a relief of one Roger Harlakenden (d. 1602), with his four wives kneeling behind him; his daughter, Dorothy, was married to Samuel Symonds, who emigrated to America in 1637, and the latter was Deputy Governor of New England: John Addington Symonds is collaterally descended from Dorothy (Harlakenden) Symonds. Old Quarles (Emblems) is the only literary figure discoverable among Anne Gilchrist's ancestors. In 1770 Ann Holgate represents the Harlakendens; she is a ward, guarded by a dragon, in the form of a maiden aunt-Mary Wale, who assumed the name of Holgate. "Molly" does not however seem to have stood in the way of Ann Holgate's marriage with Thomas Carwardine. In the published diary of Thomas Wale, the young people's courtship is mentioned :-" June 9th, 1770. The next day, after breakfast with Miss Bridge, we set out and got to Colne before two o'clock, in good time for dinner with Miss Holgate, and found her and her niece Nancy and sweetheart (Mr. Carwardine) all well. We spent ye 10th, 11th, and 12th with fishing, walking [and] driving." Tradition has it that Nancy's sweetheart, Thomas Carwardine, of Thinghill Court, is collaterally descended from Sir Thomas Cawarden, of Bletchingley Castle : certainly, this squire's courtly manners and savoir faire stamp him as a worthy representative of the Knight who served four sovereigns without losing either his head, or the bulk of his estate; though Queen Mary confiscated part of Sir Thomas's fine armoury, but probably Queen Elizabeth paid him compensation. 'Sir Thomas Cawarden (or Cawerden, familiarly Carden) was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry the Eighth, Master of the Revels, and Keeper of the King's Tents, Hales, and Toyles. It belonged to his office as Master of the Revels to take charge and custody of all the garments and properties necessary for the pageants, masks, and other diversions of the Court; to provide for the erection and decoration of all such temporary buildings as might be required for those entertainments. To this office, therefore, was very naturally joined that of keeper of the king's tents and temporary lodgings, used in military expeditions or other occasions in the field. 'Sir Thomas Cawarden seems to have stood high in the favour of King Henry VIII. He had a grant from that monarch of the manor of Hextalls, in Surrey, which had belonged to Sir Nicholas Carew, of Beddington, near Croydon.. "Cawarden is said to have entertained Henry VIII., and his Queen Ann Boleyn, at his castle at Bletchingley. . He was at the siege |