unwilling to staye, yet at length by pswasion did stay, till worde was brought to me. When I understoode of it, I sent to hir that I did not think it good she should speake wth Stapleton, and wisht hir to forebeare it, for I thought Stapleton no fitt man for hir to converse or talk wthall. She askt if she were a prisoner, and sayde she would see, and so went to the gates, and would have gone out, but was not suffered, yet she did speak to Stapleton, looking through the gate, some vayne idle words of salutation and bad him goe to Mansfield, and staye there till he harde from hir, wth some more wordes to no purpose, many being psent and hearing what they sayd. So wth much sending to Stapleton to dept, at length he went from my gates. She had appoynted Henry Cavendishe to come hither agayne tomorowe wch I forbad, and so I think he will not come ; he was no sooner gon out of my gates, but she made herself reddie to walke abroad wch I thought not convenient she should doe, and so she stayde. Other dayes she hath walked to take the ayer in severall placs. One came hither yesterdaye morning post from London to Arbell from hir servant Chaworth. I here he brought back to hir a letter wch Chaworth should have delyvered to you wch she was seene to burne psently uppon the receit of it, and retorned him wth other letters to you agayne. She sayth she hath likewise sent Basset hir page to London poste too dayes since wth letters to you. She never rests writing and sending up and downe in the countrie and to London, as she sayth. Henry Cavendishe her showed to have but three or foure men wth him, and Stapleton but one; I suffred but one of Henry Cavendishe's men to come into the house wth him; but I am informed that there were of theyr company whoe kept themselves secret wthin a quarter of a mile of the house above fortie horsmen well weaponed and some of them had daggs; they were in four severall companies-some at Hucknall, viz., at one Mrs Iretons xij; at one Chapmans house there tenn; in a bushie ground nere here called Rowthorne Carr ix or x; and tenn at one Doves house in Rowthorne, where Stapleton hath lurked three dayes, as I harde even nowe. They being thus wickedly disposed, maye as well have five hundreth men wthin a myle of the house and I not understand of theyr ill intent. Arbell threatens and will give it out uppon any little occasion, being intreated not to speak wth any bad bodie that she is kept as a prisoner. I should not so much have forgotten myself to have troubled hir Matie, and some of hir Maties privie Counsell for Arbellas remove hence, but that I feared the daunger that I was not able for my lyfe to wthstand; and she being here one daye, I feare I shall not have hir here the morrowe, yf I shoulde suffer hir but to goe wthout my gates. In my opinion it were best she were removed farther from the North, wch waye I fear she woulde goe; she shall not of long tyme in the South be acquainted wth so many to help hir as she is hereabouts.

I here that one of the company had a pillion to carry a woman behind him and covered it wth a Cloke. And so being very late this thursdaye night the xth of March I cease.

This incident in the lives of the Countess of Shrewsbury and the Lady Arbella Stuart was closed by the latter going to Wrest House, the Earl of Kent's, who had married her cousin, a daughter of Gilbert, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury. She was there at the time of the Queen's death, 24th March, 1602; and, as the Queen's nearest relation, was specially requested to have honoured the funeral with her presence, but as she had been systematically neglected by the Queen during her life, she declined the honour.

James VI. of Scotland was peacefully proclaimed King of England.

The Countess of Shrewsbury died at Hardwick, February 13th, 1608, aged 87 years. Her funeral took place at All Saints', Derby. Her monument and tomb had been prepared during her lifetime; but the inscription cannot have been placed there or completed till many years after, for the title of the Duke of Newcastle appears upon it, and that title was only granted after the Restoration by Charles II., about the year 1664.

The following charges appear amongst the accounts of the Countess :

"Mr Benet of Derby (Vicar of All Saints) his bill for getting stone for the foundation of the tombe:

To too laborers fyve dayes to bare the quaire at viijd. a daye a peece

vjs. viijd.

xs. viijd.

To same to eight dayes more to get stone To Thomas Lychfield the Chief Stone-getter xiiijd. a daye for viij dayes ixs. iiijd.

For leading fortie loads of stone, it being too myles from Derby at xiiijā, the load xlvjs. viijd. iij. xiijs. iiijd.

ΟΙ

Payde to Mr Benet over and above his first bill iij. xiijs. iiijd. payde before for worke done about the foundation of the tombe as appeareth by the bill iiij. ijs. ijd.

That is to say, a sum of £7 15s. 6d., or, as it would be in present value, £54 8s. 6d., laid out in the foundation of her tomb in All Saints'.

She was such another as the

Horace Walpole tells us that the estates of the Countess in her lifetime were reckoned at £60,000 a year; and in the year 1760 when he wrote that they were let for £200,000. As to her character, Lodge, in his Gallery of Portraits, speaks of her as "a woman of masculine understanding and conduct; proud, furious, selfish, and unfeeling. She was a builder, a buyer, and seller of estates, a moneylender, a farmer, and a merchant of lead, coals, and timber." But Lodge is here only telling us that the Countess was a creation of the sixteenth century in England. first lady in the land-Queen Elizabeth. It is recorded of the Queen that she swore; she spat upon a courtier's coat when it did not please her taste; she beat her gentlewomen soundly; she gave Essex a good stinging blow upon the face, and made his hand fly to the hilt of his sword; she called the members of her Privy Council by all sorts of nicknames, and woe to him who would presume to take liberties to cross her purpose and forget that she was Queen. Such was the civilization of England in the sixteenth century.

As to what is said about the Countess and her " buying and selling," it must be remembered that for nearly the last twenty years of her life she had no husband to manage her estates; she was perforce driven to attend to business herself; and as to her being "a moneylender, a farmer, a merchant of lead, of coal and timber," there, are many peers in this day who would be only too glad if the same could be said of them. She was a great builder-building Chatsworth, but

not in its present stateliness, which is mainly the work of the first duke. She added twice to her father's house at Hardwick, the old Hall; then the present hall at Hardwick; and Old Cotes, in the parish of Heath, now destroyed. There is said to have been a prediction by a gipsy that the Countess should not die as long as she continued building. A frost set in, and she was prevented building, and she died.

The Staffords of Eyam.

By C. E. B. BOWLES, M.A.

URING the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Staffords, though never Lords of the Manor of Eyam, owned the greater part of that and the neighbouring townships, besides other lands in the counties of Derby, Buckingham and Hertford. Several genealogists have attempted to construct a pedigree of the family, and have evidently found it an extremely difficult task. More than one have made suggestions and statements as curious as they are impossible; no statement should ever be made in a family history without evidence. A careful study of this, now collected and published for the first time, will prove many of these suggestions to be untrue. What has been written in The Reliquary1 and other publications has for the most part been derived from the Wolley manuscripts,2 which are erroneous in many important points. The Wolley charters, however, which, being originals, are, of course, trustworthy, have been extensively used in this article, as have also the transcripts from the Haddon charters made by the late Mr. Wm. Carrington, of Bakewell, who most kindly put them at the disposal of the writer. The references to these will be found in the footnotes. But it is upon the writer's own family3 deeds that he has mainly relied. These deeds, together with many of the lands

1 Reliquary, vol. ii., p. 219.

2 Add. MSS. 6,675 and 6,671 in British Museum.

3 Since this History was in type an abstract of these deeds has been included by Mr. Jeayes in his valuable book, Derbyshire Charters.