JOHN TALBOT, ESQ., OF SALWARPE.
John Aubrey, Esq., F.R.S., in his Natural History, written between the years 1656 and 1691, says (p. 70)—"Dame Olave, a daughter and co-heire of Sir Henry Sharington, of Lacock, being in love with John Talbot, a younger brother of the Earle of Shrewsbury, and her father not consenting that she should marry him, discoursing with him one night from the battlements of the Abbey church, said shee, 'I will leap downe to you.' Her sweetheart replied he would catch her then, but he did not believe she would have done it. She leapt down, and the wind, which was then high, came under her coates, and did something breake the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his armes, but she struck him dead. She cried out for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again. Her father told her that since she had made such a leap she should e'en marrie him. She was my honoured friend, Colonel Sharington Talbot's grandmother, and died at her house at Lacock, about 1651, being about a hundred yeares old." To this passage the veteran antiquary, John Britton, Esq., F.A.S., has added this note: "Olave, or Olivia Sherington married John Talbot, Esq., of Salwarpe, in the county of Worcester, fourth in descent from John, second Earl of Shrewsbury; she inherited the Lacock estate from her father, and it has ever since remained the property of that branch of the Talbot family, now represented by the scientific Henry Fox Talbot, Esq." Sir Henry Sherington was the son of Sir William Sherington, one of the ecclesiastical commissioners for Wiltshire on the dissolution of the Chantries; and to him Henry VIII granted the possessions of Lacock Abbey, and a good deal of other monastic property in Wiltshire. Mr. Aubrey was one of the original members of the Royal Society. He attended Charles II and his brother, afterwards James II, on their visit to the Druidical Temple, at Avebury, in 1663; and dined with Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, at Hampton Court, in 1657 or 8, as is stated in his work before cited, pp. 97 and 103.