LADY HOPTON.
I have thought that the following old letter, relative to a family once of some distinction, and especially as describing a very remarkable individual, from whom a multitude of living persons are immediately descended, might be of sufficient interest to occupy a place in "NOTES AND QUERIES." It has never, that I am aware of, been published; but it has long been preserved, amongst similar papers, with the accompanying endorsement:—"Though Mr. Ernle's letter relating to Lady Hopton and her family contains some fabulous accounts, and is in some parts a little unintelligible, yet it may be urged in confirmation of the truth of the several descents therein mentioned. He was the son of Sir John Ernle, and could not but have some general knowledge of his grandmother's relations."
This Mr. Ernle, afterwards knighted, died A.D. 1686.
Sir Arthur Hopton lived at Witham Friary, co. Somerset, and the heroine of this document was, according to the pedigree in Sir R. C. Hoare's Monastic Remains of Witham, &c., Rachel, daughter of Edmund Hall of Gretford, co. Lincoln, Esq. The date of Sir Arthur's death is not there given, but he was made a K.B. in 1603.
C. W. B.
"I will give you as good an account as I can remember of our wise & good Grandmother Hopton, who I think was one Hall's daughter of Devonshire without title, & had an elder brother, without child, who said to his younger brother's wife, who was then with child, if she would come to his house, & lie in, he would give his estate to it if a daughter, & if a son it should fare never the worse: so she had my grandmother, & he bred her up & married her to Sir Arthur Hopton of Somerset: who had 4000 a year, & she as much.
"By him she had 18 children; 10 daughters married; whose names were: Lady Bacon, Lady Smith, Lady Morton, Lady Bannister, & Lady Fettiplace; Bingham, Baskett, Cole, Thomas, & my Grandmother Ernle; these daughters & their children have made a numerous company of relations. The duke of Richmond & Lord Maynard married our Aunt Bannister's daughters & heirs (one to Rogers, the other to Bannister).[1] Fettiplace, which was also Lord Jones, his daughter & heiress married Lord Lumley, now Scarbro.
[1] ("The Lady Bannister's first husband was Mr. Rogers, of Brenson (hodiè Bryanston) near Blandford, in Dorsetshire: by him she had the Dutchess of Richmond, who was heiress to him: she had another daughter of Sir Robt. Bannister, who married Lord Mainard."—Added in another Version.)
"Cole's heir to Popham of Wilts: & Hungerford, & Warnford married Jones, & some Mackworth, & Wyndham in Wales; some Morgan, & Cammish, & Kern, with many others that I have forgot. The sons were Mr Robt Hopton, Sir Thomas, Sir Arthur. Robt had one son, wch was the Lord Hopton of great worth, who married the Lord Lewen's widow, and had no child: so the estate went to the daughters. But our Grandfather Hopton, having so good an estate, thought he might live as high as he pleased, & not run out: but one day he was going from home but cd not, but told his Lady she wd be left in great trouble, for the great debts he had made on his estate; & that he knew he should live but few days, & cd not die in peace, to think what affliction he should leave her in: so she desired him to be no way concerned for his debts, for he owed not a penny to any one. So he died of a gangrene in his toe in a few days. Now she had set up an Iron-work, & paid all he owed, unknown to him. And she married all her daughters to great estates, & great families: her eldest, I think, to one Smith, who was a younger son, & went factor to a merchant into Spain; he had a very severe master & was very melancholy & walked one morning in Spain intending to go & sell himself a galley-slave to the Turks: but an old man met him, & asked him why he was so melancholy; bid him cheer up himself, & not go about what he intended, for his elder brother was dead, letters were coming to him to return home to his estate; bid him consider & believe what he said, & that when he went for England, the first house he entered, after this landing, he would marry the gentleman's eldest daughter: which he did. The Lady Hopton's way of living was very great: she had 100 in her family; all sorts of trades; and when good servants married she kept the families, & bred them up to several trades. She rose at six of the Clock herself: went to the Iron-work, & came in about 9; went with all her family to prayers, & after dinner she & her children & grand-children went to their several works with her in the dining-room, where she spun the finest sheets that are. Every year she had all her children & grandchildren met together at her house; & before they went away, would know if any little or great animosities were between any of them; if so, she would never let them go, till they were reconciled."