[64] “A party of Sir William Brereton’s, under Sir John Price, a Member of Parliament, took Apseley House in Shropshire, and in it Sir William Whitmore, Sir Francis Oatley, Mr. Owen, and other Commissioners of Array there sitting, and about 60 common soldiers.” Whitelock’s Memorials, p. 134.
[66] A copy of this very scarce and curious book is in the possession of Mr. S. Sydney Smith, who very kindly permitted me to make the above extract from it. Perhaps I may be allowed to express the satisfaction which I felt, on finding in this list of loyal sufferers the names of two of my own kindred, belonging to a branch of our family who had early settled in the county of Chester. “Bellett, John, Senior, and John his son, of Morton, Com. Chest., Esq., 1005. 05: 00.”
[68] One could wish, as a mere matter of curiosity, that a remarkable building, called “Forester’s Folly,” had been amongst those which escaped the fire; for it was built by Richard Forester, the private secretary of no less famous a person than Bishop Bonner, and bore the above appellation most likely on account of the cost of its erection. William Baxter, the Antiquary, who was a descendant of Forester, has the following passage in his life referring to the circumstance:—
“Proavus meus Richardus de isto matrimonio susceptus uxorem habuit Annam Richardi dicti Forestarii filiam: qui quidem Richardus filius erat natu minor prænobilis familiæ Forestariorum. (olim Regiorum Vigorniensis saltûs custodum) & famoso Episcopo Bonnero a-Secretis Hic Suttanum Madoci incolebat, & egregias ædes posuit in urbicula dicta Brugge, sive ad Pontem vel hodie dictas Forestarii Dementiam.”—Autoris Vita.
[70] This Mr. Pulley, of Hassington, in the county of Essex, gave to will “to his Wife Wynnefred for her natural life, all this his house and land, lying in Beauchamp Roothing, in the county of Essex, and after her dicease, to the inhabitants of the Towne of Bridgnorth, in the county of Salop, for ever; conditionally, that they should every year and yearly, for ever, give £16 of the rent of the said land unto two young men or women, of the said Towne, who should stand in need of it, whose Tordlinesse might make it likely to do them good, viz, £8 apiece.”