I was received at the old house with great kindness by Mrs. Fane, wife of the present proprietor. It is a beautiful old house with carved oak partitions, with a dining room rising to the roof. Lady Lisle's chamber and the place where the two fugitives were concealed are still shown. Mrs. Fane had gathered some local traditions which are not found in print. One old lady, who had been well known to persons now living, had received some of them from her grandmother, who was cotemporary with Lady Alice.
The lady was very popular with her tenants in the neighborhood. The messenger who came from Winchester to arrest her took her on horseback behind him, according to the custom of the time. The horse cast a shoe. The messenger was for pressing on without regard to the suffering of the animal. She insisted that he should stop and have the horse shod. The man roughly refused. She said: "I have made no outcry, on my own account. But everybody here loves me. If you do not stop, I shall cry out. You will never get away with me alive." The fellow was frightened and consented to stop at a smithy. When the smith had finished his work, Lady Lisle said: "I will be back this way in two or three days, and I will pay you." To this the messenger said: "Yes, you will be back this way in two or three days, but without your head."
The headless body was brought back from Winchester after the trial. The next day, when the household were at dinner, a man came to the outside and thrust into the dining room window a basket, containing her head. This was said to be for "greater indignity."
Lady Lisle had known Hicks, one of the persons whom she relieved, before. When the court was sitting for the trial of Charles I., she went up to London to expostulate with her husband. She arrived at his lodgings just as he was setting out in a procession, with some state, for Westminster Hall, where the trial was held. As she approached to speak to him, he did not recognize her in the soiled dress in which she had travelled, and motioned her away rather roughly. It was said that she was overcome by the press in the crowd and fell to the ground. Hicks, who was a Dissenting minister, raised her up and took her to his own lodging near by in the Strand. She said to him that she could not recompense him there, but if he would come to Hampshire, or to the Isle of Wight, where she had property, she would be glad to repay him.
Saturday, October 22, 1892, with Mrs. Hoar and her sister, Mrs. Rice, I went from Southampton to Ringwood, about twenty miles, and thence drove to Ellingham Church, about two miles and a half. The church is a small but very beautiful structure of stone, with a small wooden belfry. The tomb of Lady Alice Lisle is a heavy, flat slab of gray stone, raised about two or three feet from the ground, bearing the following inscription:
Here lies Dame Alicia Lisle and her daughter Ann Harfeld who dyed the 17th of Feb. 1703-4 Alicia Lisle dyed the second of Sept. 1685.
It is close to the wall of the church, on the right of the porch. In the church is seen the old Lisle pew of carved oak, now the pew of the Earl of Normanton. Opposite the pew is the pulpit, also of carved black oak, apparently ancient. The church contains a tablet to the memory of the former owner of Moyle's Court, who died in 1622.
Moyle's Court is about a mile and a half from Ellingham Church. The drive is along a beautiful lane shaded by trees whose branches meet from the two sides, through a beautiful and fertile country, adorned by herds of fine cattle. Moyle's Court is a large two-story building, consisting of two square wings connected by the main building. The wings project from the main building in front, but the whole forms a continuous line in the rear. As you approach it, you pass numerous heavy, brick outbuildings, including several farmhouses, one of which is quite large, and apparently of great antiquity. We were received by Mrs. Fane with the greatest courtesy. She said that the landed estate connected with Moyle's Court is very large, now or recently yielding the Earl of Normanton seven thousand pounds a year.
The present occupant of Moyle's Court, Frederick Fane, Esq., came there about twenty-one years before. The house was then much dilapidated, but he has restored it in a style in keeping with the ancient architecture. The principal room is a dining hall, rising from the ground some twenty-five feet in height, with a gallery at one end, on a level with the second story. The walls of this room are of beautiful, carved oak, the front of the gallery being ancient, and as it existed in the time of Lady Alice Lisle. The staircase, also of fine, carved oak, is of equal antiquity. The carved oak in the passages and some of the other rooms has been restored by Mr. Fane from material found in the attic. There is also a curious old kitchen, with a large fireplace, with a closet in the chimney where it is said one of the persons succored by Lady Alice Lisle was found hidden. In the cellar is a curiously carved head on a stone beam, which seemed as if it might formerly have supported a mantel-piece or shelf. It is said that this portion of the cellar was once a chapel.
Some of the chambers have been named by Mr. Fane from persons
connected with the tragedy—Dame Alicia, Monmouth, Nelthrop,
Hicks, Tryphena—these names being inscribed on the doors.
The room is shown where Lady Lisle is said to have been seized.