The Marshals of Hampstead Marshall were a family of warriors. The most distinguished of them was William, first Earl of Pembroke. When he was a child his father, John Marshal, was besieged at Newbury by King Stephen, 1152, and William was given as a hostage for a truce and the surrender of Newbury Castle. The father did not keep his terms, and the child would have been killed had not Stephen taken a liking to him and saved his life. He became a great soldier and served Henry II, Richard I, John, and Henry III with the utmost fidelity, becoming Regent of England during the early part of the reign of Henry III. He died in 1219 at Caversham, and is buried in the Temple Church in London.
In later times another warrior owned Hampstead Marshall. This was William Craven, Earl of Craven (1606–1697). He fought in the German wars of 1632–37 and was the faithful champion of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, the only daughter of James I. At the Revolution of 1688, though over 80 years old, he was in command of the King’s Guards, and Macaulay, in his History of England, describes how unwillingly the stout old soldier made way for the Dutch troops at Whitehall. Ashdown Park was another seat of the Earl, and is still in the possession of his descendant.
Radley belonged to a gallant sailor, Admiral Sir George Bowyer, Bart. (1740?–1800), who lost a leg off Ushant, June 1st, 1794. Another Admiral, Samuel Barrington (1729–1800), is buried at Shrivenham. He served under Hawke and Rodney, and was commander-in-chief in the West Indies.
Archbishop Laud
The family of Norris or Norreys has long been connected with Berkshire. Richard de Norreys, a member of a Lancashire family, held the office of cook to Eleanor, wife of Henry III, and in 1267 the manor of Ockholt, near Maidenhead, was granted to him. One of his descendants, John Norris, who held office in the Court of both Henry VI and Edward IV, built the house Ockwells at Ockholt, which has been already mentioned on page 114. He was buried at Bray in 1467. One branch of the family settled at Fyfield, and another branch became Norris of Rycote, which is in Buckinghamshire, but they too held much Berkshire property. Hampstead Norris derives its second name from this family. Henry Norris was an intimate friend of Henry VIII, and was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He, however, fell under the suspicion of being a lover of Anne Boleyn, and was in consequence executed in 1536. His son, also named Henry, was created Baron Norris of Rycote in 1572. He died at Englefield, and there is a monument to him and to one of his six soldier sons, Sir John Norris, in Yattendon church. Francis Norris, a grandson of Henry Lord Norris, was born at Wytham, and in 1621 was created Earl of Berkshire. He left no sons, and the earldom became extinct at his death, 1623. The barony descended through two ladies, Elizabeth and Bridget, to James Bertie, who was created Earl of Abingdon 1682. The present peer, whose seat is Wytham Abbey, is the seventh Earl of Abingdon.
St Edmund (1170?–1240), Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Abingdon, and William Laud (1573–1645), also Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Reading, the only son of William Laud, a clothier. He was educated at the Free School at Reading, and he gave a farm to Reading for charitable purposes. It was sold a short time ago, and the purchase money invested, producing some £330 a year. Another charity at Wokingham established by him also still exists.
John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury (1522–1571), was for some time vicar of Sunningwell. He was a voluminous writer on theological subjects. Another churchman connected with Sunningwell was John Fell (1625–1686), Bishop of Oxford, who was born either there or at Longworth. His father was rector of the parish. In 1648, at the time of the Civil War, he was turned out of his Studentship at Oxford, but continued to celebrate the rites of the church in a house opposite Merton College. He was a distinguished man, but is best known by the lines referring to him which begin “I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.” Joseph Butler (1692–1752), Bishop of Durham, and the author of the Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature, was born at Wantage, the son of a retired draper who lived at the Priory.
The Hoby Chapel, Bisham Church