<He> perfected his Latin when a man by parson Oldham of Dodmerton. <He was a> perfect master of the French; a historian; tall and spare; temperate; sedate and solid; a very great favorite of prince Henry; lived most at Cornbury; a great improver of his estate, to 11000 li. per annum at the least; sold the 7 Downes, and turned the[721] ⓐ into lease; afterwards bought fee-simple neer Cirencester.
[722]Henry, earl of Danby, <was a> great oeconomist. All his servants <were> sober and wise[723] in their respective places. <He> kept ... gentlemen: <among them> colonel Legge[724] (governor of Portsmouth); and his brother; Mr. Arthur Drake (brother of Sir ... Drake, baronet).
[725]Earl of Danby—he was page to Sir Philip Sydney—from my cozen Elizabeth Villers: quaere +.
[726]Memorandum:—anno Domini, 16—, regno regis Caroli primi, Henry, earle of Danby, built an almeshowse in this parish <Dantesey, co. Wilts> for <six> poore people and[727] a schoole—quaere the salary[DE] of both.
Notes.
[DB] Aubrey gives in trick the coat:—'<gules>, a chevron between 3 mullets <or> [Danby]; quartering, <gules>, a saltire engrailed <argent>, an annulet for difference [Nevill, lord Latimer],' surmounted by an earl's coronet.
[DC] i.e. in MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 46: see supra, p. [192]. The epitaph contains English verses by George Herbert.
[DD] Henry, brother of Sir Robert, Long was killed, possibly in fair fight, by Sir Charles, brother of this Henry, Danvers: see the Archaeological Magazine, i. 306. In consequence, the Danvers brothers had to seek safety in France. In MS. Aubr. 3, fol. 44v, Aubrey notes 'Sommerford magna—the assassination of Harry Long was contrived in the parlour of the parsonage here. Mr. Atwood was then parson; he was drown'd comeing home.'
Richard Atwood, M.A. Oxon, 1576: another instance of 'Digitus Dei.'
[DE] See Jackson's Aubrey's Wiltshire Collections, p. 228.