Kedleston Church, Interior.
Not far from Kedleston are the picturesque ruins of Mackworth Castle, the ancient stronghold of the De Mackworths, and in its neighbourhood are Quarndon, with its medicinal springs; Markeaton Hall, the seat of the Mundys; Kirk Ireton, famous as the place from whence the two great Parliamentary officers, General Ireton and Colonel Sanders, sprang; Duffield, once the stronghold and seat of the Norman family of Ferrars, Earls of Derby; Mugginton, anciently the seat of the Knivetons; and many other places of note.
AUDLEY END.
OF the earlier life of Sir Thomas Audley, the founder of Audley End, or of the family from which he sprang, but little is known. His rise was rapid, as his rapacity was great, and, like others in the very extraordinary times in which he lived, he fawned on his sovereign and preyed on the possessions of others until he had raised himself to a high position. “Thomas Audley,” says a writer in 1711, “being a sedulous student in the law, became Autumne Reader to the Inner Temple, temp. Henry VIII., and was after chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, in the 21st of Henry VIII. In which station (this being the parliament that gave the finishing hand to the dissolution of monasteries) he was so acceptable to the king that he at first made him Attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, next Serjeant-at-Law, being after the King’s Own Serjeant; and upon the resignation of the Lord Chancellor More, he was knighted, made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and, before the end of the year, Lord Chancellor of England. And the 30th of Henry VIII. sat as Steward upon the arraignment of Henry Courtney, Marquis of Exeter, for endeavouring to advance Cardinal Pole to the crown. And subtilly, at length, obtaining the great Abbey of Walden, in Essex, he was, in the 30th of Henry VIII., created Lord Audley of Walden, and died the 35th of Henry VIII., leaving issue by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, only two daughters his heirs—Mary, who died unmarried; and Margaret, who became his sole heir, first married to the Lord Henry Dudley, and after to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, as second wife, whose son by her, Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, Lord Treasurer of England, built upon the ruines of the abby that stately fabrick at Walden, call’d Audley-End, in memory of this Lord Audley.”
Thomas Audley, who, as has just been stated, was the principal agent in the great work of spoliation, the dissolution of monasteries, was rewarded for his zeal by grant after grant from the spoils, and yet was always, as is shown by his letters, whining and craving for more. The rich priory of Christchurch, Aldgate, London, “with all the church plate and lands belonging to that house, was first granted to him; and afterwards many portions of the estates previously belonging to the lesser religious houses of Essex, with licenses to alienate them, of which he duly availed himself. Thus St. Botolph’s Priory, at Colchester, with all its revenues, the Priory of the Crutched Friars, in the same town, and Tiltey Abbey, near Thaxted, were added to the list of his monastic spoils, after the gifts from the king, in 1538, on Sir Thomas’s application, of the rich Abbey of Walden, with all the estates, manors, and advowsons thereunto attached. He was also created Lord Audley of Walden, and installed a Knight of the Garter. Yet,” says the late Lord Braybrooke, “instead of Audley being contented with these repeated marks of the royal favour, we are compelled to admit that every grant which he obtained encouraged him to importune the king for further recompense; and his letters, preserved in the Cottonian Library, prove that, in making these applications, he was mean enough to plead poverty as an excuse, and even to assert that his character had suffered in consequence of the public services which he had been obliged to perform.”