“The Groves,” now a manor, passed from Richard Sturgion and William Hall to William Essex. The Marquis of Winchester, Lord High Treasurer of England, purchased it of Thomas Essex, for one thousand pounds, in May, 1570; and the next marquis sold it to William Dodington for seven hundred pounds, who sold it to Christopher Baker for two thousand pounds, and it was afterwards purchased by Walter Cope for one thousand three hundred pounds, who attached the Groves to Abbots Kensington, which he had purchased. [30a]
But besides the manors, which the Abbots of Abingdon, and Simon the priest, and the Abbots and Monks of Westminster, had so nicely created for themselves, another, called “the manor of Notingbarons, alias Kensington,” then “Nutting Barns,” afterwards “Knotting-barns,” in Stockdale’s new map of the country round London, 1790, “Knolton Barn,” now Notting-barns, was carved out of the original manor of “Chenesitun.” [30b] And from an inquisition holden in the fifteenth year of Edward the fourth, we find that this manor remained in the hands of the De Vere’s with Earls Kensington, when John the twelfth Earl of Oxford, and his eldest son, Aubrey, were beheaded.
This inquisition states, that “John, late Earl of Oxon. was seized to his own use, the fourteenth day of April, anno regni 12 Edw. IV., of the manors of Kensington, and Knotting Barns, in the county of Middlesex, and that afterwards, by a certain Act, made in the Parliament, which began at Westminster, the sixth of October, in the twelfth year of the reign of King Edward the fourth, and by several prorogations continued to the twenty-third of January in the fourteenth year of the King, it was decreed that the Earl should forfeit to the Lord the King all the manors, lands, and tenements which he, or any one to his use had, and that the manors of Kensington were accordingly forfeited. The jurors say the said manor of Kensington is worth, in all issues, beyond outgoings, twenty-five marks per annum; and that from the fourteenth day of April, anno twelve, the issues and profits have been and are taken and received by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but by what right or title they know not.” [31]
By this inquisition we perceive that these manors were no longer held by the De Vere’s in virtue of their office of Lord Great Chamberlain; but that this Earl died, possessing the manors “seized to his own use.” And by an Act of the eleventh year of Henry the seventh, we find out what the jurors did not know, viz.—That the widow of the beheaded Earl, “by compulcion, cohercion, and emprisonement,” while her son was suffering for his support of the Lancastrian cause, was obliged to release to Richard “late in dede, and not of right, King Englond, while he was Duke of Gloucetir,” divers manors, lands, &c. &c. This being in all probability one of them.
When the said Richard had been dispatched in Bosworth field, and Henry the seventh had ascended the throne, these acts of the usurpers “inordynate covetyse, and ungodly disposicion” were quietly put aside by regular Acts of Parliament. And by the first and eleventh of Henry the seventh, not only this Earl of Oxford, but all his family, were reinstated in their estates, honors and dignities. And by the latter act the compulsory release which Richard had obtained from Elizabeth, Countess of Oxenford, was rendered null and void. But during all these troubles the Earl appears to have got into debt, to discharge which he appears to have sold “a messuage, four hundred acres of land, five acres of meadow, and one hundred and forty acres of wood in Kensington.”
In giving us this information, Mr. Faulkner also tells us that the estate was recovered by “The Great Marshall of England,” and sold to Sir Reginald Bray for four hundred marks. He also corrects a mistake into which Lysons has fallen; and shews that it could not have been the original portion of the manor, or the manor of Earl’s Court, that was sold, and suggests that it may have been “one of the smaller manors of West-town or Knotting Barns.” But Lysons and Faulkner throw no further light on this subject.
The truth being that it was this manor of Notting Barns which was purchased by Sir Reginald, or Sir Reynolde as it is frequently written; and it was this manor which the generous Lady, in whose service he was engaged for so many years, purchased of him to complete the establishment of her munificent foundations.
Widmore tells us that this lady, Margaret Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry the seventh, obtained a licence of Mortmain for one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and that she proceeded so far as to convey ninety pounds of it to the Convent of Westminster, for the purpose of an anniversary for herself, for three monks to celebrate mass in the Abbey Church, and for the payment of the salaries of the professors founded by her in the two universities, and her Cambridge preacher. And we learn by her will, and by the Valor Ecclesiasticus, that besides the establishment of these professorships, ten pounds per annum was to be given to the poor out of the estates she left for these purposes. We also learn by her will, and by an entry in that Ecclesiastical valuation, which was taken by order of her grandson, in the twenty-sixth year of his reign, that a considerable portion of the land given by the Lady Margaret, for the purposes named, then lay in Paddington.
In her will, we find, after the notice of the “licence given unto us by the King our Soverain Lord and most dere son,” and the mention of lands at Drayton, Woxbrig (Uxbridge), and other places, the following words, “and also diverse londs and tenements in Willesden, Padington, Westbourn and Kensyngton, in the county of Midd’x, which the said Abbot, Prior, and Convent, at their owne desire, and by their entire assents and consents, have accepted and taken of us” at such a “yerely valow,” and for such purposes, as therein specified.
We also find in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry the 8th, under the heading—