Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/261

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12 S. III. MARCH 31, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


255


BBASSEY FAMILY (12 S. ii. 269, 333; iii. .54). Sir George Caswall (b. 1670) married twice : 1, Mary, daughter of John Brassey ; -2, Mary, widow of Thomas Brassey. " I should be glad of any further information regarding both John and Thomas Brassey.

Sir George's son John Caswall (b. 1701, d. 1742), by his marriage with Frances Towne, had three sons (George, b. 1723 ; John Caswall, b. 1733, d. 1808 ; and John) .and two daughters (Frances, b. 1722, d. 1768; and Mary).

The second son married Elizabeth Clarke, daughter of John Pryor of Burford, Oxon, and had six children : 1 , John (d. infant) ;

2, Frances Elizabeth (d. unmarried) ;

3, Robert Clarke Caswall (who left issue) ;

4, Ellen (of whom later) ; 5, Sarah (married -John Lenthall of Burford Priory, Oxon) ;

6, Anna Maria (of whom later).

Frances married William Halhed of Noke, Herefordshire, to whom she bore three eons: 1, Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (see

  • D.N.B.'*); 2, Robert William Halhed

4 who married the above Ellen) ; 3, John Halhed of Yately House, Hants (now called Yately Hall). John married the Above Anna Maria, and from this union come the Halheds of Chemainus, British Columbia, and the Stevenses of Eynsham, Oxon.

Nathaniel Brassey Halhed was a noted "Oriental scholar, and a friend of Sheridan and Warren Hastings.

In his ' Life of Sheridan,' vol. i. p. 96? W. Fraser Rae says :

" The letters from Halhed to Sheridan are -extant, and I shall give copious extracts from ^them ; those from Sheridan to Halhed were pro- bably consigned to the flames by a female sur- vivor, who must have regarded manuscripts as waste paper, and who may not even have suffered the remorse which would have tormented her of she had set the chimney on fire whilst engaged an the wanton and lurid work of destruction."

In justice to my sex I should like to state that there is no foundation for the suggestion that a female relative burnt the papers, or that the Sheridan letters were amongst them.

Mrs. A., a great-niece of Nathaniel Brassey, told my aunt, also a great-niece of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, that her (Mrs. A.'s) father had the care of a box full of old Halhed papers. These are referred to as being contained in two portmanteaux in the foot- note on p. 96 above mentioned.

Mrs. A. tried in -'ain to dissuade her father from undertaking this " wanton and lurid


  • Nathaniel married Louisa Kibaut, but the

D.N.B.' calls her Helena.


work of destruction," but, in spite of her protestations, " he made a bonfire of the papers in the yard." Mrs. A.'s mother was a Halhed, and had inherited the papers.

I should be glad of information about any other family of Halhed (pronounced Hailed). JOANE M. B. STEVENS.

The White House, Eynsham, Oxon.

JAMES I. AND SIR HENRY MILD MAY'S MARRIAGE (12 S. iii. 107, 195). The note con- tributed by O. O. O. on the part taken by James I. in the negotiations for the mar- riage between Sir Henry Mildmay, Knt., and Anne, daughter of Alderman William Halliday, will be of considerable interest to Hampshire readers of ' N. & Q.'

In Burke's ' History of the Commoners ' (vol. ii. p. 129), under " Halliday of Wilt- shire and Somersetshire," it is said that

"William Halliday, chosen Sheriff of London in 1617, by his marriage with Susanna, sister of Sir Henry Bowe, left at his decease on the 14th of March, 1623, two daughters, viz., Anne, to whom her father bequeathed 14.00W., married Sir Henry Mildmay of VVanstead, Essex, Keeper of the Jewel

Office "

According to O. O. O. the " 14,000?. was expended in buying the manors of Twyford and Marwell, near Winchester."

In Woodward's ' History of Hampshire,' under " Twyford," the writer says that " Shawford House " is

" a mansion erected in the time of Charles II. from materials of the ancient Manor House, which occu- pied the site of the present Twyford Farm Sir

Henry Mildmay married," &c.

Moody in his ' Sketches of Hampshire ' (1846) adds:

" Sir Henry Mildmay was a favourite of Charles I., but being a member of the Long Parliament took part against his former patron, and, upon the over- throw of the monarchy, was appointed one of the Judges at the trial of his Sovereign ; and although he sat but for a single day, and was not among those who signed the death warrant, yet at the Restoration, although his life was spared, he was brought to the bar of the House of Commons, and condemned to forfeit his fine estate at Wanstead, and his place at the Jewel Office, and to be degraded from all his titles of honour and gentility, and to be drawn from the Tower of London to Tyburn, and back again, and finally banished the kingdom. He died in exile. The property of Shawford House, as settled on his wife, was exempt from forfeiture, and descended to his son, who built the present Shawford House."

I note that Anne Halliday, who married Sir Henry Mildmay on April 6, 1619, died on March 12, 1656/7, so that she was not surviving at the Restoration, when Sir Henry was adjudged, with others, to be drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn yearly on