Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/301

THE ANCESTOR 241 queen for her slippers, saying, ' Bring me these in London and I will give you the title deeds.' The hat and slippers have since always gone with the estate. Here again we have only to turn to Cussans' Hertfordshire to learn that the estate was not ' granted ' by the Crown tiU 35 Hen. VIII. (1543-4) and had not even come into the hands of the Crown till 1540.^ As Anne Boleyn was put to death in May, 1536, the inconvenience of parting with her shoes must have been gready tempered by the fact that she had already parted with her head several years before. And now for Nicholas Bristowe, the ' favourite courtier.' The first thing we learn from Cussans is that ' this manor was granted to John Brockett, John AUwey and Nicholas Bristow, Esquires,' which at once puts on the matter a very different complexion. But even Cussans does not supply the final and crushing blow. On turning to the real tide-deed, the patent of July 25, 1543,^ we discover at last the truth, namely that the manor was acquired in the ordinary way, hy purchase^ by John Brockett, Esq., John Alwey and Nicholas Bristow, gent. {generosum)^ the first of whom, we may add, was of the Hertfordshire family which gave name to the neighbouring seat of Brocket HaU in Hatfield, while the last was clerk of the jewel-house. The patent is a long and instructive one, reciting that Ayot St. Lawrence had fallen to the Crown by the attainder of Gertrude Marchioness of Exeter,^ and that the advowson and an annual fair {nundine) on the eve and feast of St. Lawrence were comprised in the sale. The price given was twenty years' purchase — not a bad one considering the unsetded times and the fact that a subse- quent quit-claim seems to have been necessary to perfect the title. With this manor the three purchasers bought also the manor of Holmes or Canons in Shenley, which had come to the Crown on the surrender of St. Bartholomew's Priory, Smithfield (25 Oct., 1540) at the Dissolution, and which Brockett and Bristow subsequendy conveyed to Alwey. A third estate comprised in the sale was Robynstowe in Sand- ridge, which could doubtless be identified, though Cussans does ^ Hundred of Broadwater, pp. 232-3. 2 Enrolled on Patent Roll 3 5 Hen. VIIL p. 9, m. 20. 3 Cussans dates this event 1540, but its true date appears to be 1539.