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A HISTORY OF RUTLAND In May 1484 Richard III rewarded Henry Grey, Lord of Codnor, with a grant of Oakham, forfeited by the unfortunate Buckingham, and in September of the same year he visited the place.^-* Richard's fall involved the attainder of William la Zouch, Lord Harringworth, whose lands at Clipsham afterwards passed to the Haringtons.^^' Christopher Browne of Tolethorpe, however, took the winning side, and his son Francis, it is said, was honoured by Henry VIII with the privilege of remaining covered in the king's presence, with exemption from service on juries or as sheriff.^'" The Warwick inheritance in the county having passed to the Duke of Clarence and been forfeited by his attainder, was restored to the widowed Countess of Warwick only that she might reconvey it to the king.'^^ Henry VII kept these manors in his own hands, and in 1521 the execution of the last of the Staffords brought Oakham, too, into the hands of Henry VIII.'" This illustrates in its small way the process by which, under the Tudors, not only the political power, but the territorial interest of the great houses passed or reverted to the Crown. Of the new men who rose by energetic service one of the most conspicuous was Thomas Manners. His father, a distinguished soldier, had succeeded to the ancient barony of Ros in his mother's right, and Thomas was in 1525 raised to the peerage as Earl of Rutland.* He had, however, little connexion with the county. Oakham was among the numerous estates granted to Thomas Cromwell, and notwithstanding his execution in 1540, it remained in the possession of his family till the end of the century.*'* Another man who profited by the plunder of the monasteries was Richard Cecil, who was sheriff of Rutland in 1539.^ His son, the great Lord Burghley, inherited his estates in Rutland and Northamptonshire, and Burghley House near Stamford, just outside the county, became from that time one of the chief political influences in the neighbourhood. A family of great local importance which now first settled in Rutland was that of the Noels. Sir Andrew Noel, a Leicestershire man, was in 1533 appointed feodary of all the king's land in Rutland ; * he served three times as sheriff of the county and in 1553 as member of Parliament, and, dying in 1562, was succeeded by his son. Sir Andrew Noel of Brooke, who throughout Elizabeth's reign was one of the leading public men of the county.*" The Digbys had earlier come into close connexion with Rutland by holding the stewardship of certain royal manors, as well as the estate of Stoke Dry.*'* Throughout the 1 6th century little can be gathered of the history of Rutland save the records of its contributions to the national defence in men '-' Cal. Pat. 1476-85, pp. 433, 474. '-' Wright, Hist. Rut. 38. "° Fuller, Worthies (ed. 1811), ii, 251. "' Cat. And. D. A. 11056. "^ L. and P. Hen. Fill, iii (i), 510. This account of the lands of the Duke of Buckingham describes Oakham as ' the lands of the inheritance of Lord Ferrers,' which seems a curious traditional survival of a tenure that came to an end more than 300 years before this date. The castle is described as ruinous, except the hall, which is ' most convenient to be upholden and kept with covering, because of the courts [that] be kept in the same,' and the well-known horse-shoe custom is mentioned ; there were many horse-shoes on the door of the hall, ' some marvelous great and some little,' with arms and cognizances, and at the upper end of the hall was a horse-shoe with the royal arms ' nigh in breadth a yard,' which had been set up by command of Edward IV. '=' L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv (3), 6083. '" Diet. Nat. Biog. "'P.R.O. List 0/ Sheriffs. "^ L. and P. Hen. nil, vi, 578 (38). "' Diet. Nat. Biog. He came into prominence in 1 601 through being elected to the House of Commons while he held the post of sheriff, and vacated the seat in favour of his son. "" L. and P. Hen. fill, li (2), 3256. 180