GEORGE STEINMAN STEINMAN, Esq. F.S.A. exhibited an Inventory of Chevening and Hurstmonceux, and two General Pardons granted January 15th, 1559, to John Lennard, and December 23rd, 1603, to Sampson Lennard respectively. This exhibition was accompanied by the following letter to the Earl Stanhope, President:

"MY DEAR LORD,

Knockholt House, 13th November, 1861.

"The inventories of the household effects and cattle at Chevening Place, and at Hurstmonceux Castle, valued on occasion of the death of Henry Lennard Lord Dacre, which I lately exhibited to you at your country seat, I now place upon the table of the Society of Antiquaries for the purpose more particularly of securing through its printed minutes a record of the existence of a MS. of some value to the archeologist; and with it I send two other documents also derived from the very extensive and but partially explored collection of muniments in the possession of Sir Thomas Barrett-Lennard at Belhus, a collection already remarkable for producing the well-known Northumberland household book.

"The two documents referred to, as will be seen, are general pardons under the great seal, the one granted 15th January, 1 Elizabeth, 1559, to John Lennard, Esq., of Chevening, grandfather to Henry Lord Dacre, and the other 23rd December, 1 James I., 1603 to Sampson Lennard, Esq., likewise of Chevening, father of the said Lord, the magnificent monuments of whom unite with that of Lady Frederica-Louisa Stanhope in attracting the sojourner in this part of Kent to the old church of your lordship's parish.

"The purport of these pardons was, as an ancient indorsement on one of them leads us to understand, to secure the father and son from the penalties which they might in their various dealings in land have subjected themselves to, by inadvertently purchasing and selling property held of the Crown in capite without the royal licence.

"There is another, and perhaps more interesting document than these three at Belhus, which Mr. Henry Barrett-Lennard, the compiler of the voluminous and profusely illustrated MS. history of the Lennard and Barrett families, a specimen of whose ability for such an undertaking you have seen and approved of, has described in the following words:

:

"It is a folio book with a large brass clasp, bound in parchment, consisting of several hundred pages of neatly written manuscript. It is an account of the household expenses and transactions at Hurstmonceux Castle, the work and handwriting of James Field, the house steward, and embraces the period from

August 19th, 1643, to December 22nd, 1649. The accounts are balanced weekly, each week occupying two pages, standing opposite to one another, debtor and creditor fashion, and is, in fact, a cash as well as household account. Each page contains several columns. The left-hand page represents the provisions forming the stock on hand carried over from the previous week. These items consist of every imaginable article requisite for culinary purposes, frequently upwards of thirty in number, also a statement of the cash in hand, as well as the various receipts from the land tenants and manorial dues (sometimes from the agent, but more frequently from the principal), and the presents which had been received from neighbours for the use of the house and stables. At the foot of the page is a memorandum of any remarkable circumstance which happened at the castle in the course

of the same week.

"On the other page will be found all the fresh provisions which had been purchased, and the remaining stock on hand, showing what had been expended, and the value of what remained to be carried to the ensuing week, the wages of servants and labourers on the premises, all the petty cash expenditure, gifts of charity, the expenses of a yacht which the lord kept, with its attendant sailors, and other items too numerous to mention. At the conclusion is carried out the cash balance claimed by or owing to the steward. The expenses and receipts are both classified under the denominations of ordinary and extraordinary. At the foot of this page are enumerated the names of the visitors residing at the castle during the week, together with the number of servants who respectively attended them. Both pages are invariably signed by the master of the house, Francis Dacre.'

"From among the names of the visitors abstracted by Mr. Barrett-Lennard these may be selected as most prominent:-the Earls of Westmorland, Nottingham, and Stamford, three active Parliamentarians, like the lord of the castle; the Viscounts Montagu and Baltinglass; the Ladies Grandison, Pelham, Parker, Waller, Gee, and Wildgoose; Sirs Stephen Lennard, Edmund Filmer, William Campion, Thomas Dyke, Selwyn Parker, Thomas Parker, Thomas Pelham, Isaac Sidley, Nicholas Servien, George Stroud, and William Waller. Of the remarkable circumstances," the births and baptisms of Philadelphia and Elizabeth, daughters of Francis Lord Dacre, seem to me of sufficient importance to deserve mention here. The first of these ladies married Sir Thomas Parker of Ratton, co. Sussex, knight, the second became the wife of William Brabazon third Earl of

*The baptisms of these ladies are thus recorded in the church register of Hurst

monceux :

"1643, Januarie 29, Christned Philadelphia, daughter of Francis Lo. Dacre. 1644, Marche 20, Chrisned Elizabeth, dathter of Francis Lorde Dacre."

Meath, and her portrait, I may add, by Mignard has been beautifully engraved in mezzotinto by Van Somer.

Besides this household book, there is at Belhus the petty cash book of Elizabeth, widow of Lord Francis, and by creation Countess of Sheppey, commenced and carried on for some years by the same James Field who accompanied his lady to London when she removed there on her second marriage with LieutenantGeneral David Walker, Groom of the Bedchamber to Charles II. "The Belhus charters are very numerous, and so also the autographs. The letters extend from the reign of Elizabeth, and have already supplied four large volumes to the binder. In these are found many addressed by Anne Barrett-Lennard residing in London, to her brother Dacre Barrett-Lennard residing in Dublin, which are especially worthy of publication. The extract here given, from one of the letters, exhibits both her style and the substance of her correspondence.

My Lord Sussex has received a message by Sir Thomas Bond and Colonel Villars from his lady to receive her again; and 'tis believed, if he should refuse (which he has not yet, but defers his answer till she has writ to him herself), the duchess will prevail with the King to stop his pension of 20007. a-year, and by that means force him to it. I hope the hearing she is much handsomer than ever will revive my lord's old love, and, without trying rough means, they may come together and live as affectionately as Sir John Williams and his lady, who are now as fond a couple as your fair Mistress and Mr. Finch, who have been married three weeks. I can only tell you, for the alleviation of the grief this news will give you, that her younger sister is as lovely as she, and I freely offer you my assistance in an address to her, &c.

"This letter is dated June the 4th' only; but the year is furnished by there being mentioned in it as news the untimely death of Francis fifth Duke of Somerset at Lerice in Italy, on April 20th, 1678, as well as the marriage of Mr. Finch, which is entered in the register of the church of St. Giles in the Fields, on May 18th, 1678, as follows: Heneage Finch of the Inner Temple, Esqre., son to the Right Honble. Heneage Finch, Lord High Chancellor of England, and Elizabeth Banks, daughter of Sir John Banks of Aylesford in Kent.' The Sir John Williams alluded to was of Minster, Isle of Thanet, Baronet, and his wife Susanna daughter of Sir Thomas Skipwith of Metheringham, co. Lincoln, Baronet. She was, after her marriage, mistress for a short time to the Duke of York. Her portraits by Lely and Wissing, both full lengths, have been engraved in mezzotinto. The "younger sister," Mary Banks, was living unmarried in 1692. (Le Neve, Pedigrees of Baronets, Coll. Arm.)

"The remarkable epistle* which the Duchess of Cleveland ad

* This letter Horace Walpole copied from "the original in Lord Berkshire's hands," intending it as a curious article for a number of his "Miscellaneous Antiquities."-Walpoliana, cxci.

dressed to Charles II. from Paris on "Tuesday 28 [May], '78," copied into the Harleian MS. 7006, ff. 171-176, and printed in the second edition of Mrs. Jameson's "Memoirs of the Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second," i. pp. 93-100, tells us in what manner the countess carried herself when living apart from her lord in Paris at this time; whilst that of Mistress Anne supports the charge which her immaculate grace, in an irritable moment, was induced to bring against her daughter-her daughter as much in conduct as in blood. This young lady is further most unfavourably alluded to in "Poems on State Occasions," i. pp. 103, 133, 157, 158; ii. p. 131.

"In a letter from Lady Catherine Taylor, née Chichester, to her niece Jane Barrett-Lennard, dated 27th August, 1717, which fell upon Tuesday, we have mention of the first Earl Stanhope. Lady Anne Barrett-Lennard, subsequently Baroness Dacre, says the writer told Lady Donegal that Chevening was sold to Lord Stanhope last Friday, to her great satisfaction, and on Saturday my lord went to take possession of it; that is the business which has kept her in town.'

"I have the honour to remain, my dear Lord,
Very faithfully yours,

"G. STEINMAN STEINMAN." The Right Honourable the Earl Stanhope, P.S.A.

&c. &c. &c.

The first part of the Inventory noticed by Mr. Steinman is on parchment strips, about six inches wide, made up as usual into a long roll. It is incomplete, the lowest membrane or membranes being lost. The heading "In the Maids' Chamber" ends the roll at present. The first part is headed, "The inventory of all and singuler the goods, cattells, chattells, plate, and implements of houshold of the Right Honorable Henry Lord Dacre deceased, valued and prised the eight day of August, anno domini one thousand six hundred and sixteen, by John Olliver, John Cackot, Christopher Knight, gentlemen, and John Hartropp, yeoman, as followeth :

"Goods remayning and being in the house at Chiveninge in the county of Kent."

First come the horses, of which the stock seems to have been small; which is accounted for by the statement immediately subjoined, that all the other geldings and naggs were seised for heriots.

Then follows a list of-bedstids, canapyes, cushons, carpettes (meaning tablecloths), chairs, a newe seate, stooles, bedds, boulsters, pillows, flock beds, hangings, ruggs, coverlids, blankets, tables, cupbords, joyned stools, chests, presses, linen sheets, pillowbeers, towells, bord cloths, napkins, cupbord cloths, dresser cloths,

trencher cloths, diaper bord cloths, damaske bord cloths, cupbord cloths, towells, napkins, the silver plate, pewter vessels, brazen candlesticks, brasse (pots, &c.), iron stuffes, wooden wair, truncks, close stools, a clock, hay, flax, yarn, &c.

A few extracts from this list may prove interesting. One of the handsomest bedsteads is described as

"Item, one wainscot bedstedle, the testerne of stripte sattin of Bridges (Bruges), the vallence of the same beeinge fringed with silke fringe, havinge fine watchet saie curtens with matt and cord to the same, being vallued and prised at xls. Several "slope bedstedles," "truncke bedstidles," and eleven "livery bedstidles," are mentioned.

"Item, one old longe cushion of cloth of gold botkin with fower redd silke tassels to the same, vallued and prised at Xs. A late example of the word baudekin or bawdekin which is frequently found in earlier inventories.

"Item, two dornix curtens, valued at iijs. iiijd. Dornix (Tournay) frequently occurs in this inventory as the name of a stuff.

The "carpetts" are of "Turkey worke" for "longe tables," cupbord carpets," carpets of "greene cloth," greene cloth," "needle work," and "dornix.'

Besides "eleaven peeces of hangings of ymagery, vallued and prised at xlvi." appear "eighteen peeces of course varder (verdure) hangings, vallued and prised at iij1i. vjs. viijd.

There were also five "varder coverlets," valued at xs.

The blankets consisted of " Spanishe," "homemade," and "russet" blankets.

"Item, Lyvery cupbords tenn, vallued at

"Item, two chests with vyolls in them, vallued and prised

ijli. xiijs iiijd.

"Item, one bason and ewer, two boyled meate dishes with my Ladies armes, two sallet dishes with my Ladies armes, two candlesticks, three potts with couers, two posnets, one hauinge a couer, two caudle pots with couers, one spowte pot with a couer, fower porringers, one boate with two shells, and one suger box, one chafing dishe, one perfuming panne, one egg salte, one trencher salte, one pepper box, one ladle, one skywer, one tostinge forke, one grater, one paire of snuffers, five spoones with plaine handles, one little siluer bowle, two siluer plates with my Ladies armes, one guilt cupp with a couer and a case for the same, one siluer pestle and morter, all vallued and prised at lxvijli. viijs.