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Original Letters Illustrative of English History: To 1799.
Original Letters Illustrative of English History To 1799 Author:Henry Ellis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER CCCCVI. Lord Burghley to the Earl of Sussex, Lord Chamberlain, respecting the Earl's Application to the Queen for a grant of the Mansion of New Hall, i... more »n Essex. [ms, Cotton. Tit. B. ii. 357. Orig'.] % New Hall, in the parish of Boreham, near Chelmsford, was anciently part of the possessions of Waltham Abbey ; but about the 24th of Edward III. was exchanged with Sir John de Shardelowe for the manors of Copped Hall and Shingled Hall, in Epping. From the Shardelowes it passed through two or three other families, and at last came into that of Boteler Earl of Ormond, and under a clause in the will of Thomas the last Earl of Ormond was purchased of Richard Bishop of London in 1517, by King Henry VIII. Camdeu, however, says that Henry VIII. procured it of Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Ormond and Wiltshire, whose mother was Margaret, eldest daughter of Thomas the last Earl of Ormond. Henry the Eighth was so pleased with the locality, that he named it Beaulieu; but this appellation never prevailed among the common people, who still called it New Hall. He also erected it into an Honor, adorned and improved it, and made it fit for a royal residence. He kept the feast of St. George at it in 1524; and the Princess Mary resided at it for several years. New Hall continued in the Crown, as Morant says, till Queen Elizabeth, 28th May, 1573, granted it to Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex; but the tenor of the present Letter shows that the completion of the grant could not have been made so early. Robert Earl of Sussex sold this estate some time before his decease, which happened Sept. 22, 1629, to Villiers Duke of Buckingham, whose son having forfeited it during the civil wars, it was bought, in 1651, by Cromwell: two years after which Cromwell exchanged it for Hampton Court. The seco...« less