of this domestic tragedy, I applied to the Rev. J. E. Jackson, of Leigh Delamere, Wilts, who has made large collections relative to the family of Hungerford, and he obligingly favoured me with a reply, which, with the view of exciting further inquiry, was inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1851. The question is stated thus:—
It appears that Sir Richard C. Hoare, in his volume on the Hungerfords (Hungerfordiana, p. 20) has introduced the name of Alice lady Hungerford and her catastrophe as belonging to the wife of a Robert Hungerford of "Cadenham." This appropriation is most improbable, for these reasons:—
1. None of the Cadenham Hungerfords were of the rank of knight before a Sir George, who died in 1712.
2. In the Hungerford pedigree printed by Gough, the name of Alice, as a wife, does not appear at all in that branch of the family.
3. Supposing Sir R. C. Hoare to have had some authority which he has not produced for assigning the wife Alice and the story of the murder to the Robert Hungerford of Cadenham to whom he has assigned them, still his account is contradicted by dates. According to him that part of the Cadenham pedigree would stand thus:—
Now, Robert the grandfather died in 1558 (see his will abstracted in Collectanea Topog. et Geneal. vii. 71); Robert the father was buried at Bremhill in 1596; so that Robert the grandson, if murdered in 1523, must have been murdered 35 years before the death of his grandfather, and 73 years before that of his father. In the absence, therefore, of all reference to authority, Sir R. C. Hoare's statement must be regarded as a mere guess.
Mr. Jackson then proceeds to state that he has, in his own mind, long fixed this story upon other parties in the Hungerford family; but that, in his turn, he can produce no authority for it, except that of a little circumstantial evidence.
At the date of the execution, A.D. 1523, the existing knights of the Hungerford family were these—
1. Sir Walter Hungerford of Farleigh Castle, the then head of the family, who was created Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury in 1536.
2. Sir John Hungerford of Down Ampney.
3. Sir Anthony Hungerford, also of Down Ampney, his son.
Now neither of the two latter persons could be the knight alluded to; for Sir John died between 24 July and 27 August 1524 (see his will, Coll. Top. et. Gen. vii. 71), leaving his wife Margaret surviving him; and Sir Anthony lived to 1558, was buried at Great Bedwyn in that year, and his wives' names were Jane (Darell) and Dorothy (Danvers).
Sir Walter Hungerford of Farleigh Castle (afterwards Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury) is the only person in the entire Hungerford history upon whom the least probability of connexion with the story can be attached. To him there is this great objection in limine, that he was
