10 s. XIL JULY n, im] .NOTES AND QUERIES.
45
the sepulchral chest) were seized. In
January, 1836, a public auction took place,
and the chest containing the bones was
actually presented to the auctioneer, " for
him to put them up for sale." The humani-
tarian feelings of the auctioneer, however,
revolted, and he refused to recognize the
remains as saleable.
The facts were duly reported in Court to the Lord Chancellor, who declined to regard the remains as part of the estate, or to make any order relating thereto. In 1839 the receivership ended ; and in March, 1844, the person who had acted as official receiver transferred the remains to a Mr. Tilley, 13, Bedford Square, London, in whose custody they were in 1846, when the pamphlet before me was written.
What became of the remains subsequently is not clear. I have recently heard that Dr. Stanton Coit possesses part of the skull, but I have not verified the report. Wher- ever they be, it is to be hoped that they rest in peace. Of the identity of the sepulchral fragment there can, on the other hand, be no reasonable doubt. JAMES M. Dow.
16A, Abercromby Square, Liverpool.
THE YELVERTONS OF EASTON MAUDIT.
In the recent memoir of Thomas Percy,
Bishop of Dromore, entitled * Percy, Prelate
and Poet,' by Miss Alice Gaussen, one is
rather surprised to find so little mention
made of the village of Easton Maudit,
Northamptonshire, where he spent some
of the best years of his life. It was at that
time the residence of a family of distinc-
tion in legal annals the Yelvertons, then
Earls of Sussex. The theory has often been
put forward that climate, food, and soil
have much to do in influencing the life of
any one, and this view is adopted by
Buckle in his ' History of Civilization.'
The Yelvertons were originally a Norfolk family, and possessed large estates in that county in the reign of James I. Sir Chris- topher Yelverton acquired by purchase the estate of Easton Maudit, in Northamp- tonshire, and was Speaker of the House of Commons as well as judge. He died at Easton Maudit in 1607. His son and successor Henry was Solicitor-General in 1613, Attorney-General in 1617, and died in 1629. His son, Sir Christopher, the first baronet, died in 1654, and Sir Henry, the second baronet, in 1676. When resident at Easton Maudit, Thomas Morton, Bishop of Durham, filled the comparatively humble office of tutor in the Yelverton family, and, dying there in 1659, found a grave in the
parish church ; a large slab which once
covered his remains is still there. Sir
Henry, the third baronet, was advanced
the dignity of Viscount Longueville in
1690, and died in 1714. Oldys records some
amusing anecdotes of Barbara, Lady Longue-
ville, his wife, who died in 1763, aged nearly
LOO. She remembered Dryden and Edmund
Waller, and had a strong hereditary attach-
ment to the house of Stuart. The second
Viscount was advanced in 1717 to the
Earldom of Sussex, and died in 1730.
Two of his sons succeeded him, the last,
Henry Yelverton, dying in 1799.
The members of this family are all buried n a chapel on the north side of the altar in the church, but the hall in which they resided has been razed to the ground, and of it not a vestige remains. The north aisle is literally filled with monuments of family, and their heraldic bearings. A chief gules, three lions passant, are con- spicuous. The barony of Grey de Ruthyn vested in them has descended until late years. The vicarage, the home of Percy
- or many years, in which the ' Reliques of
Ancient English Poetry ' was compiled, is on the opposite side of the road, and is now an unpretending structure. Simple indeed it must have been in those times, and we may dismiss as mythical the account of Percy having gathered at his hospitable board the literary celebrities of his day, though it is certain that he entertained as his guest Dr. Johnson. Robert Nares, Percy's successor at Easton Maudit, speaks of the parsonage in 1784 as merely a com- fortable cottage of stone containing two parlours. Goldsmith has left us a picture, perhaps not much overdrawn, of a rustic parsonage when George III. was king, and its simple-minded occupants. The benefice of Easton Maudit was in the gift of Christ Church temp. George II. and III., and continued so until purchased by the Mar- quess of Northampton, to whom the Yelver- ton estate now belongs.
My knowledge of the place and its cele- brated vicar Thomas Percy arises from my having once held a curacy in the neighbour- hood, and having made many expeditions in former years to the church and village. Within a short distance towers the stately mansion of the Marquess of Northampton, Castle Ashby, built by Inigo Jones. A little biographical memoir of Bishop Percy from my pen was prefixed to the MS. folio of ballads edited by Messrs. Furnivall and Hales, and in it much information concerning the Yelver- tons was given- JOHN PICKFOBD, M.A.
