KENTWELLHALL. 59 " Sir William Cordell, Knight,* knight of the shire for the county of Suffolk, Speaker of the House of Commons 4 & 5 Philip and Mary, 1557, and Master of the Rolls to the said Queen and Queen Elizabeth." A highly animated portrait of the knight, with red hair and peaked beard ; a ruff richly fringed, shirt sleeve, and slashed jacket. In his hand is a pedigree of the Cordell family. " Mary, wife of the said Sir William, daughter and sole heir of Richard Clopton, Esq., third son of Sir William Clopton by Margaret his wife, third daughter and one of the heirs ' of Richard Bozem, Knight." A three-quarter portrait of a handsome lady, with dark hair, ruff, and laced -cap. In her band is a richly-bound book. SAMUELTYMMS. KENTWELL HALL, MELFORD. THE manor of Kentwell is mentioned in Domesday Book by the name of Kantawella, and its earliest known possessor was Trodo, a brother of the then abbot of Bury, in 1086. The de Kentwells, probably his ,descendants, were lords here till the beginning of the 13th century ; but in 1251 it waS in the king's bands, and was granted by King Henry the Third to Lord William de Valence, whose niece and coheir married David Strabolgie, Earl of Athol, and Steward of Scotland ; and he, it appears from the Inquisitiones post mortem, 1 Edw. III. (1326) held. the manor for his life of the king in capite of the castle of Norwich, by paying a ward of the said castle 66s. at Easter and St. Nicholas. In the year 1333 it was granted by the earl to Sir Robert Gowert and his heirs. In 1338 the king confirmed to Sir Robert Gower in fee the manor of Kentwell, in the county * There is a curious portrait of the I' Charter in Hari. MSS. Brit. Mus. Master of the Rolls by Cornelius de vol.1.184-299,19. Zeeni,at St. John's dollege,Oxford. 60 KENTWELL HALL, of Suffolk, fallen into his hands by David- de Strabology, Earl of Athol, and Steward of Scotland.* His only sur- viving daughter Joan married William Neve, of Wyting, and he and bis wife had a pardon granted in 1366 for having entered on the Kentwell Hall property on the death of her sister, without process in the king's court, &c., and they were restored after the seizure by the king on payment of 100s. After the death of Neve, his wife married Thomas Syward, of London, pewterer, and in 1368 he and his wife granted the manor of Kentwell Hall to John Gower, the poet ; by whom it was soon conveyed in 1373 to Sir John Cobham and others. How the manor came into the hands of the Cloptons is not quite clear. Sir Simonds D'Ewes says that Katharine, daughter and heiress of William de Mylde, esq., married Sir Thomas de Clopton, kt., younger brother of Sir William de Clopton, of Wickhambrook ; and on the death of her father, who outlived her, Kentwell Hall descended to her son by this marriage. The family of Clopton is believed to have taken its name from the parish of Glopton in the hundred of Samford, and to have given it to a manor in Wickhambrook before the Conquest. Clopton, now a hamlet of Wickhambrook, occurs in Domesday Book, and its owners were feudatories of the Honor of Clare ; William de Clopton holding the 12th part of a fee of the Earl Marshal. Thurstan de Clop- ton was a witness in 1154 to a grant of lands in Hawkedon to the abbot of St. Edmund's ; and his son Robert de Clopton gave to St. Edmund's abbey four acres of land " in villa de Clopton " that Thurstan de Clopton The Cloptons acquired large possessions in this and the neighbouring counties of Essex and Cambridge, and allied themselves by marriage with many noble and knightly families. " The unworthiest match that ever any Clopton had" (according to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, whose pedigree of the family is among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum), was the alliance of Sir Wm. Clopton, of Kent- well, with Johan, daughter of Sir William Marrow, kt., an alderman of the city of London in the time of Henry the Seventh,. and " the noblest match " was that of " John * Cal.Pat. Rolls,13 Edw. III. t Hist. Thingoe,p. 419. MELFORD. 61 Clopton,son and heir of the said Sir William Clopton, withElizabeth,daughter of John Roydon,esq.,and Mar- garethis wife,daughter of Thomas Knyvet,esq.,of Great Stanway,Essex, and the coheirof many great and antient families.' Sir Thomas Clopton,who marriedKatharine de Mylde, the heiressof KentwellHall, died beforehis lady,-whothen took to her secondhusbandSirWm. de Tendring,kt., and had issueby him one daughterAlice,whomarriedSirJohn Howard,kt., grandfatherof the first Duke of Norfolk of that family ; " so as from this very match (says D'Ewes) the Cloptonsare alliedto all the honorablebranchesof the Howards,and by them to many other noble houses and familiesof England." The Kentwellpropertypassedto her son William Clop- ton, and it continuedto be the residenceof his descendants till the time of Charlesthe Second. Williamde Cloptonaddedto the familyestates most of the largepossessionsofthe familyin the countiesofSuffolk, Essex, and Cambridgeshire,by purchase from his cousin Sir Wm. Clopton,of Wickhambrook,whosedaughterJoan wasthe wifeof Sir ThomasErpingham' who,as a penance for his sin in favoringthe heresiesof Wickliffe,built the beautifulgate that goesby his nameat Norwich cathedral. William Cloptonwas twice married; first to Margery, daughter of Sir Roger Drury, and secondly to Margery, daughterand heiressof Elias Franceys,whodied in 1423. From the lattermarriageweredescendedthe threefamilies of Cloptonsettledat KentwellHall, at Castelinsin Groton, and at Lyston in Essex. John Clopton,esq.,the son of Williamand the second Margery,was a zealous Lancastrian,and was sent to the TowerwithJohn Earl of Oxford,Aubreyde Vere,his son, John Montgomery,William Tyrell, esq.,and Sir Thomas Tuddenham, for correspondingwith Margaret of Anjou. These were all beheadedon Tower-hill,Feb. 22, 1461, but Cloptonescaped,and lived to a great age. From the Paston lettersit wouldappearthat in 1454 he had entered into a contract* to marry Elizabeth,only daughter of Sir * Penn's Paston Letters, wherethe marriagearticlesmaybe seen. 62 KENTWELL HALL, William Paston, but though the marriage articles were drawn up, the match was broken off in consequence pro- bably of " his land " not standing so " clear " as to " con- tent " the young lady's careful mother. He ultimately married Alice, sister of Sir Robert Darcy of Maldon, Essex, and having served the office of High Sheriff of Suffolk and Norfolk 30th Henry VI., died 13th Henry VII. His eldest son Sir William Clopton, who sold the Hawsted estate to the Drurys, used for his private seal the punning device of a plant—supposed by Sir John Cullum to be a caltrop—issuing out of a ton. His second son was Sir Edmund Clopton, called in the Rookwood pedigree " Rodiorum equespercelebris." From the marriage of his daughter Anne with Thomas Rokewode, esq., of Stanningfield, was descended the Ambrose Rokewode, who was executed in 1605 for being implicated in the Gunpowder Plot, and the second Ambrose, also executed for being concerned in the Barclay con- spiracy against William the Third in 1696. The present Sir Thomas Rokewode Gage, Bart., of Hengrave, is the lineal representative of this marriage. William Clopton, esq., son of Sir William and the alderman's daughter, married Elizabeth, daughter and co- heiress of Thomas Say, esq., of Lyston Hall, in Essex, and became the founder of the Lyston house of Cloptons. At the coronation of Queen Mary, in 1553, William Clopton, in right of the manor of Lyston, claimed " to make wafers for the quene, and to serve the same wafers to the queen's table, and to have for his fee all the instruments as well of silver as other metall ordeyned for makinge of the same wafers, and also to bane all the napkins and other profites and fees thereunto appertaining."* Thomas Clopton, esq., of Kentwell, who died in 1597, was probably the builder of the present mansion. He married Mary, daughter of Sir Wm. Waldegrave, of Small- bridge, near Bures, ancestor of the present Lords Walde- grave and Radstock. Their son was the last of the name that owned Kentwell Hall. He was educated at Jesus-college, Cambridge, and * Jerdan's Rutland Papers,p. 120. MELFORD. 63 while there engaged in some love passages, with one of Dr. Duport's daughters, that excited the fears of his family. A letter from Mr. Wm. Boswell to Sir William Waldegrave (printed in the D'Ewes Correspondence, ii., 162) shews the old knight's " tender and fatherly care of his [orphan] grandchild's well-doing "; the distress which the " badd and most false report " had caused to his tutor; and the young man's innocent compliance with a merry custom of the period, which had given rise to the rumour. The tutor thus writes : " Necessitie of publique business causeth with sorrow my absence from Kentwell ; wheruppon I am bould to intreate your worshipfull to be satisfied by my letters present, which I write as dippinge my penne in my hearte, deliveringe (I protest uppon my salvation) unto you y. naked truthe of my inwarde thoughts and knowledge concerninge that matter and reporte of your grandchilde Mr. W. Clopton's marriage and contract unto one of Doctor Duport's daughters. " That I should privily consent unto any such underhand dishonest dealinge, I utterlie denie, and in deniall thereof for ever defye it ; withall I protest unto your worshipfull, that neither that or any such marriage or love matter was ever moved unto mee, or once mencioned in my presence, or any tyme bred in my thoughts.