Notes on former owners of Mote House

( 195 ) NOTES ON EORMEB, OWNERS OE IGHTHAM MOTE HOUSE. BY THE REV. C. E. -WOODRUFF, M.A. MB. J. OLDBID SCOTT, in his interesting Paper on the architectural history of the "Mote House," remarks that the names of its owners have been known from about 1180 to the present day. I have been unable to trace the possessors of the property beyond Sir Thomas Cawne, 'who certainly held it during the greater part of the reign of Edward III. I t is true that Hasted (vol. v., 8vo, p. 41) states that "the Mote in the reign of Henry II. was in the possession of Ivo de Haut, and his descendant Sir Henry de Haut died possessed of it in the 44th year of Edward IIL, as appears by the Escheat Eoll of that year." Por this statement I can find no confirmation, either in the Computuses of the Exchequer, or in the Philipott MSS. in the British Museum, to which Hasted refers as his authorities. Moreover, Hasted appears to have been entirely ignorant of the fact that amongst the Surrenden MSS, was the will of Sir Thomas Cawne,* made in the latter part of the reign of Edward IIL, in which the testator directs the enfeoffment of his manor called La Mote, with all the lands which he had in the parishes of Seele, Eyghtham, and Shihorne, for his eldest son Robert, then aged six. The will is undated, hut inasmuch as Sir Thomas's widow Lora (the daughter and coheir of Sir Thomas Morant of Chevening) recovered the lands from the feoffees in 47 Edward III., we are ahle to date it conjecturally as above.f Of Sir Thomas Cawne, the probable builder of the beautiful fourteenth-century hall of the Mote House, I have heen ahle to collect no further particulars * Printed in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. IV., pp. 222, 223. f Ibid., Vol. IV., p. 224. 0 2 1 9 6 NOTES ON FORMER OWNERS OE beyond those given by the late Kev. J. B. Larking in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. IV., pp. 221—225, and Vol. V., p. 324. During the greater part of the fifteenth century the Mote House was the property of the family of Haut. According to Philipott* the progenitor of this family was one Vair Pitzhaut, who came to England with the Conqueror. Their seat was at Haut's Court in the parish of Petham, and at Wadenhall in Elmstead. One of them, Sir Thomas Haut, rebuilt the church and hospicium of the Austin Priars in the city of Canterbury, and was himself buried in the choir of the said church. His nephew, Simon de Haut, was Seneschal of England in 29 Henry IIL, and the latter's grandson, Henry de Haut, paid aid for Wadenhall 20 Edward ILL, and died 44 Edward IIL The said Henry de Haut had three sons, William, Edmund, and John, of whom the second, Edmund de Haut, married Benedicta, daughter of John Shelving of Bishopsbourne. It may have been through this marriage that the Hauts became possessed of the Mote. The connection between the families of Cawne and Shelving I have been unable to trace, but the Shelving coat—per pale azure and vert, a lion rampant erminet—corresponds very closely to that of Cawne, which was formerly in the window over the Cawne tomb in Ightham Church (Sir Edward Dering's MS. Church Notes) ; and Mr. W. S. Ellis, in his " Notes on the Pamily of Shelving" (Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XV., p. 28, note), says that their "coat may in some way have been got from Cawne."J Edmund de Haut by his wife Benedicta Shelving had one son, Sir Nicholas Haut, who at the death of his grandfather (1370) was nineteen years of age. With Thomas Brokell he represented the county of E.ent in Parliament in the year 1394-5, and by his wife Alice, who died in 1399, he had two sons, Nicholas Haut, who was of Petham, and William Haut * Philipott MSS., Eritish Museum, 2-15. f Vide Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XV., p. 28, note. X There is some uncertainty about the coat of Haut. Willement from the cloister roof of Canterbury Cathedral, gives it as Argent, a fess azure, in chief three torteaux. Another well-known coat of Haut is the cross engrailed • and another the saltire impaling the cross engrailed, both being dimidiated '(vide Archaologia Cantiana, Vol. XV., p. 23). IGHTHAM MOTE HOUSE. 197 of Bishopsbourne; the latter married Matilda, a sister of Eichard Woodville, Lord Eivers, and aunt of Elizaheth the wife of King Edward IV., by whom he had two sons and three daughters; his second son Eichard Haut, together with Earl Eivers, Sir Eichard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan, and others of the Woodville party, were in attendance upon the young King Edward V. on the latter's accession to the throne, April 9th, 1483, but they were almost immediately seized by the Duke of Gloucester, who sent them prisoners to the north, where they were beheaded at Pontefract in the following June. The estates of Eichard Haut, of which Ightham Mote formed part, were confiscated, and in the first year of Eichard III. were granted to Sir Eobert Brackenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, who, however, lost his life on Bosworth Pield two years later, and Ightham and the other Haut estates were restored to the heirs of Eichard Haut in the third year of Henry VIL, Edward Haut the eldest son being at that time eleven years old. According to Hasted, towards the end of the reign of King Henry VIL the Mote passed to Sir Eichard Clement,* who was Sheriff of the county in 1531-2; he died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother John Clement, whose only daughter Anne was married to Hugh Pakenham, by whom the Mote was sold to Sir John Allen, son of Eichard Allen of Thacksted in the county of Essex. Sir John was a member of the Mercers' Company and Lord Mayor of London 1526—1536, He built the Mercers' Chapel in Cheapside, and was buried therein in the year 1544, but on the destruction of the chapel his body was removed to the church of St. Thomas of Aeon. (Strype on Stow, book hi., pp. 38 and 117.) By his will he left considerable legacies to prisons and lazar-houses within the City of London. By his wife Margaret, daughter of John Legh of Essex, he had one son, Christopher, who succeeded him at the Mote. Christopher Allent was knighted in 1553, and represented the town of New Eomney in Parliament in the year * Hasted describes the arms of Clement as—A bend nebulee, in chief three fleurs-de-lys within a border gobonated. t Arms: Sable, a fess ermine between three talbots passant or, collared and ringed. 198 NOTES ON FORMER OWNERS OE 1562. Amongst the Domestic State Papers belonging to the year 1585 is a letter from Lord Cobham, Lord-Lieutenant of Kent, to Sir Prancis Walsingham, enclosing letters from the former's cousin Thomas Willoughby, with examinations taken hy him relative to transactions at Sir Christopher jAQen's house at Ightham.* The letter runs as follows :— These maie give yor Lo. to understand that this morning I went unto the house of Sir Christofer Allen, where first I paied Eichard Coxe his man, thinking to have received from him the intelligence of such matters as might have been my conduct in the proceeding in this case, whose explanation here inclosed I have sent yor good Lo. Next I with my Lady herein first in searching her chamber and closett for reliques, where I found nothing contrary to her Mat'5 proceeding, then by her expaiacon she cold not tell wher her sonne Charles was. I asked Sir Christofer where he was; be answered me that he thought he was ridden into Essex, to see one Mr Bawde who married his sister. Memorandum that xxth daye of September Anno regni Elizabethe xxvijm0, at Ightham, "Will™ Petley in the presens of dyvers uttered these words or the like: It were good that Sir Christofer Allen wold lyve in better sort, for he kepeth a vile and papisticall house; first is said that on Thursday last there was at his house a messenger from my Lords Pagett and Charles Pagett, who brought newes for them, and as the reporter thinketh he is some Traytor and that he was carried from Sir Christofer Allen's to Sir Walter Waller's by Charles Allen, and all this Wilham Petley heard last night by a cooke of Sir Christofer Allen's whom the said Sir Christofer did cause to be sett in stockes for some kind of misdemeanor at Ightham aforesaid, and that the said cooke would utter more matter concerning the company that did resort to the house. Petley spake all these words unto Thomas Willughby, esquier, in the hearing of us whose names are underwritten at Ightham aforesaid: Michael Beresford, John Addams, John Ashdowne, Will'm Weston, Eob't Oliver, and others. Sir Christopher Allen's man, Eoger Baytes, described the mysterious stranger as " a reasonable tawle man with a yellow reddish beard, about 35 years of age, in a white dublet, a leather jerkyn, and a dark greenish cloke/' and said he went off the next day to tbe house of Sir Thomas Waller at * Domestic State Papers, vol. olxxxii. IGHTHAM MOTE HOUSE. 19 9 Groombridge. "Also that my Lady Allen, Mr. Gerrott and his wife and her sonnes and daughters did refuse to go to the church or to use any open and publick or private prayers as Sir Christopher .Allen himself was wont and accustomed in his own house to doe." The writer of the above concludes hy saying he understands that Sir Christopher AAllen deplores his hard lot that these bruits should be spread of him. Sir Christopher died in the same year that the above information was laid— 1585—and was buried at Ightham. His son Charles Allftn some years later sold the Mote to Sir William Selby,* younger brother of Sir John Selby of Twizell and Branxton Manor in the county of Northumberland, and Gentleman Porter of Berwick—a very important post in those days of continuous border warfare. Sir William died without issue in 1611, and was buried in Ightham Church, the Mote passing to his nephew, another Sir William Selby, son of Sir John aforenamed, and, like his father, Gentleman Porter of Berwick. By his wife Dorothy, daughter of Charles Bonham, he left no issue ; and by his will (1641) he left the Mote to George Selby of London—Hasted says, " for the sake of the name," implying that no relationship was known to exist, but, according to Burke,f this George Selby was the grandson of Ealph Selby of Berwick, brother of the first William Selby of the Mote. The Selbys continued to possess the Mote until quite recent times; and for the subsequent steps in their family history reference should be made to the Pedigree following. * In 1607 a bill was brought into the House of Commons to confirm the sale of the manor of Mote made by Charles Allen, deceased, to Sir William Selby, Knt. t Landed Gentry, vol. ii. 2 0 0 FORMER OWNERS OF IGHTHAM MOTE HOUSE. SELBY OF THE MOTE. AEMS.—Barry often or and sable. CHEST.—A Saracen's head proper. MOTTO.—FOET ET LOYAL. John Selby, Gentleman Porter of Berwick. T Sir John Selby, Gentleman Porter of Berwick. Sir William Selby, Knt., of the Mote, d. s.p. 1611. Ralph Selby=f-Isabel of Berwick. T Sir William Selby, Knt., of=Dorothy, da. of Chas. the Mote, d. s.p. 1641. Bonham. Robert Henry^. • • • Jane, da. of Sir=Sir Henry Selby ,=pEliz., da. of Ricd. Selby, Selby. John Howell. Serjeant, d. 1715. Amherst of Bayd. 1639. 1. sAt . wi•f»e . hall. 2nd wife. George Selby of the Mote,=j=Anne Rye Sheriff of Kent 1648, d. of Favers- 1667. ham. Charles Selby, d.1744. I Dorothy^John Browne Selby. of Bayhill. I Susan, da. of=Wilham: Sir John Ray- Selby ney, Bart., of of the Wrotham. Mote. 1st wife. Elizabeth, da. of Sir John Howell, Knt. 2nd wife. John (Browne) Selby=pMargaret of the Mote, took the name of Selby by Act of Parliament 1783, d. 1797. Kelly, widow of John Selby of: the Mote, d. 1727. =Mary, da. and coheir of Thos. Gifford of Pen- Thomas Selby, b. 1752; d.= 1820, devising the Mote to Prideaux J. Selby of Twizell, oo. Northumberland, disinheriting his only son. :Elizabeth, da. of Robt. Walford of Whitley, co. Essex. d. 1772. Davies. William Selby,=j=Eliz. Bur- John Selby of Pennis, Charles BridgesT=Anne 1 - ^ - roughs. d. s.p. in Fawkham. Selby. ~ ' William Selby of the=pEliz., da. of Chas. Thomas Selby of Whitley. Mote, d. 1777. I Weston. T Elizabeth Burrough Selby, d. 1781.