event, Sir Edmund had received the honour of knighthood, and in December 1612, being then twenty-two years of age, he married Margaret Denton, the daughter of a friend and neighbour, Sir Thomas Denton, whose fine old house at Hillesden, with its stately church and elm-avenues leading up the hill to its gates, could be seen from the Claydon estate. The bride was only eighteen years of age and one of a very large family, but she brought her husband a good fortune, and proved an admirable and devoted wife. There is a charming portrait of her, wearing a white smock trimmed with lace and a large jewel hanging to a chain round her neck. The face is gentle and thoughtful, the expression in her eyes full of tender melancholy, and she rests her brow on her left hand, as if she too were oppressed with the burden of the times and the cares of her large family. When she married, Claydon was still let to the Giffards, and her parents agreed to give the young couple' four yeares' boarde.' So Margaret remained at Hillesden, where eight of her twelve children were born; and Sir Edmund spent his time partly with her, and partly at his house in Drury Lane, in attendance at Court. For, a year after his marriage, he had been appointed Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Prince Charles, and in that capacity accompanied Charles and Buckingham on their memorable journey to Spain in 1623. The reception which they met with at the Catholic King's Court did not commend itself either to Sir Edmund's refined tastes or to his Protestant principles. The houses were without glass or chimneys; the dirt in the streets and houses 'did almost poison us;' the ladies there painted so thick and palpable 'you would think they rather wore vizards than their own faces!' And to crown all, they 'went to churche,' and heard a Latin sermon from a Jesuit who called Queen Elizabeth'the daughter of lust and adultery, whose mother was begot by none but Satan,' and spoke of King Henry VIII.'s soul as lying chained in the 'bottomlesse pit of hell' (i. 80). Charles himself soon gave up his suit in disgust, and returned home, declaring that he dared not even order the glasses of his carriage to be opened without consulting the Junta of divines to whom every point in the marriage treaty had to be referred.

On the death of James I. Sir Edmund was made KnightMarshal of the Palace to the new King, but neither this post in the household nor yet his personal attachment to his royal master prevented him from showing a 'very uncourtly' sympathy with the popular party, when he was returned for Aylesbury in the Parliament of 1628. It was above all the religious

question which appealed to him and to other country gentlemen of his type. His strong Protestant feelings led him to look with horror on Laud's reforms, and he took an active part in bringing over Archbishop Usher from Ireland to preach 'right doctrine' at St. Paul's Church in Covent Garden, subscribing liberally to the fund required and receiving the Archbishop in his own house.

Sir Edmund was indeed an excellent example of the English squire of the seventeenth century, who, in Carlyle's words, 'believed in God, not as a figure of speech, but as a great and awful fact.'

'The prominent interest in religious over political questions, even the most absorbing,' writes Lady Verney, 'is extremely remarkable both in Sir Edmund and in his son Sir Ralph; it was not only that the liberties of England at this time were believed by them to hang as much on one as on the other, but that being men of the world, living the ordinary life, at Court, in Parliament, in business, in war, sharing in the pleasures and the occupations of the world, whether in town or country, they were among those (and there were many) who truly cared to carry out their ideal of a higher life above all things, although without the smallest pretence at sanctity over and above their neighbours' (i. 99).

Yet there was nothing of the fanatic or bigot about them. They mixed freely in the pleasures of life, took delight in all knightly pursuits, in dancing, music, fencing, and hawking, and, as we see in their portraits at Claydon, wore their hair falling on their necks according to the common fashion. Sir Edmund especially is described as 'a reddy and compleat man for the pleasures of ladyes.' When he appeared at Court in his Isabella satin suit, ornamented with silver and gold buttons,' still preserved at Claydon, or followed his master on his royal progresses in a crimson satin dublet and cloak lined with pinked plush,' he seemed the very model of a gentleman and courtier. His chivalrous bearing and high spirits made him a favourite with the great ladies of the Puritan party, such as Lady Barrymore and Lady Sussex. This last-named lady especially plays an important part in the Claydon annals. Originally one of the Yorkshire Wortleys, she first married Sir Harry Lee of Ditchley, a neighbour and intimate friend of the Verneys, and after his death in 1631 became the wife of the aged and infirm Earl of Sussex. An active and energetic woman, taking a keen interest in politics, and looking with suspicious eyes on the King and on his French Queen, Lady Sussex found the 'sade, retired life' she led at Gorhambury with my olde Lorde,' very little to her taste, but she

nursed him well and faithfully until his death in 1643, and consoled herself meanwhile by keeping up a lively correspondence with her friends at Court. She trusts Sir Edmund, or when he is too busy to write, his son Ralph, to give her all the latest news, and refers to them in all business matters. They have to help her make her will, to order her carpets and curtains, sometimes even her gowns, and find a good 'mache' for her daughter Nan Lee. One day she writes to Sir Ralph about her coals, which it appears are very bad, another time she asks him to choose a fasyonable mofe [muff] for one as tale [tall] as your wife,' or else desires him to buy 'a hansom sattin cote for her prity godson,' his own little boy Edmund. The pattern of the sky-blue satin that she sent may still be seen at Claydon pinned to the scrap of paper on which her many commissions were written down. Its colour is as brilliant as ever, and forms a strange contrast to the old brown letters among which it has lain for so many years. Her spelling is even worse than that of the other great ladies of her day, which is saying a good deal. It takes some time to recognize in such words as 'Oyskescher' Yorkshire, 'Sentarbones' St. Albans, Linges linds fildes' Lincoln's Inn Fields. She writes 'a maisis mee' for 'amazes me;' speaks of 'Mr. Bakon,' the Chancellor's nephew, 'the hoper hose' (the upper house), and describes the burial-place of the Earls of Sussex at Boreham in Essex, near their residence at New Hall, as 'borom,' parish church to 'nue hale.' She is very particular too about her portrait, which, by Sir Edmund's express wish, is painted by Vandyke, although Lady Sussex herself thinks it is money ill bestowde.'

So,

'Put Sir Vandyke,' she writes to Ralph, 'in remembrance to do my pictuer wel. I have sene [seen] sables with the clasp of them set with dimons [diamonds]-if thos that i am pictuerde in wher don i think it would look very wel in the pictuer. . . . i am glade you have prefalede with Sr Vandike to make my pictuer lener [leaner], for truly it was too fat. if he made it farer [fairer] it will bee for my credit-i see you will make him trimme it for my advantige every way.' Again: 'I am glade you have made Sr Vandike mind my dres. when it is don i beseech you pay him for it, and get a hansom frame made to put it in, and then present it to my lady and your father from me, but the frame I will pay for. . . . Let me know, i beseech you how much i am your debtor, and whether Vandicke was contente with the fifty ponde' (i. 259).

Even supposing the value of money to be about four and a half times what the same sum represents at present, 'fifty ponde' is little enough for a full-length picture, as it is

described in the old lists, in a blew goune with pearle buttens.'

After the death of her 'goode old Lorde,' Lady Sussex married Lord Warwick, the admiral of the Parliament's fleet, and once more played a prominent part in London society. But she grieved sorely over Sir Edmund's death, and proved a good friend to Ralph and his wife to the end. As I thinke you the best of men,' she writes, 'so the best frinde [friend] I have next your good father and mother' (i. 243).

From the year 1530 we have much fuller details of the family history of the Verneys. The letters increase as Sir Edmund's ten children grow up, and the eldest son, Ralph, is old enough to write letters himself. They were a most affectionate family, and all of them indefatigable letter writers. The sons at school and college complain bitterly if a week or two pass without their hearing from their father or elder brother. Ralph himself preserved every scrap of writing, notes, answers to invitations, bailiffs' accounts, and traders' bills. Often there are as many as four or five hundred letters belonging to a single year, and up to the date of Sir Ralph's own death, in 1696, Lady Verney counted as many as thirty thousand letters. Claydon was now once more the Verneys' home. There Dame Margaret and her yearly increasing family. spent most of their time, while Sir Edmund rode down from town whenever he could spare time. In 1634 he took one of Lord Bedford's newly built houses in the Piazza of Covent Garden on lease, with coach-house and stables behind. The house, it is particularly stated in the lease, was partly wainscotted, and the chief rooms were furnished with the latest improvements in the shape of shuttynge windowes ' and 'stocklocks,' which last were removed from the doors and 'kept loose in the closet' when the apartments were not in use. But there was no sewer as yet in the new district, and Sir Edmund expressly stipulated that if he were unable to live there with any convenyency' he might give up the house at six months' notice. Macaulay's account of the new square at this period certainly does not sound very attractive. The market was held close under the doors, fruit sellers screamed, carters fought, and cabbage stalks and rotten apples lay in heaps on the thresholds of great lords' houses. The duties of his office kept Sir Edmund constantly at Court, and the sumptuous suits of cloth of gold and laced and embroidered purple satin, required for Court festivals and masques, were no light burdens for a man like Sir Edmund, whose estates were already heavily encumbered. On one occasion, when he ac

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companied the King to be crowned at Edinburgh, the knightmarshal's fine clothes cost him the sum of 260l. of money at its present value! Neither were Sir Edmund's attempts at improving his income by taking shares in a patent for hackney coaches, or in a plan for reclaiming fen lands, altogether successful. But in spite of these many anxieties Sir Edmund kept his joyous heart and cheerful temper unchanged. This gallant courtier and fine gentleman was never so happy as when he could escape from town and get back to his 'very loving wife' and to the four young sons and six little girls who found him such a tender father. Here in the woods and green meadows of this quiet home he loved to devote himself to country pursuits, to see to the 'pleaching of the hedges' and the making of the hay, to visit his 'nags and geldings,' his colts and greyhounds, and hunt the stag in Whaddon Chase. He was an excellent landlord, kindly and considerate towards his farmers and cottagers, eager to find comfortable places for the servants who left him, and always ready to do a good turn to a dependent or neighbour whenever he had the chance. His letters concerning the letting of the farms and general management of the estate are full of interesting details, and it is curious to find that the rent of land in those days was decidedly higher than it is at present. Some of the fields at Claydon which still bear the same names and can be easily identified were let by Sir Edmund for 500/ and 600l, whereas even some thirty years ago, before the great fall in the value of land, the rent paid for them was only 450l.

In all these matters Sir Edmund's prime helper and adviser was his eldest son Ralph. Born at Hillesden on November 9, 1613, the heir of Claydon was married in May 1629 to Mary Blacknall the orphan heiress of Abingdon, then a child of thirteen. The large estates which she had inherited from her father made her a 'greate mache,' and Sir Edmund did not obtain the prize for his young son without considerable opposition from one of her guardians, who was anxious to marry her to his own son, and whose relations tried hard to make the girl repudiate the marriage after the nuptial ceremony had been solemnized.

'Good Aunt,' wrote the little bride to the only relative who had favoured the Verney suit, a Mrs. Wiseman, besides the desire I have to hear of youre health and my Uncle's, I think it fitt to acquaint you that now I am maried, in which state I hope God will give mee his blessings and make it happy to mee.' She then says she was anxious the marriage should be 'privatly done, and soe it