Another Sir William, apparently a grandson of the above, acquired through his mother the manor of Combe in Brabourne, and through his first wife and her relations—modes of increase in which the family seem to have been fortunate—that of Orlestone, as well as other places; and in 1420 he built Scotshall, in the manor of Hall in Smeeth, and was in 1428 sheriff of the county, and in 1430 knight of the shire in parliament. He died 1433. Scotshall, from time to time enlarged or rebuilt, and especially so by Sir Edward Scot, in the reign of Charles I, became the family seat for twelve generations. Evelyn, under date August 2, 1663, records his visit to it (soon after the young knight’s marriage), and calls it “a right noble seate, uniformely built, with a handsome gallery. It stands in a park well stor’d, the land fat and good. We were exceedingly feasted by the young knight, and in his pretty chapell heard an excellent sermon by his chaplaine.” It was sold, with the remaining possessions of the family, at the close of the last century, and destroyed in 1808. Some undulations in a field on the north side of the road from Ashford to Hythe, about half a mile to the east of Smeeth church, alone mark its site.

The son of this second Sir William, named Sir John, being connected with the Woodvilles, and therefore with the wife of Edward IV, and being a staunch Yorkist, and apparently a man of intelligence, was employed in special embassies to Charles, Duke of Burgundy, especially in 1467, when he went to treat of the marriage of the king’s sister with the duke. He had also various other and more substantial favours conferred upon him from time to time, from 1461 onwards, including that of Chilham Castle for life, as somewhat oddly, and I think wrongly, noted in the extract from Philipot. He died in 1485, and probably intestate, as no will is recorded.

To him succeeded his son, the third Sir William in this account, and he dying in 1524, was succeeded by his son, a second Sir John. This last, by his marriage with Anne, daughter of Reginald Pympe, had three sons, and died on the 7th October 1533. The eldest, William, followed his father on the 5th June 1536, and leaving no offspring, his next brother, Sir Reginald, took his place. Of the third brother, Richard, the father of our Reginald, I shall speak presently. Meanwhile, returning to the main line, I would say that Sir Reginald, dying on the 16th October 1554, was succeeded by his son, Sir Thomas, the “cousin” to whom Reginald was much indebted, and one of the four to whom he dedicated his Witchcraft. He was, in his day, a man of note, intelligence, and action. Finding his estate in debt, he yet kept one hundred at his table, was most hospitable, and died owing nothing, though, of course, to provide for the younger of his very numerous progeny, various portions of his estate were by his will sold after his death. He was deputy-lieutenant of his county, sheriff of Kent in 1576, knight of the shire for the Parliaments of 13 and 28 Elizabeth, chief of the Kentish forces at Northbourne Downs, where they were assembled to repel any landing from the Armada; and it may be added, as showing his promptness, readiness, and decision, that 4,000 of these were there, equipped for the field, the day after he received his orders from the Privy Council. He was one of the Commissioners to report on the advisability of improving the breed of horses in this country, and either before or after this, is said to have published a book on the subject. He was a Commissioner for draining and improving Romney Marsh, and afterwards Superintendent of the improvements of Dover harbour. Various letters to and from him in reference to Dover harbour, as well as to the Kentish forces, are to be found in the State Calendars. Having been the parent of seventeen children by his first wife, Emmeline Kempe, a relative by maternal descent, he died on the 30th December 1594, and Ashford parish offered to pay the expenses of his funeral if only they were allowed to bury him in their church. Most of these facts are noted in the following verses, which I give, chiefly because there are some probabilities that they were by Reginald. A copy of them seems to have been found among the family papers, in his handwriting. That he made some of the verse translations given in his Witchcraft is extremely probable, from the want in these cases of marginal references to the translator’s name; hence a second probability. The verses themselves render it likely that they were one of those memorial elegies then affixed επι ταϕον by affectionate friends and relatives, and not what we now call an epitaph; and the third verse clearly shows that they were written at least some little time after Sir Thomas’s decease, and therefore were not improbably written to be affixed to the handsome tomb erected over his remains. Hence a third probability; but beyond the accumulated force of these we cannot go.

_Epitaph on Sir Thomas Scott, as given in the “Memorials of the Scott Family”, and also in Pick’s “Collection of Curious Pieces in the World”, vol. 3._

Here lyes Sir Thomas Scott by name; Oh happie Kempe that bore him! Sir Raynold, with four knights of fame, Lyv’d lyneally before him.

His wieves were Baker, Heyman, Beere; His love to them unfayned. He lyved nyne and fiftie yeare, And seventeen soules he gayned.

His first wief bore them every one; The world might not have myst her![*] She was a very paragon The Lady Buckherst’s syster.

His widow lyves in sober sort, No matron more discreeter; She still reteiynes a good report, And is a great housekeeper.

He (being called to special place) Did what might best behove him. The Queen of England gave him grace, The King of Heav’n did love him.

His men and tenants wail’d the daye, His Kinne and countrie[†] cryed; Both young and old in Kent may saye, Woe worth the day he dyed.

He made his porter shut his gate To sycophants and briebors, And ope it wide to great estates, And also to his neighbours.

His House was rightly termed Hall Whose bred and beefe was redie; It was a very hospitall And refuge for the needie.

From whence he never stept aside, In winter nor in summer; In Christmas time he did provide Good cheer for every comer.

When any service shold be doun, He lyked not to lyngar; The rich would ride, the poor wold runn, If he held up his fingar.

He kept tall men, he rydd great hors, He did write most finely; He used fewe words, but cold discours Both wysely and dyvinely.

His lyving meane,[‡] his charges greate, His daughters well bestowed; Although that he were left in debt, In fine he nothing owed.

But dyed in rich and happie state, Beloved of man and woman And (what is yeate much more than that) He was envied[§] of no man.

In justice he did much excell, In law he never wrangled: He loved rellygion wondrous well, But he was not new-fangled.

Let Romney Marsh and Dover saye; Ask Norborne camp at leyseur; If he were woont to make delaye To doe his countrie pleasure.

But Ashford’s proffer passeth all— It was both rare and gentle; They would have pay’d his funerall T’ have toomb’d him in their temple.

[*] Though a paragon, she lived, he would say, a quiet, retired life, obedient and loving to her husband.

[†] “Countrie”, seems not unlikely to be used here, as in the Discoverie not unfrequently, and twice in Wood’s notice just given, and, as then, for county.

[‡] “Meane”, that is, moderate, midway between the very rich and the poor.

[§] “Envied”, most probably in its then frequent sense of hated.

Before returning to Richard and Reginald, we may conclude this short notice of their ancestors by mentioning the very probable circumstance that the former were, by the female line, descendants of John Gower, the poet, as explained in the following table:

Sir John Pashell==Elizabeth, d. of Richard Wydeville, sister of Earl | Rivers, aunt of Edward IV’s wife. +---------+ | John Pashell,==1. Ludovic (Lowys), d. of Th. Gower, ob. ob. circa 1472. | circa 1458. +-------------+------------+ | | William, Elizabeth, or Isabel,==Reg. Pympe. ob. ante 1485, s.p. ob. ante 1485. | +------------------------------------+ | Anne = Sir John Scot, father of Richard Scot.

The Pashells, or Pashleys, were descended from Sir Edmund de Passelege, a Baron of the Exchequer, who purchased a manor in Smeeth in 1319; he died 1327. The family resided at Iden, Sussex; and the house there, and the manor in Smeeth, devolved on the Scots, Anne Pympe being her father’s only child. It is true that John Gower, the poet, does not mention any children in his extant will, but he was probably seventy-eight when he died; and, what is more to the purpose, his published will was probably only his testament, the will or declaration of uses of the land being commonly at that time a separate instrument. Th. Gower, of Clapham, given above as the father of Lowys, was probably the son or grandson of John Gower (see Sir Harris Nicolas in The Retrosp. Rev., 2 Ser., ii, 103-17). Also Gower the poet is known to have had property in Southwark; and Th. Gower, of Clapham, refers in his will (1458) to his tenement called The Falcon, in Southwark, near the hospital; and in Manning and Bray’s Surrey, iii, 623, there is noticed a deed of conveyance dated 22nd November 1506, of part of the site of St. Thomas’s Hospital, in Southwark, made by John Scot, of Iden, and Anne his wife, daughter and heir of John Pashley, who was cousin and heir of John Gower. It may be added as curious that Sir Robert Gower, who is believed to have been uncle to the poet, was buried in Brabourne church in 1349; his monument, now destroyed, being noticed in Weever.