ESTATES OF THE CASTLE. 495 preferred to be one of the king's falconers, in which office he died, as for the priest he was committed to close prison, and was never heard of afterwards. Deering has preferred the following interesting information from the accounts of Geoffrey Knyveton, who was constable of the castle, "The accompte of Geffry Knyveton, from the feast of St. Michaell the Archaungle, in the XXVth yeare of kinge Henry the sixth, 1447, unto the same feast next followinge, by one whole yeare for the castle of Nottingham. "1st, He gives accompte of £xii Ss. cominge of xxiiii acres of meadow, lying in a meadow belonging to the castle of Nottingham called the king's meadow. The price, 3s. 2d. so letten this yeare. "And of xiv s. the latter agistment of the same meadow, betwixt Michallmas and Martlemas, happeninge. "And of liii s. iiii d. of the farme of the close, called castle appleton. "And of xxxvis. 8d. for the farme of another close, called the constable-home, so letten to the men of Nottingham. "And of xxivs. of the farme of a pece of meadow, called the milne-dame. "And xiii s. of the farme of two peces of meadow, lyeinge by the king's bridge, and the rocke-yard. "And viiis. of the castle hills, without the castle walls. "And xx s. of the farme of the pindage of the castle, so letten to the men of Nottingham. "And of x s. of the farme of the outward, within the castle walls. "And of the profit of the dove-cott nothing this year, but it was wont to give 3s, 4d. "And of for the castle-miln. "And of the 13s. 4d. of the farme of the coneygarth of the castle this year, &c." (a) (a) This extract is taken literatim from an old forest book, written for the use of the Mayor of Nottingham, Robert Alvey, by his sergeant at mace, William Marshall, in the year 1588, Johu Nody, and Nicholas Sherwin, being sheriffs. CHAPTER II. Much as it as been the fashion to reproach the memory of Henry VII., especially for his cowardice, avarice, and we may add, despotism, yet benefits to the commons of the most substantial character resulted from his reign. His immediate predecessor, Richard III., was a man of war, who delighted to entwine around his brow the laurels of victory, which, amid the din of war, he gathered on the tented field, he enlarged, beautified, and strengthened the castle, and as a palatial fortress, raised it to the highest degree of magnificence; Henry VII. despoiled, unroofed, and dismantled it, and, acting in a spirit of wisdom, more than a century in advance of the age in which he lived, very properly made of our magnificent castle a premature ruin. Thy days are gone-thy battlemented walls No longer frown with over-hanging guns; The night owl shrieks, where once the mighty fell The feudal homage of the barony: "Twas here the boar's head smoked, with minstrelsy, 'Twas here, diurnally, the royal hannch Proclaimed the banquet. Here the nobles fought Mr. Throsby and Mr. Blackner, have both fixed upon the reign of Henry VII. as the period of rebuilding the ancient Anglo Saxon church, the present noble pile of St. Mary, with which once few could vie, either for beauty or magnificence. Dr. Deering thus writes concerning it :— "There appears no certain accounts when this church was built, or by whom founded, except a workman who was employed in repairing the west end of the church then very much decayed, informs me that there was a date cut in one of the timbers, which, ORIGIN OF SAINT MARY'S CHURCH. 497 though he could not precisely remember, yet this he was sure of, that it made the church then upwards of eleven hundred years old!! And indeed the oldest part of the building bespeaks it of Saxon original, as well as St. Peter's." After the conquest, in the reign of Henry I., we find them all three mentioned in the foundation deed of the priory of Lenton, where William Peverel, among other gifts, granted to it, with leave of Lord Henry, the church of St. Mary, in the English borough of Nottingham, with land, tithe and appurtenances, the church of St. Peter, and the church of St. Nicholas likewise in Nottingham. The church of St. Mary, as it is the oldest, so it is by much the largest, standing as has been said on the highest rock of the three. It is built in the form of a cross, with a square tower in the intersection, the whole is contrived like a collegiate church, with stalls on both sides the choir, which last, being very much decayed in 1625, (Mr. Hansby being then vicar,) was put in repair by the farmers of the tithes by sequestration of the profits, it was again repaired in 1727, and adorned with a very handsome altarpiece of neat joiner's work.-The Rev. Mr. Disney, vicar. (See p. 19.) We have one or two reasons for suspecting this description, which is chiefly copied from Dr. Thorotou, is not quite correct. Undoubtedly that there was a church, erected on the site of the present building of St. Mary, is an unquestionable fact, there is a strength of probability, and clearness of circumstantial evidence to warrant an hypothesis, if not an assumption, that the Roman Britons had a place of worship here, on which for many a previous century had stood a temple of idolatry. But why does he suppose the church of St. Peter to be also Saxon? not surely from its being mentioned some forty or fifty years after the conquest, during which time it might have been built. If St. Peter's is of Saxon origin how is it that it was not taxed as was St. Mary's? and if that had been the case, St. Peter's church would have been found in Doomsday-book, which is not the fact. "The oldest parts of the building bespeak its Saxon original," says the Doctor, but if any part of either St. Mary's or St. Peter's churches are of Saxon architecture, there is no other church of Saxon architecture, to which they bear any resemblance in this kingdom or any other, therefore the Doctor could not have arrived at this judgment from comparison, and in the absence of record how could he obtain his knowledge any other way, neither can we conceive how the Doctor could know how the church of St. Mary was the older of the two, even admitting his own principle. |