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 Shirleys
of Astwell |
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ASTWELL MANOR HOUSE In 1453 Arthur Brook, of a Warwickshire family, was in possession, and in 1471 his son William exchanged the manors of Astwell and Falcutt with one Thomas Lovett for the manors of Rushton and Great Oakley near Kettering. Thomas Lovett's daughter, Margaret, married John, son of William Brooke. Soon after Thomas Lovett came to Astwell - this was Edward IV's reign - he set to work to build the manor house anew, and the surviving gate-house is part of his work. The rest of the house was built round a courtyard; there was a moat, and, said the Ministry of Works in 1958, "it must have been an imposing place." Four generations of Lovetts lived here and the family was of some standing in the County, for three different Thomas Lovetts served as High Sheriff in the reigns respectively of Edward IV, Henry VII, and Elizabeth I. The last Thomas Lovett of Astwell, who died in 1586, married Elizabeth Fermor of Easton Neston, and their only child, Jane, by her marriage with John, younger son of Francis Shirley of Ragsdale and Staunton Harold in Leicestershire, carried Astwell into the Shirley family. The Shirleys John Shirley, the husband of Jane Lovett, died in 1570 leaving a son, George, who, born in 1559, inherited Stanton Harold in 1571, and Astwell (on the death of his Lovett grandfather) in 1586. The Shirleys were by far the most interesting of the owners of Astwell, and, in fact, managed to produce contemporaneously a murderer and founder of a religious sect. With George Shirley the light at last begins to shine brightly on Astwell. He was a man highly typical of his age. Educated at Hart Hall, Oxford, he received some training at one of the Inns of Court and later served for a while with the Earl of Leicester in Holland. On succeeding to Astwell, with which he immediately feel in love, he became henceforth a Northamptonshire rather than a Leicestershire man and was sheriff of the County in the year that Queen Elizabeth died. Early in the next reign he demolished the greater part of the manor house, and, smitten with building fever then raging among Northamptonshire squires, built himself a large and beautiful mansion alongside the old Thomas Lovett's tower. The new house, which had gables and mullioned windows in the prevailing style, was completed in about 1606. There were over forty rooms, including a hall, a chapel, a great and a little parlour, and a gallery hung with twenty-four pictures, as we know from an inventory of 1622 which gives the names of all the rooms. These and also the tower were luxuriously furnished with court cupboards, four-poster beds, chairs and stools covered with velvet, needle-work or leather, green and red rugs, hangings and "carpets" of arras, velvet cushions, coloured window curtains, chests, cabinets, long oak tables with benches and joint stools, tow pair of virginals, a "harpiscall", a bell to ring to prayers, etc., etc., etc. With a small army of servants inside and out, a stable full of horses, at least three coaches, those were surely the greatest days of Astwell, when for beauty and importance it must have ranked with such places as Gawsley, Deene, or Great Oakley Hall. George signed the work of his period with his initials and coat of arms in several rooms, the example on the stone mantel-piece in the sitting room of the present house being the only one now surviving. George Shirley "with many gallant gentlemen" conducted James I across Northamptonshire on his way south at his accession, and was one of the first batch of baronets created by that monarch. An open-handed man, "relieving during the great dearth 500 a day at his gates", he reminds us of his contemporary the first Lord Montagu of Boughton on the other side of the County. The year of the "great dearth" was 1608. Shirley's religious position was ambiguous, unless, which we doubt, he was an arrant hypocrite. He was an avowed Roman Catholic, and therefore placed on the list of suspected Papists in Northamptonshire. All his armour and weapons were removed from Astwell House in his absence over-seas in 1618 on the plea that his servants were recusants. Lord Exeter, then Lord Lieutenant, thereupon wrote to the Privy Council on his behalf that "he had always been loyal and forward in service and declared himself no recusant". Three years later his arms were restored to him. He was certainly an outward conformer to the Church of England, and the following letter to Dr. Lambe, Chancellor of the Diocese of Peterborourgh, from four of the local clergy, suggests very strongly that his attendance at their services was more than a mere formality. He was perhaps one of those who had "true unity, which is most glorious."
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"May it please you, Sir, Whereas we whose names are hereunder written are intreated by Sir George Shirley of Astwell in your Countie of Northampton Baronet, to certifie our knowledge to your worship of his conformities in coming to the church and hearing devine service and sermons there, upon Sundays and Holldayes, according to the lawe in that case; we do hereby certifie you that the said Sir George Shirley (being an old gent. and his house farr from the parish churche) and having an auntient privileged chappell in his house, hathe, according to the booke of Common prayer, service red in the same chappell by Mr. Jones. a Batchelor in Divinitie and Chaplen in his house, who hathe of him a yearely stipend for reading prayer and preaching there, to which service and sermons himselfe, his Ladie and his familie doe come verie orderly, and we doe further certifie your worship that we ourselves doe verifie often every yeare in the absence of his said chaplen, or when we are thereunto entreated by the said Sir George Shirley, come thither and read service and preache in his his said chappell to him, his Ladie and his familie; and this with remembrance of our humble dutie we committ you to God, and rest. Your worhip's always to command, Richard Lewis (S.T.P.) (Vicar of Brakley). William Jonnes (Clerk) [Rector of Syreham]. Chr. Middleton (Clerk) [Rector of Aston-le-Walls]. Edward Wade (Clerk) [Rector of Holdenby and Church Brampton]. Dated the 23 of January 1618 [1619]. Sir George Shirley, in the words of his son, Thomas, died on 27th of April 1622, aged 63, "in the bosom of his mother, the Roman Catholick Church". On the death of Sir George, his descendants did not entirely desert Astwell. Sir Robert, the 4th baronet, lived there as a boy during the early years of the Civil War, and his widow make it her home for many years. The house was kept up and the family probably came for a part of each year, buy they took little or no part in the affairs of the County and inclined more and more to Staunton Harold and their other residences. Sir Robert Shirley the 7th baronet, became Lord Ferrers of Chartley when this ancient barony was called out of abeyance by Charles II in 1677. In 1711 he was created Earl Ferrers by Queen Anne. His chief claim to distinction, however was the number of his children. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Lawrence Washington of Garsden (Wiltshire Co.) he had 17 children and by his second wife 10, "besides some 30 natural children". During the life-time of his son Washing, the second Earl Ferrers, John Bridges was at work on his history of Northamptonshire, and has preserved for us a glimpse of what "Astwell, an old seat of Earl Ferrers" as he called it, looked like 240 years ago. "Behind the gate-house is a little court and entry into the hall. The hall windows project n ronde and have battlements over them. The wainscot and chimney pieces in several rooms are adorned with the arms of the family with other carved work: and the window, which are of chrystal, are stained with flowers, birds, horses and other ornaments. At the east end of the great parlour was formerly a chapel, where Dr. Sheldon, afterwards, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Dolben, afterwards Archbishop of York, are said to have successively officiated as chaplains of the family". Of this Lord Ferrers a contemporary wrote: "He keeps as hospitable an house and entertains as nobly as any peer of the realm", buy on the whole the second and third earls were quite unremarkable people. Not so the fourth, -- Laurence Shirley (1720-1760) -- who succeeded his uncle, the third earl, in 1745. Of him Burke writes in his Peerage:-- "Although not bereaved of intellect, this nobleman frequently evinced strong symptoms of a constitutional violence of temper; and in one of the paroxisms of rage habitual with his lordship put to his own confidential land-steward, and aged gentleman of the name of Johnson". Lord Ferrers wished to evict Johnson from his farm, and failing to do so, got him into his room at Staunton Harold, locked the door, pulled a pistol out of his pocket and shot him. He was tried by his peers in Westminster hall, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death. During his imprisonment in the Tower of London before his execution, he was several times visited by his cousin Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. Ferres decided to die in the grand manner even though it was the death of a felon. When the fatal day arrived he put on a suit embroidered with silver and was driven from the Tower to Tyburn in his own landau drawn by six horses, and, according to tradition, was hanged with the silken cord which was the privilege of a peer instead of the hempen rope used for common murderers. A vast multitude of people assembled to watch the execution for which the "new drop" (just introduced instead of the cart, ladder and medieval gibbet) was used for the first time. Tyburn gallows stood close to the site of the marble Arch on the boundary of the parishes of St. Marylebone and Westminster. |
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Pedigree of George Shirley of Astwell (1550 - 1650) George Shirley b 1559 d. 1622 Astwell, Northampton Co. Buried in Breedon on the Hill. Son of John Shirley of Rakedale Leicestershire and Jane Lovett. This marriage brouht several manors to the Shirleys: Astwell in the county of Northampton, South Newington (Newton), in the county of Oxford, Dorington in the county of Gloucester, and St. Botolph's Bridge in the county of Huntington. He studied at Hart Hall (Later known as Hartford College), in the University of Oxford in 1573. "By the advantage of the most famous and learned tutors, he acquired a knowledge not common of the Greek and Latin tongues, of philosophy, of history, of politics, and other liberal sciences. After he had finished his studies, he presented his service at Court, and undertook the voyage of Holland in 1585 with Robert Earl of Leicester, ever putting himself in those places most eminent for danger and honour". He entered Gloucester Hall in 1587 and was of Grays Inn in 1602. In 1603 he served as sheriff of Northamptonshire at the time, in company with many gallant men who conducted James the First through that county to his coronation. In 1611, he was created a Baronet. [Note: A William Bell came to London from Worcester to study law. He shared chamber and bed with George Shirley. Bell became a Roman Priest and was executed in 1643]. George Shirleys arms were taken away for 4 years as he was suspected as being a Catholic, although he outwardly conformed to the church of England. (If a Papists refused to come to church on Sunday, they were liable to a penalty of 20 pounds for every lunar month during which they absented themselves). He appears to have died a Catholic. "His piety was so remarkable in his large and bountiful alms, that he merited the glorious title of father and nourisher of the poor, relieving during the great dearth, 500 a day at his gates"
m. 2nd Dorothy Wroughton (no children by George).
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