A Strange Story Of Eastwell

A STRANGE STORY OF EASTWELL

BT BRO . THOMAS B . TROWSDALE , Author of " Glimpses of Olden Kent , " fyo . OUND the picturesque precincts of Eastwell Park , situated in the centre

E ' of one of the loveliest landscapes in the county of Kent , there lingers a time-worn tradition of an obscure bricklayer in whose veins coursed the best blood of the land . Living the life of a recluse , and supporting himself by the humble occupation just indicated , he yet , so runs the local legend , claimed sonship to the last of that line of Plantagenet kings whose fate was sealed at the bloody battle of Boswortb . ' The story has obtained extensive credence ; and

tradition tells that a raised tomb ( with indents for brasses , but bearing no trace of monumental inscription ) standing half within the wall of Eastwell Church , marks the spot where the bricklayer-prince slumbers in the sleep that knows no earthly waking . At the dawn of the eighteenth century there might , it is said , have been seen in the Park a relic of the room built and tenanted by this mysterious manand also a disused wellboth bearing his

, , name . But the evidence which gives the greatest colour of truth to the tradition is an entry in . the parish register which runs as follows : — " -J Rychard Plantagenet was buryed the 22 d daye of December anno et supra [ i . e . 1550 ] . " It is worthy of note , as was pointed out b y the Rev , P . Parsons ( Rector of Eastwell iu 1767 ) , that the mark ¦ / prefixed to this entry is attached in the

register to noble names only . This circumstance certainly points strongly to the supposition that the person who registered the burial , more than 300 years ago , was jiersuaded of Plantagenet ' s aristocratic origin . Little beyond the faded record in the old register of Eastwell can be adduced in supjiort of the tradition , and a haze of cloubt hangs round the whole story . The tradition itself has , however , been preserved , and we give it here for what it is worth . It will not , we think , be without interest to our readers .

The narrative was obtained , in the year 1720 , by Dr . Thomas Brett , from the lips of Lord Heneage , Earl of Winchelsea , the . then , owner of Eastwell House ; and was communicated by the doctor , in a letter , to his friend William Warren , President of Trinity Hall , Cambridge . This letter was shortly afterwards published by Peck iu his " Desiderata Cttriosa , " and to that work we are indebted for the account of the tradition as told b y the Earl of Winchelsea . "When Sir Thomas Moyle [ Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations in

the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII . ] built that house [ Eastwell-Place ] , he observed his chief bricklayer , whenever he left off work , retired with a book . Sir Thomas had curiosity to know wdiat book the man read ; but was sometime before he could discover it , he still putting the book up if any one came toward him . However , at last Sir Thomas surprised him , and snatched the book from himand looking into it found it to be Latin . Hereupon he

ex-, amined him and finding he jiretty well understood that language , he enquired how he came by his learning : hereupon the man told him , as he had been a good master to him he would venture to trust him with a secret he had never before revealed to anyone . He then informed him that he was boarded with a Latin schoolmaster , without knowing who his parents were , till he was fifteen or sixteen years old ; only a gentlemen ( who took occasion to acquaint him he