related above, showed herself in after life well worthy of the promotion which she had gained, and died early in the present century at a good old age, honoured and loved by all her husband's family.

A friend of mine, who was for some years curate of the parish of Northmoor, has kindly sent me the following memoranda as a supplement to the story as told by myself:

"The living, as you know, belongs to St. John's College, Oxford, and when, as one of the Junior Fellows, I was appointed to it in 1839, I can well remember looking through the registers, and being much struck with the strangeness of a marriage, where the bridegroom signed himself 'Ashbrook' and the bride signed herself (not indeed by her mark, but in her own hand)' Betty (not Elizabeth) Rudge.' On enquiring of the Nalders, who were an old family residing there and who were our College tenants, they told me they remembered her sister, who was married, and who lived to a good old age, and who always flattered herself that if Lord Ashbrook, or, as he then was, Mr. Flower, had seen her before her sister he would have chosen her in preference for his bride. From what I could learn by tradition, Mr. Flower was a gentleman-commoner of Magdalen College, and coming over there to fish occasionally, was brought into contact with the

ferryman's daughter, and this ended in their marriage. He afterwards erected in the parish, at the river side, a large quadrangular building, one portion of which existed in my time, and was let in cottages, the rest having been pulled down. I never heard anything to the contrary of Betty Rudge being a good and devoted wife, and it is very possible that the education mentioned by you might have been bestowed upon her to make her more suitable for the mistress of a gentleman's household. She was also, doubtless, the ancestress of the Duchess of Marlborough. I remember in my younger and more imaginative days, it always struck me as a romantic history, and as I used to wander along the banks of the Isis at Northmoor, on the summer evenings when I was in my parish, I used to picture to myself her waiting so anxiously to ferry Mr. Flower over on his way back to College, and thought it might form the basis of an interesting story for one of the Magazines; but I never got further, and am glad that you have placed the story on record permanently. I think she must be credited not only with superior personal attractions, but also with a high tone of moral principle, to have induced her innamorato to make her his wife. 1 do not know whether she lived long, or what was the place of her death or her burial.”

I may add that I am told that in the parish of Shellingford, near Farringford, Berkshire, there is a tablet to Lady Ashbrook's daughter or granddaughter, connecting her with the Marlborough family. There is a portrait of her to be seen at Castle Durrow.

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ROMANCE OF THE TOWNSHENDS.

WE

E need not go very far afield, in dealing with the "great families," for proofs of the old adage which tells us that "truth is stranger that fiction." Facts have often proved it, and still continue to prove it, to be in reality

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stranger;" as we shall show our readers by recalling to their memories some events which happened in the family of the Marquis Townshend early in the present century, and which were all brought before the eyes and ears of the public by proceedings in the Upper House of Parliament somewhat less than thirty years ago, when the titles and estates of an ancient and honourable house in Norfolk, Hertfordshire, and Staffordshire had a narrow escape from passing into the hands of the illegitimate issue of a Huntingdonshire brewer.

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The Townshends, now Marquises and Viscounts Townshend,* Lords Raynham, &c., in the peerage of the United Kingdom, according to Collins, are an old family of genuine Norman extraction, being sprung from one Louis or Ludovic, a follower of the Conqueror, who soon after the Conquest married a Saxon maiden, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas Haywell. His great-grandson, Sir Thomas de Townshend, married a Norfolk heiress, and was buried in the Chyrche of the White Friers of our Ladye of Mt. Carmel," between Fleet Street and the Thames. His son and heir, Sir Roger Townshend, following his example, found a wife in Norfolk, and lies buried, according to his last will and testament, in the parish church of Raynham in that county, "in the middle or body of the church, before the image of the crucifix of our Lord," He appears to have become possessed, either by marriage or by purchase, of the estate of Raynham, which has ever

* Beside the Marquisate of Townshend, a yonnger branch of the family now hold the Earldom of Sydney, and only a few years since they enjoyed also the Earldom of Leicester, and the Barony of Bayning, a title recently extinct through the failure of heirs male. The same fate apparently awaits Lord Sydney's title in the course of time.

VOL. II.

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