e, otherwise le Blount, who will be the subject of the next chapter'. pr uti'il Gene- " Dessenz of Noble Noblemen. Harl. MSS. No. 1074. Art. 39. f. alogy, No. 2 1 . ' There was a Richard Croke, who was Nottyngham Pursuivant at Arms, and died in the twenty-second year of Henry the Seventh or Eighth, 1506, or 1530. Rex omnibus &o concessimusdilecto subdito nostro Thomae Treheron officium Persevanti, vulgariter Notyng- ham appellati — per mortem Richardi Croke, 30 Ap. An. Keg. XXIJ. Kennet in Bliss's Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. i. p. 25y, note. Weever mentions a Richard Crooke who was Wind- sor Herald in the reign of Henry the Eighth. Fun. Mon. p. C76. For this first part of the Croke family there are four documents. 1 . The account of the change of name, a manuscript printed in the Appendix, No. XX. 2. A pedigree on vellum, beautifully illuminated, which begins with James Croke alias le Blountz, and ends with the children of William Croke, perhaps about the year 1670, penes me. 3. A pedigree in the Harleian Manuscript, No. 1074, drawn up apparently in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which is here printed, Genealogy No. 21. 4. A pedigree in Rawlinson s Manu- script in the Bodleian Library, No B. 74. p. 131. There are some variations, and differ- ences between them, which will appear in the following comparative view. From the whole I have extracted what appeared the most probable account, upon comparing dates, times, and circumstances. Account of change of name. Thomas le Blount, Knight, of Warwick- shire, temp. Ed. I. Nicholas le Blount, 35 Edw. III. Nicholas le Blount, temp. Rich. II. Vellum Pedigree. Dessenz Pedigree. Rawlins Peclisr Jacobus Croke, alias les Blounts. Richardus Croke, married Alicia. I John Croke, married Prudentia Cave. Nicholas le Blount, alias Croke, married Agnes Heynes. Richardus Croke. I John Croke, married Cave. Nicholas le Blount, Knight of Warwick- shire, 35 Edw. III. James Blount. Richard Blount. I John Croke, md. Prudentia Cave. fc S-S.s w ~~ Sc-S-j: ~ <S< H || hJ CQ II *f fc 3 H s| -J — ■ O CQ c *o "rt fc fa S? ^ 8 SI 2 ^j « v. r~J> c CC <-§ IT r. s ™ 3 W ffi II Q Q II 11, 3 S3 *o ~ o H • ^ <n - H z > 1 — ' ^ 1 - £ C H ^ -. ,;?_. e is ffl es 3 C £ — t^ § "a « s» a i — p .2 ~* s o i 3 H O c« G *§« |* 3 A ' M — « 0) .2 — r r ii £ >* 5= > « rs a> t? — 1 s- a PQ - "c = § j ^ 'S J a "o O" <-i a = *j J H ° £ s 1 g gjj i | — ' ce w -5 5 s 8 O W J3 j : 1*3 — pO ~ II f beta •- J °'o || «1 II' || — J^ a V i 2. §1 .2 c I'll ~ c M fe j a — ! p.'3. '1!l ^ c g = = S?_o o > 3I~ S> 1 chap. i. CHANGE OF NAME. #393 As there is a very ancient document of about this period, which con- tains the coats of arms of some of the le Blount family, this may be a proper time for considering their different bearings more particularly. We have seen that three different coats of arms were borne by le Blount in the earliest times : Lozengy, or and sable, by the Barons of Ixworth : Barry nebuly, or and sable ; and gules, a fesse between six martlets, argent, by the descendants of the first Sir William le Blount. And there can be no doubt but that all the branches of the le Blount family are equally entitled to each of those arms ; being lineally descended from those who bore them. Yet the lozengy arms have been laid aside since the ex- tinction of the Barons of Ixworth'. And though at this day the Blounts generally use the nebuly arms only, and the Croke family the martlets ; they were formerly borne promiscuously by all branches of the family. Thus in the Sodington branch, Peter le Blount used both coats ; his brother Sir Walter le Blount of Rock had for his seal the nebuly arms ; Sir William le Blount, son of Sir Walter, sealed first with the martlet arms, and afterwards with the nebuly arms?. They both were found in painted glass in the window of the chapel of the Blount family, in Mamble church b . And the martlets are introduced as the second quarter in the coat of Blount of Sodington in the Heralds' Visitation in 1634 1 . In a Manuscript in the Harleian Collection are the arms emblazoned of the knights of the several counties of England, in the time of Edward the First. Under the head of Warwickshire we find enrolled, " Sir William le Blountz," with his arms described, " unde of 6, or and sable." Sir Thomas le Blount with, "gules a fes entre 6 martlets argent 1 '." The same Catalogue was published from other manuscripts by Rowe Mores, at Oxford, in 1749, under the title of Nomina et Historia Gentilitia Nobilium Equitumque sub Edwardo primo Rege militantium, in a small quarto in black letter 1 . He supposes the catalogue was written between ' They are introduced in the arms of Mountjoy Blount, Earl of Newport, in Mr. Wm. Blount's old parchment, but as they are the fifteenth quarter, and not stated to be Blount, I imagine they must be the arms of some other family. 8 See their seals post, p. 125, 127, 130. h Nash's Worcestershire, vol. ii. p. 157- Habington's MSS. in Bib. Societ. Antiq. 1 In Coll. Arm. c. 30. k Harl. MSS. No. 1068. fol. 71. 1 It was printed from R. Dodsworth's MSS. vol. 21. and Robert Glover's " Copies of Olde Rolls of Arms," in Queen's College library. Mores printed only a few copies. T 394* CHANGE OF NAME. book ii. part ii. the fifteenth and nineteenth years of Edward the Second, 1:321, and 1 32.5, because Edmund of Woodstock, as Earl of Kent, and Hugh le Despenser, are mentioned ; of whom the first was created Earl of Kent in 1321, the latter beheaded in 1325. Mores speaks in warm terms of this book, and says that it is, without a rival, the most ancient heraldic document existing-. In this copy the names and arms are thus recited ; Warwickshire, " Sir William le Blount, oundee de or et de sable. Sir Thomas le Blount de joules, a une fesse e vi merclos de argent." In the arms of the tilters at the tournament at Dunstable, in the second year of Edward the Second, 1308, in " le comte de Warwick" are Sir William le Blond, with the nebuly arms, and Sir Thomas le Blond, with the martlets'". These were probably Sir William, the son of Sir Walter le Blount, of Rock, who married Margaret de Verdun, and Sir Thomas le Blount who was tin- husband of Juliana de Leyborne. They are styled knights of Warwick- shire, though the principal seat of one was at Rock or Sodington, in Worcestershire, and of the other at Belton, in Rutlandshire, because they were tenants of the Earl of Warwick, and therefore fought under his banner". Yet this Sir William le Blount used seals both of the nebuly and martlet arms, as is already mentioned. Sir Thomas le Blount to the deed before recited has affixed a seal with the nebuly arms: and his eldest son used the nebuly arms likewise. It should seem there- tore, that though, in their seals and private legal transactions, they used either coat, in war and tournaments, when from their being clothed in armour distinctions were necessary and usual, Sir William confined himself to the nebuly coat, and Sir Thomas to the mart- lets. Hence in the Croke Manuscript it is said, that Sir Thomas le Blount bore for his arms gules, a fesse between six martlets, argent, and that from him they have been derived to the Croke family, who are descended from his second son Nicholas, and have always borne those arms. Aut\ being so descended from a second son, in early times they bore a crescent m Harl. MSS. No. 10(58. So in Edward the Fourth's time. Ibid. fol. 115a. Dodsw. vol. 35 f. 78. Ces sont les noms et le* arras bannerets de Engleterre, arms as before. Edw. II. " Hampton Lovet, Tiiuberlake, and other manors belonging to the family, were held of :he Earl of Warwick. chap. i. CHANGE OF NAME. #395 upon the martlet arms. The oldest emblazonment which I have met with is in the " Dessenz of Noble Noblemen," which was written early in the reign of Henry the Eighth. It commences with the second Nicholas le Blount, alias Croke, the grandson of Sir Thomas le Blount, and has the martlet arms with a crescent on the fesse". The crescent is found like- wise in the arms of John Croke, who married Prudentia Cave, the great grandson of Nicholas, and died in [554; in brass upon his monument at Chilton, and in stone over the porch at Studley Priory. In that of his eldest son Sir John Croke, in the same places, in a painted glass window at Studley Priory, and on a seal ring on his finger in his portrait p. The crescent was borne likewise by his eldest son Sir John Croke the Judge, and after this it was discontinued. The nebuly arms seem to have been continued in the elder branch of the Belton family. Harl. MS. No. 1074. Art. 39. t'ol. .3.5, 5rj. In this book in the genealogy of the King's of England, fol. 172. 6. Henry VIII. is the last, and Henry Prince of Wales is there. As he was born Jan. 1, 1509, and died Feb. <22, old style, the book must have been written in 1510. The Lady Mary is in another hand and ink. It has the name of Henry Lilly, Rouge Dragon, written in it. Genealogy, No. 21. p Penes me. JOHN CROKE, alias LE BLOUNT. 393 CHAPTER II. JOHN CROKE, ALIAS LE BLOUNT, ESQUIRE. DI GRESSION, THE HIS- TORY OF THE PRIORY OF STUDLEY, ITS POSSESSORS, FOUNDERS, AND BENEFACTORS. RICHARD CROKE, DOCTOR IN DIVINITY. John Croke, or le Blount, Esquire, and Prudentia Cave. THE year of the birth of John Croke, alias le Blount, Esquire, the son of Richard and Alicia Croke, alias le Blount, does not appear. From his subsequent promotion it is evident that he must have been edu- cated in the profession of the law. Of his early life, and the gradual steps of his advancement, no memorials have been preserved. We first find him, in the year 1522, one of the Six Clerks in the High Court of Chan- cery. As the Chancellor had been almost always an ecclesiastic, these officers were anciently actual cleri, or in holy orders, and were regularly promoted to livings under the Chancellor's patronage. They were originally six in number : in the early part of the reign of Richard the Second, they were reduced to three ; and by an ordinance in Chancery, of the twelfth year of that king, they were again restored to their first number. As clergy- men they were incapable of marrying ; and even when they ceased to be in orders, the ancient custom of their celibacy still continued ; a restraint which was confirmed by the same ordinance, and was observed till the reign of Henry the Eighth*. In the fourteenth year of that monarch, 1 522, a petition was presented to Parliament by John Trevethen, Richard a Ordinatum est quod idem Custos Rotulorum jam habeat sex clericos, et non plures, scribentes in rotulis praedictis, ex causa supradkta, proviso quod nullus eorundem clerico- rum sic scribentium sit uxoratus. Hargrave's Manuscripts, in the British Museum, No. 221. page 22, entitled, " The Antiquitie of the Six Clerks." 3 E 394 JOHN CHOKE, alias LE BLOUNT. book iv. Welles, Oliver Leader, John Croke, William Jesson, and John Lemsey, who then filled the office, and which was to this efifect. " In most humble wise beseechen your highness, your true and faithful " subjects, and daily servants, the six clerks of your high court of Chan- " eery, that whereas of old time accustomed hath been used in the said " court, that all manner of clerks and ministers writing to the Great Seal, '• should be unmarried, (except only the Clerk of the Crown,) so that as " well the Cursitors, and other Clerks, as the Six Clerks of the said Chan- " eery, were by the same custom restrained from marriage, whereby all " those that contrary to the same did marry, were no longer suffered to " write in the said Chancery, not only to their great hindrance, losing " thereby the benefit of their long study, and tedious labours and pains in «' youth taken in the said court, but also to the great decay of the true " course of the said court. And forasmuch as now the said custom taketh t; no place nor usage, but only in the office of the said six clerks, but that i; it is permitted and suffered for maintenance of the said course, that as " well the said Cursitors, as the other clerks aforesaid, may and do take • wives, and marry at their liberty, after the laws of holy Church, and of li long time have so done without interruption or let of any person. It " may therefore please your highness of your most abundant grace, with " the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons in " this present parliament assembled, to ordain, enact, and establish, that " the said six clerks, and all others which in time to come shall be in the " same office, may and do take wives and marry at their liberty, after the " law of holy Church, and so married may hold their said office as they " should do before the said espousals." The petition was favourably received, and passed into a statute 1 '. In the year 1529 5 when Sir Thomas More was appointed Lord Chancellor, he was at the head of the department . That good and able man, upon coming into his office, found the Court of Chancery filled with many tedious causes, some of which had hung there for almost twenty years. To prevent the recurrence of these pr