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Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/137

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I 92 Diwom Nifits mmd Qmewus, 66. Leach Family (II, p. 58, par. 36). — In reply to a query in your last issue, the note in that issue will show that the John Leach who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Sir Alexander Napper, Knight, was John the uncle of the first Simon Leach, the Chancellor of Exeter Cathedral, not John the grand£aither. The coat impaling Napper on the tomb at Cade.eigh is that of Sir Walter Leach, son of Sir Simon, who ' married Sara daughter of Sir Robert Napper, the first Baron- et, the son of Sir Alexander Napper. This branch of the Napper, Naper, or Napier B^mily, when it first came into Eng- land (circ. Hen. VI 11^ settled at Exeter and afterwards re- moved to Ltiton Hoo in Bedfordshire, The Baronetcy is now extinct (see Burke). They bore a coat org. a saltire engrailed gu. between fomr roses of ike last. The same coat is borne to- day by the Irish Napers, the Somerset Napiers, and, with slight differencing by Lord Napier and Ettrick, the head of the Scotch family from which the others are sprung. In the Diary of Thomas Roberts of Stockley Pomeroy a village close to Cadeleigh, referred to by Martin Dunsford in his History of Tiverton under the year 16^5, is the following entry: — '*Siiiion Lech of Cadley was Head Sherrive this yeere . . . The 13th day of September Mr. Sherrife rood at powdroam to meet King Charrels there and from that they road at Plimmech to see the goin away of the fleet and there road with Mr. Sherrief many of his men." "Powdroum" is of course Powderham the then residence of Simon's patron, Sir William Courtenay, who had created the vast Courtenay Estate in Ireland and had formerly owned Cadeleigh Court. In turn Powderham became the house of Simon's *' noble godsonne Willm. Courtnay/* of whom an interesting account was recently given (II, p. 6, par. 6.) Simon apparently ^'roud'* from Cadeleigh, but must have waited at Powderham as the King did not pass that way until the 15th September, on which day he was journeying from Hinton St. George in Somerset to Ford House near Newton in Devon. Charles passed to the south of Exeter to avoid the plague which was then raging in that City, and probably crossed fthej Exe at Topsham. Charles returned to Ford House from Plymouth on the 24th following and left again on the 26th, sleeping that night at Hinton St. George as before. Simon Leach attended him to the boundary of his jurisdiction I