Not long after Astley had the honour to play the last stake for the king. From Oxford was sent a party of fifteen hundred to meet the remnant of the royal army gathered under his banners. But all intelligence as to his movements was intercepted, till his friends learned that he had been routed after a stubborn resistance by Sir Thomas Brereton and Colonel Morgan at Stow-in-the-Wold (21 March 1646). Morgan, though second in command, bore the main brunt of the engagement, and was allowed to announce its success in a letter to the speaker. Lord Astley's speech to Brereton's officers — 'You have now done your work and may go to play, unless you will fall out among yourselves' — has 'something of prophetic strain,' prompted by the veteran's 'old experience.' The conquerors (who ordered a special thanksgiving for their victory) seem to have borne him no lasting ill-will. His release from Warwick Castle (June) was one of the terms of capitulation granted to Oxford on its surrender to Fairfax. An ordinance (passed 8 March 1648) cleared him of his delinquency. But he had his share of the inconveniences then attaching to conspicuous loyalty. The council of state, in the anxious months before Worcester battle, wrote to Colonel Dixwell (a regicide and ex-state councillor commanding in Kent), to arrest 'and secure in one of your garrisons furthest from their houses, and from the places where they have any influence,' certain old cavaliers. Among them was Astley — 'Sir Jacob Astley' — his title not being acknowledged by the parliament. He was brought to London, and on 15 May 1651 order was made that he should be allowed the liberty of the Fleet. On 31 May he was called before the council and allowed to return to his residence in Kent on giving bail in 1,000l., with two sureties in 500l. each. He died (February 1651-2) in the old palace of Maidstone (granted by Elizabeth to Sir John Astley). His wife, Agnes Imple, a German lady, brought him two sons and a daughter. One son, Sir Bernard, fell in the siege of Bristol. The barony became extinct in 1668 by the death of Lord Astley's grandson without issue. A portrait of Astley (the property of Mrs. Branfell) was in the National Portrait Exhibition of 1866.
[Clarendon's Hist. of Rebellion; Rushworth's Hist. Collections; Calendars of State Papers, Domestic]
ASTLEY, JOHN (d. 1595), master of the Jewel House, was the eldest son of Thomas Astley, Esq., by his second wife Anne (Wood). He held a confidential position in the household of the Princess Elizabeth, on whom his wife Catherine was in attendance, although she was for a time removed from that charge by a special order of the privy council. In a letter to his friend Roger Ascham (1552) he refers to their friendly fellowship at Cheston, Chelsey, and Hatfield, and their pleasant studies in reading together Aristotle's 'Rhetoric,' Cicero, and Livy. Leaving England in the reign of Queen Mary, he played a conspicuous part in the troubles of the English church at Frankfort. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to this country, and in December 1558 was appointed master of the jewel house and treasurer of her majesty's jewels and plate, with the annual fee of 50l. His wife was appointed chief gentlewoman of the privy chamber, and he was also one of the grooms of the chamber. Soon afterwards he obtained from the crown a grant of the mastership of the game in Enfield chace and park, with the office of steward and ranger of the manor of Enfield. Accompanying her majesty on her visit to the university of Cambridge in 1564, he was created M.A. In or about 1568 the queen granted him a lease in reversion of the castle and manor of Allington in Kent, and he also had an estate at Otterden in the same county. He represented Maidstone in the parliaments of 29 Oct. 1586 and 4 Feb. 1588-9, having before sat in the House of Commons. His death appears to have occurred about July 1595. By his first wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne of Devonshire, he had no issue. His second wife was Margaret, daughter of Thomas Lord Grey, by whom he had a son, afterwards Sir John Astley, and three daughters.
Astley was the author of 'The Art of Riding, set foorth in a breefe treatise, with a due interpretation of certeine places alledged out of Xenophon, and Gryson, verie expert and excellent Horssemen: Wherein also the true use of the hand by the said Grysons rules and precepts is speciallie touched: and how the Author of this present worke hath put the same in practise, also what profit men maie reape thereby: without the knowledge whereof, all the residu of the order of Riding is but vaine. Lastlie is added a short discourse of the Chaine of Cauezzan, the Trench and the Martingale: written by a Gentleman of great skill and long experience in the said Art,' London, 1584, 4to.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. ii. 182; Letter prefixed to Ascham's Report and Discourse of the Affairs of Germany; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 15; Ames's Typogr. Antiquities, ed. Herbert, 694, 959, 1111; Calendars of State Papers.]
