a very young man, not being of full age till 1422, though in 1421 he was taken prisoner by the French, but soon got released; he died about 1432, (in which year the probate of his will bears date,) and desired to be buried in Dunmow priory, ordering his executors to make an arch in the wall, near his mother's grave, allowing 40 marks to defray the expense, and requested that his own, and his wife and children's bodies should be there deposited. Elizabeth his wife survived him, who held in dower Hemenhale and Diss manors, with the hundred of Diss in Norfolk, the manors of Shimpling and Thorne in Suffolk, of Wodeham-Walter, Henham, Leiden, Vitring, Dunmow-parva, Burnham, Winbush, and Shering in Essex; she after married to William Massey, and lived to June 14, 1463, at which time she died, leaving Anne, wife of Thomas Ratcliff, Esq. and Elizabeth, (then single,) her daughters and heiresses; Anne had no issue, but Elizabeth afterwards married to
John Ratcliff, Knt. brother of the said Thomas, who was soon after summoned to parliament as Lord Fitz-Walter, and in right of his wife enjoyed all the honours and possessions of this noble family; and though we have different accounts of this matter, the escheat roll confirms it to me that this Elizabeth was the wife of John, and not of Thomas Ratcliff, as is said by some.
This family, as Mr. Le Neve thinks, came first into this county in 1411, when John Ratcliff, Esq. father of this Sir John Ratcliff, married Cecily, the widow of Sir John de Herling, by which he much advanced his family. This Sir John, after he was Lord Fitz-Walter, sided with Edward IV. against King Henry VI. and being by him appointed to keep the passage at Ferrybridge, which the Lord Clifford resolved to gain by surprise, was there slain, on Saturday before Palm Sunday, 1460, as he rose from his bed unarmed, with a poll ax only in his hand, in order to appease the fray, as he thought, among his own men, leaving his estate in possession of Elizabeth his wife, and John Ratcliff, afterwards Lord Fitz-Walter, his son, all which the said
John enjoyed till 1493, when he was attainted of treason, and being apprehended, was brought into England with several other knights, among which was Sir Robert Ratcliff, who was beheaded, but the Lord Fitz-Walter was pardoned; after that he went to Calais, and being there laid in hold, was beheaded, because he would have corrupted the keepers, with many promises, to have escaped out of the same, intending, as was thought, to have gone to Perkyn, at that time a pretender to the crown against Henry VII. who, at the time of his attainder, seized upon all his revenues, and among them, on this manor, hundred, and advowson, together with the manor of Watton's, or Cock-street, and Walcote in Diss, both which were become members of the great manor; and in 1498, the King presented here, by reason of the forfeiture and attainder of
