the middle of the fourteenth century. In 1505, however, the Chalfont property was sold to the Crayfords, and a few years afterwards the Crayfords sold it to William Gardyner. The son of this William Gardyner married the heiress of the other principal estate in Chalfont-the Grove-and the family thus became the chief landowners in the parish. In 1564, however, The Vache was sold to Thomas Fleetwood, Master of the Mint, and the Gardyners henceforth resided at The Grove.

We have now come to the Fleetwoods, a family better known than their predecessors, the Gardyners, for Charles Fleetwood, greatgrandson of the purchaser of The Vache, married, about 1553, Bridget, daughter of Oliver Cromwell and widow of General Ireton, and became General of the Parliamentary army, and afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland. His elder half-brother George was also an officer in the forces of the Parliament, and was one of those who signed the death-warrant of Charles I. He was, after the Restoration, brought to trial and pleaded guilty. With great difficulty his life was saved, and he retired to New England, where he died.

But it was a younger branch of the Fleetwoods which was more particularly connected with Chalfont, for the fifth son of Thomas, the

founder of the family here in Buckinghamshire, succeeded his father at The Vache. This son, who was the first Sir George Fleetwood, had a grandson, also named George, and like his cousin, the George whom we mentioned before, a distinguished Puritan officer and a regicide. He also was tried for high treason in 1661, and escaped with difficulty.

William, the seventh and youngest son of the first Sir George Fleetwood, was a Royalist. He acted as Chaplain to the King's army, and was entrusted with the care of the young princes, Charles and James, at the battle of Edgehill. After the Restoration he was made Chaplain to Charles II. He was presented to the rectory of Denham, the next parish to Chalfont, in 1669, and also became Provost of King's College, Cambridge. Finally he was consecrated Bishop of Worcester in 1675. There he died, in 1683, at the age of eighty

one.

A rector of Amersham, Benjamin Robertshaw, has inserted some notes about the Puritan families in his neighbourhood in his register, where we read as follows:

"1655. October ye 12. Edward Cutler, the late Register then died, and was buried the 14th day of the same month."

"October ye 19th. Paul Ford was then

lawfully elected Register, and sworne by ffrancis Russell, Esqe., Justice of the Peace, the 20th of the same month. This Francis Russell lived at ye Hill Farm, in ye Parish of Chalfont St. Giles, and on ye confines of this Parish he was one of Oliver's Justices, and a fit man for ye times. I knew his son, a kind of Non. Con., who came to poverty and sold ye Farm. General Fleetwood lived at Ye Vache, and Russell on ye opposite Hill, and Mrs. Cromwell, Oliver's Wife, and her daughters, at Woodrow, High House, where afterwards lived Captain James Thompson, so ye whole country was kept in awe, and became exceeding zealous and very fanatical, nor is ye poison yet eradicated. But ye Whartons are gone, and ye Hampdens agoing.-B. R. 1730." There is a little doubt as to whether "Wharton" is the last name but one to be read, for the register is not just here very legible.

The rebellion of the second George Fleetwood brought to an end the connection of his family with The Vache. Although his life was spared, the estates were confiscated and given to the King's brother, the Duke of York, who sold them to Sir Thomas Clayton, Warden of Merton College at Oxford, who was related by marriage to the Fleetwoods. Sir Thomas Clayton was in principle more like William

than George Fleetwood, for, while residing at The Vache, he made himself very zealous, as a magistrate, against the Quakers, who were at that time in the habit of meeting at The Grange. He was appointed Warden of Merton in 1660, and died at The Vache on the 4th of October, 1693, but was "buried on the 8th of October near the body of his sometime Lady, in a little vault of bricks, under the Belfrey or Tower" of his College Chapel. He was succeeded by his son, James Clayton, who, dying in 1714, left the estate to his wife, and she passed it on to her niece, Margaret Alston, who married Francis Hare, Dean of St. Paul's and Bishop of Chichester, and thus brought a new family to The Vache. Dr. Hare had been chaplain to the Duke of Marlborough, and had been present at the battles of Blenheim and Ramillies. He died in 1740, and was laid in a burial-place constructed on the south side of the church. In 1771 The Vache was sold by the Hares to a distinguished naval officer, Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser, who was one of the principals in a serious professional dispute in the last century. Sir Hugh and his brother admiral, Keppel, quarrelled as to the conduct of the former in their attack on the French fleet off Ushant in 1778, and as they were both in Parliament, naval tactics and political ques