OXLADE FAMILY HISTORY

"Dwellers in the Valley of the Oaks"

HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

WHEREAS Buckinghamshire is given to bring forth Beech trees plentifully, which the English-Saxons in elder times called bucken, it may seeme conjecturally that Buckingham the chiefe towne, and so the whole shire, tooke the name from Beech trees. For there is a Country in Germanie bearing Beech trees named Buchonia, and with us a towne in Norfolke called Buckenham, fruitfull of Beech, as I have beene informed. This shire, carrying but a small bredth, runneth forth in length from the Tamis Northward. On the Southside it looketh into Barkshire, severed from it by the river Tamis; on the West, Oxfordshire; from the North it hath Northamptonshire, and from the East first Bedfordshire, then Hertfordshire, and afterward Middlesex. The Countrie generall is of a rich plentifull soile and passing full of inhabitants, who chiefly employ themselves in grazing of cattaile. It is devided into two parts, whereof the one, bending into the South ”and East and rising into hilles, they call Chilterne, in the English-Saxon tongue, Clytern, the other lying under it Northward is named the Vale.

2. Chiltern got that name according to the very nature of the soile of Chalkie marle, which the English men termed Cylt or Chilt. For all of it mounteth aloft with whitish hilles, standing upon a mixt earth of clay and chalke clad with groves and woods, wherein is much Beech, and it was altogether unpassable in times past by reason of trees, untill that Leofstane Abbot of Saint Albans did cut them downe because they yeelded a place of refuge for theeves. In it, where the Tamis glideth at the foote of those hilles with a winding course, standeth Marlow, a prety town of no meane credite, taking name of the said chalke commonly termed Marle, which being spred upon corne ground eaten out of heart with long tillage doth quicken the same againe, so as that after one yeeres rest it never lieth fallow, but yeeldeth againe unto the husband man his seed in plentifully measure. Neere unto this a rill sheaddeth it selfe in the Tamis, making way through low places, and where it turneth hath a towne upon it called High Wickham, or Wicombe rather, which happily thereof tooke the name considering that the German Saxons terme any winding reach of river and sea a wick, and combe a low Valle. And very many places we meete withall in England are named in that respect. This towne for largenesse and faire building is equall to the greatest townes in this shire, and in that it hath a Major for the Head-Magistrate worthily to be preferred before the rest. About the time of the Normans comming in, Wigod of Wallengford was Lord both of the Burgh of Wicomb and also of the villa forinseca (I speake according to the record of the ancient Inquisition), that is, The out Hamlet or bury. After whose death King Henrie the First laid it unto the Crowne. But King John at the length devided the said Out Berry betweene Robert de Vi-pount and Alane Basset. North of Wicomb mounteth up aloft the highest place of this region, and thereof it retaineth still the British name Pen. For the head or eminent top of a thing is with them called pen, and hence it is that the Pennine Alpes, the Apennine and many mountaines among us tooke their names. Neere unto this Wickham or Wicomb is Bradenham, seated in a very commodious and wholesome place, which now is become the principall habitation of the Barons of Windesor (concerning whom I have alreadie spoken in Barkshire), ‡ever since that in the memorie of our fathers William Lord Windsor seated himselfe heere, whose father Sir Andrew descended from the old stemme of ancient Barons King Henrie the Eighth dignified with the honor of Baron Windesor.‡

3. Tamis, having entertained the said Rill, commeth downe with a rolling streame by Aeton, famous for a College,the nource garden (as it were) or plant pot of good letters, which that most vertuous and godly Prince King Henrie the Sixt, as I have already said, first founded. And some few miles forward the river Cole entreth into Tamis, which running heere between Buckinghamshire and Middlesex giveth name unto the towne Colbroke, which was that Pontes whereof Antonine the Emperour maketh mention, as the distance on both sides from Wallingford and London doth witnesse. Neither is there any other place else in the way that leadeth from Wallingford to London to which the name of Pontes, that is, Bridges, might be more fitly applied. For this Cole is heere parted into foure chanels, over which stand as many Bridges for the commodity of passengers, whereof that it tooke this name the very signification of the word doth plainly shew, like as Gephyrae, a town in Booetia, and Pontes, another in France, where the Countie of Ponthieu, our Tunbrig, and others are so called of Bridges. This Countie of Ponthieu (to note so much by the way) descended to the Kings of England in the right of Aeleanor the wife of King Edward the First, who by her mothers right was sole and entier heire of the same. Cole by these severall partitions of his streames compasseth in certaine pleasant Ilands, into which the Danes fled in the yeere of our Lord 894, when Aelfred preassed hard upon them, and there by the benefite of the place defended themselves untill the English for want of provisions were forced to brake up siege and leave them. At this divorce and division of the waters, Eure or Euer, a little towne, sheweth it selfe, which when King Richard the First had given unto Sir Robert Fitz-Roger, Lord of Clavering, his younger sonnes of this place assumed their surname, to wit Hugh, from whom the Barons of Eure, and Robert, from whom the familie of Eure in Axolme is sprung and spred. ‡Farther within land are these places which I may not passe over: Burnham, better knowen by the Hodengs, Hundercombs, and Scadamores, who were Lords thereof and of Beacons-field successively by inheritance than by it selfe;‡ Stoke Pogeis, so called for the Lords thereof in old time named de Pogeis, and from them hereditarily devolved upon the Hastings, of whose race Edward Baron Hastings of Loughborrow founded heere an Hospitall for poore people, ‡making himselfe one of their societie,‡ and his nephew by the brother Henrie Earle of Huntingdon built a very faire house; and Fernham, the very same, if I be not deceived, which was called Fernham Roiall,and which in times past the Barons Furnivall held by service of finding their Soveraigne Lord the King upon the day of his Coronation a glove for his right hand, and to support the Kings right arme the same day all the while he holdeth the regall verge or Scepter in his hand. From the Furnivalls it came by the daughter of Thomas Nevill unto the Talbots Earles of Shrewsbury, who although by exchange they surrendred up this Manour unto King Henry the Eight, yet they reserved this honorable office still to them and their heires for ever.

4. This Cole carrieth downe with him another riveret also, which somewhat above from the West sheddeth it selfe into it: upon it we saw first Missenden, where stood a religious house that acknowledged the D’ Oilies their founders and certaine Gentlemen surnamed De Missenden their especiall benefactours ‡upon a vow of escaping a ship-wracke.‡ And then in the Vale Amersham, in the Saxon tongue Agmundesham, which vaunted it selfe not for faire buildings nor multitude of inhabitants, but for their late Lord Francis Russell Earle of Bedford, who being the expresse paterne of true piety and noblenesse, lived most deerely beloved of all good men. But the principall seat of the Earles of Bedford is called Cheineis, standing more East-ward, where both John the first Earle out of this family and that noble Francis his sonne lie entombed together. Unto which adjoineth on the one side Latimers (so named of the Lords thereof, I meane those more ancient Barons Latimer), before time called Islehamsted, where Sir Edwin Sands Knight, who tooke to wife the onely daughter of the Barons Sands, dwelt while lived in a very faire house, and on the other Chelsam Bois, where and at Draiton Beauchamp the family of Cheneis hath anciently flourished.

5. From hence I passed scarce three miles Northward but I came to the ridge of Chilterne-hils, which devideth the whole region acrosse from the South-west to the North-east, passing by many villages and small townes, among which that of greatest note is Hamden, which gave name to an ancient and well spred family in these parts. In the very East corner of these hils Ashridge, a retiring house sometimes of the Kings, standeth upon an ascent, where Edmund Earle of Cornewall, sonne to King Richard of the Romans founded a religious house of a new order of religious men in those daies called Bonnes Hommes, by him first brought into England, who professed the rule of S. Augustine and were according to the maner of the Franciscans clad in skie coloured garments. From this ridge or edge of the hils there is a large prospect every way downe into the Vaile beneath, which I said was the other part of the shire. This almost throughout is a plaine champion, standing likewise upon a clay soile, stiffe, tough,and fruitfull, with pasture medowes most plentifull of grasse and fodder, feeding innumerable flockes of sheepe, whose soft and passing fine fleece are in request even as farre as to the Turkish nations in Asia. But it is all naked and bare of woods, unlesse it be on the West side, where among others is Bernewood, whose foresters surnamed de Borestall were famous in former times. About this forrest the yeere after Christs nativity 914 the Dane furiously raged, and then happily it was that the ancient Burgh was destroied, whose antiquity Romane coined peeces of mony there found doe testify: which afterwards became the roiall house of King Edward the Confessor. But now it is a Country Village, and in stead of Buri-Hill they call it short Brill. In this Vale, although it be exceeding full of townes and villages, yet very few of them are memorable, and those either upon the river Tame or Usa, that is, Use, not farre from Tame, which watereth the South part of the Vaile.

6. Upon the rising of a prety hill standeth a faire Mercat towne well occupied and compassed about with many most pleasant greene medowes and pastures, commonly called Ailesbury, of which the whole Vaile is tearmed the Vale of Ailesbury. The English-Saxons called Aeglesburge when Cuthwulf the Saxon won it in the yeere of our Lord 572. For the Brittish name whereby it was knowen before, in continuance of time is utterly lost. Famous it hath beene in times past, especially for Ediths sake there fostered, who having obteined of her father Frewald this towne for her dowry, foorthwith by perswasion of the religious people bad the world and her husband farewell, and taking herselfe to the Veile for opinion of holinesse and devotion in that most pregnant and fruitfull age of Saints, became wonderfully renowned, even as far as to working of myracles, together with her sister Eadburg; of whose name there is a little towne among the hils as yet called Eadburton. In the time of King William the Conqueror it was a Mannour of the Kings, and certaine land-yards where heere given by the King with this condition, that the possessor or holder thereof (marke, yee nice and dainty ones) should find litter [straw] for the Kings bed when the King come thither. In the raigne of Edward the First, certaine Gentlemen named de Ailesbury, who bare for their armes Azure, a Crosse Argent, where by report (but I know not how truely) the Lords thereof. Certaine it is, they were in those daies men of the better sort and of great good note, and such as by marriage with the daughter and heire of the Cathaignes (who were in times past Lords of Middleton Cathaignes) came to a faire and goodly inheritance, which at last by heires generall came to the Chaworths, the Staffords of Grafton &c. But now the greatest name and reputation that it hath is by grazing and feeding of cattaile. Very much beholden also it is unto Justice baldwin, who not onely adorned it with publicke aedifices, but also made a passing faire causey [road] to it (where the way was very deepe and cumbersome) for three miles or there about in length. Heere round about in every side flocks of sheep pasture most plenteously in mighty numbers, loden with fleeces, to the great gaine and commodity of their Masters, especially at Querwidon, a Lordship belonging to Sir Henry Lee an honourable Knight of the order of the Garter, Eythorp, which sometim was the Dinhams and now the Dormers, Knights, and also Winchindon, appertaining to the family of the Godwins, Knights likewise, &c.

7. Lower we meet with nothing memorable upon Tame, unlesse Cheardesly be (as many thinke it is) the place which was called in the Saxon-tongue Cerdick-slege of Cerdic the Saxon, who fought a very sharpe and bloudy battaile there with the Britans. Neere unto it standeth Credendon, now Crendon, which was the Capitall house belonging to the Honour of Giffard, for so were those lands termed which fell unto Walter Giffard at the Conquest of England, whose sonne the second Earle of Buckingham and Ermingard his wife built the Abbay of note thereby in the yeere 1112. But his cousen Hugh de Bolenback, from whom by the females the Earles of Oxford are descended, held of him no small possessions in these parts. And the ruines of Bolebec Castle are seene hard by within the Parish of Whitchurch. ‡Nere unto which is Ascot, the principall Mansion house of the Dormers, from whence descended the Dutches of Feria in Spaine and others of noble note.‡

8. Usa or Ouse, in times past Isa and the second Isis, which with a soft and still streame passeth through the North part of this Province, arising in Northamptonshire and presently from his head, when being yet but small he closely entereth into this shire, runneth beside Bittlesden, which Robert de Maperstshall Lord of the place gave unto Osbert de Clinton Chamberlaine to King Henry the First, a powerfull Courtier, that he might not be punished as a fellon for stealing away one of the Kings hounds. But he restored it unto him againe with a cousen of his in marriage, yet lost he the same in the hot broile of the civill war under King Stephen, and Ernald Bois by way of a benefite and curtesie received it at the hands of Robert earle of Leicester. And hee in the yeare of Christ 1127 founded there a little Monastery for the Cistertien Monks. Then Ouse saluteth Buckingham the Shire town, which, as Marian saith, King Edward the Elder in the yeere of our Lord 8915 fortified with a rampire and sconces on both bankes against the invasions and assaults of the Danes. Yet was it of no great name, as it may seeme, in the first age of the Normans, seeing that in the reigne of King Edward the Confessor (as we read in William Conquerours Domesday booke) it discharged it selfe for one Hide and no more, and had but six and twenty Burgeses. As for the towne, it is seated upon a low ground, but the river Ouse, very commodious for Mils, encircleth it about save onely on the North side. The Castle, standing in the middest raised upon an hill cast up, whereof no reliques in maner are now to be seene, devideth the towne as it were in twaine. The greater part of the towne beareth North, wherein standeth the Towne-house, the other toward the South is the lesse, wherein is the Church, and that of no great antiquity, but in it was the Shrine of S. Rumald‡ a child, who being borne in Kings-Sutton, a Village thereby, was canonized by our forefathers for a child-saint, and much famed with many myracles.‡

9. From hence Ouse hasteneth faire and softly into the North, and more Eastward from the river, neere unto the woods, yee have a sight of Whaddon, the habitation in times past of the Giffords, who were by inheritance keepers of Whaddon Chase under the Earle of Ulster, and from whom it came to the Pigots, who passed it away by saile and alienation. There standeth now an house of the warlicke familie of the Greys, Barons of Wilton, who held the Mannour neere adjoining named Acton by Serjeantie of keeping one Gerfalcoln of their Soveraigne Lord the King. Whereupon that familie of the Greys hath for their Badge or Cognisance a falcont seiant [perched] upon a glove. Not farre from thence is Thornton, an habitation of the Tirelles, and Sauldon, where is a faire and lovely house built by Sir John Fortescue a right honorable Knight and deeply learned withall, who for his wisdome was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Duchie of Lancaster, and of the privie Counsell to Queene Elizabeth and King James. On the other side of the river and not farre from the banke stand neighbour-like Stow a house of the familie of Temple, Leckhamsted an habitation of the Greenwaies, Lillinstone likewise the seat of the ancient familie De-Hairell, commonly called Dairell, and Luffeld, where in times past was founded a Monasterie by Robert Earle of Leicester, but by reason that the Monkes were all consumed with the plague, the house was utterly left desolate. Somewhat higher on the South side of the river upon the very banke standeth Stony-Stratford, a towne of all the rest most frequented, named so of Stones, the Streetway, and a Fourd. For the houses are built of a certaine rough stone which is digged forth in great abundance at Caversham hard by, and it standeth upon the publicke Street commonly called Watlingstreet, which was a Militarie high way made by the Romanes, and is evidently to be seene yet beyond the towne with the banke or causey thereof, and hath a fourd but now nothing shallow and hardly passable. The towne is of good bignesse, and sheweth two churches, and in the mids a Crosse, though it be none of the fairest, erected in memoriall of Queene Aeleonor of Spaine, wife to Edward the First, with the Armes of England, Castile and Leon &c., also of the Earldome of Ponthieu whereof she was heire. And where sometimes there had beene a Fourd, the river Ouse hath a stone bridge over it, which keepeth in the river that was wont, when it welled with winter flouds, to break out and overflow the fields with great violence. But upon the banke of the other side, which riseth somewhat higher, the towne sometime stood, as the inhabitants themselves report. And there hard by is Pasham, a place so called of passing over the river, so that it may seeme in times past to have beene that passage which King Edward the Elder kept against the Danes whiles he fortified Torchester. But this passage or Ferry became quite forelet [abandoned] after that the Bridge was built at Stony-Stratford. Now if I should guesse that Lacotorodum, which Antonine the Emperour mentioneth, stood heere, beside the situation upon the Militarie Highway of the Romanes and the distance from other places, the signification also of the old name Latorodum fetched out of the British language maketh for me and favoureth my conjecture. Which name accordeth passing well with this new English name. For both names in both languages were imposed of stone and fourd. From hence Ouse runneth hard by Wolverton, anciently Wulverington, the seat of an ancient familie so surnamed, whose lands are named in Records The Baronie of Wulverington, from whom it came to the house of the Longvilles of ancient descent in these parts; and by Newport Painell, which tooke that name of Sir Fulcod Painell the Lord thereof, and was from him devolved to the Barons Someries of Dudley, who heere had their Castle. Then by Teringham (which gave both name and habitation to a worshipfull house and of great antiquity) it goeth to Oulney, a meetly good mercate towne. This farre and a little further reacheth the County of Buckingham by Use, the limit and bound thereof.

10. The first Earle of Buckingham, so farre as hitherto I could observe, was Walter surnamed Giffard, sonne to Osbern de Bolebec, a man of great name and reputation among the Normans. Who in a Charter of King Henrie the First is cited among the witnesses thereto by the name of Earle of Buckingham. After him followed his sonne, bearing the same name, who in the booke of Abbindon Abbay is called Earle Walter the yonger, and died issuelesse in the yeere 1164. Afterward in the reigne of Henrie the Second that famous Richard Strangbow Earle of Pembroch called Conquerour of Ireland, who derived his descent from the sister and heir of Walter Giffard the second in certaine publicke instruments, bare this title. Then for a long time after lay this title as it were out of use and quite lost, untill that in the yeere 1377 King Richard the Second conferred this honor upon his Unkle Thomas of Woodstock, of whom I have already spoken among the Dukes of Glocester. Of this Thomas his daughter, married unto Edmund Earle of Stafford, was borne Humfrey Earle of Stafford, created Duke of Buckingham with an invidious precedence before all Dukes of England by King Henrie the Sixt, in whose quarrell he spent his life, fighting most valiantly in the battaile at Northampton. After him succeeded his grandchild Henrie, by his sonne Humfrey, who made way for King Richard the Third the usurper unto the Kingdome, and streightwaies practised to depose him for that he would not restore unto him the inheritance of the Bohuns, by hereditarie right belonging unto him, but he, beeing, intercepted, lost his head for it, and found (but all too late) that Tyrants very often hew downe the staires and steps whereby they ascended. His sonne Edward, being restored againe through speciall favour of King Henrie the Seventh, by the wicked slights and practises of Cardinal Wolsey fell into disgrace with King Henrie the Eighth, and being condemned of high treason for that among other matters he had consulted with a wizard abut succession of the Crown, was beheaded, a noble man exceeding much missed and lamented of good men. Which when the Emperour Charles the Fifth heard, he said (as it is written in his life) that a butchers dogge had devoured the fairest buck in all England, alluding to the name Buckingham and the said Cardinall, who was a Butchers sonne. Ever since which time the splendour of this most noble familie hath so decaied and faded that there remaineth to their posterity the bare title onely of Barons of Stafford, ‡whereas they were stiled before Dukes of Buckingham, Earles of Stafford, Hereford, Northampton, and Perch, Lords of Brecknock, Kimbalton, and Tunbridge.‡

There are reckoned in this small shire Parishes 185.

Source: Copied in it's entirety from http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/cambrit/buckseng.html

Last changed: 2711/2006, 15:45:00