OLD LOUGHTON HALL.
17
repairs, exclusive of seventy timber trees to be had on the Manor, is
set down at £100, "The consideration of all which premisses,"
add the commissioners, "wee doe referre to yor wisdomes."
What was done in consequence of this report remains doubtful
But some time afterwards we find the Lady Mary Wroth, Sir
Robert's daughter-in-law, in an undated letter5 addressed to Anne,
the Queen of James I., beseeching Her Majesty to recommend to the
king Mr. Wroth's petition for a new lease. The request was evidently,
in some sort, a repetition of that addressed by his father, old Sir
Robert, to Michael Hickes ; for, in the course of her letter, the Lady
Mary alludes to the house as being old and in decay, and like
every day to fall down, and promises that her husband will make it
his chief dwelling-place and fit for Their Majesties. He is also
willing to pay £600 as a fine, or to spend that sum upon the build-
ing; and to lose £100 a year by letting the deer feed in his best
grounds, to which, by his lease, he is not bound. And, as a
further inducement to the Queen, who was clearly her very good
friend,10 the writer humbly beseeches Her Majesty's furtherance in the
business, on the ground that it will be much for the petitioner's
good, "Mr. Wroth having promised to add itt to my jointure, all
the rest of his lands beinge entailed." The result of the negotia-
tions was the grant, in 1609, of a new lease,11 to run for forty-one
years from 1644, when a former one, granted in May, 1579, to John
Stonerd, and then vested in Sir Robert Wroth (he was knighted in
1603), would expire. For this renewal the lessee paid £184, by
way of a fine, and bound himself to maintain in good condition all
thatched buildings, hedges, ditches, and enclosures, the annual rent
being, as in the time of the last Abbot of Waltham, £46—a suffi-
ciently good bargain, it would seem, for the fortunate lessee.
Some three years later, a fresh survey12 of the manor was ordered
to be made, on the ground that the Manor of Loughton had "not
been of long time exactly survaied, by reason whereof divers rents,
services, and boundaries, were concealed, detayned, and sup-
pressed" ; and the sheriff was instructed to provide a jury. The
survey was accordingly made on June 30th, 1612, and the first
paragraph of it runs as follows : —
Q Lord Salisbury's MSS. (Hatfield House): Cecil Papers, 130/174
10 Nichols (op. cit), iii., 541, names her as attending the Queen's funeral later on; and also
(ii., 756) states that the king stood sponsor to her son. by his deputy, the Earl of Pembroke.
11 D. of Lanc. : Counterpart Leases ; Class xv., No, 28.
12 D. of Lanc, : Surveys and Depositions (10 Jac. I.).
C