page vi note * The mansion house took its name from William Skrene, of Writtle, constituted Serjeant-at-Law 10th Henry IV. It passed afterwards to the Farmers, and Sampfords, by one of whom, Richard Sampford, it was alienated to Richard Weston, who became a Justice of the Common Pleas, and whose son, of the same name, afterwards Lord High Treasurer, was created Earl of Portland in 1632–3.

“The manor of Skreens” (observes Morant, History of Essex, vol. ii. p. 73) “has been all along in families that have raised themselves by their merit and eminence in the law, a circumstance attaching to no other estate that we know of in this county.” There can be no question that Chief Justice Bramston, who purchased the estate from the Westons, as well as his two brothers, one of whom was a Judge and the other a Master in Chancery, kept up the charter; but it is only right to state that at a much later period Thomas Gardiner Bramston, Esq., the last possessor of Skreens, so endeared himself to his brother magistrates as a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, and by his unwearied attention to the interests of the county, that after his lamented death they caused his Bust, executed in marble by Ternouth, to be placed in the Grand Jury Room at Chelmsford, with the following inscription :—

page viii note * Memoir, page 103.

page ix note * Memoir, page 103.

page xi note * The volume does contain the Reading alluded to, described as “Lectura Francisci Bramston Armigeri in Medio Templo, tertio Augusti 1668, super Statut. de tertio Jacobi, Cap. 4 ; entitled, An Act for the discovering and repressinge of Popish Recusants.” The Autobiographer only means that he wrote in the blank leaves of a book originally prepared for another purpose.

“Mr. Bramston, my old fellow-traveller (in Italy), now Reader at the Middle Temple, invited me to his feast, which was so very extravagant and greate as the like had not been seene at any time. There were the Duke of Ormond, Privy Seal, Bedford, Belasys, Halifax, and a world more of Earls and Lords.”—Evelyn's Diary, August 3, 1668.

page xi note † Amongst the monuments in the parish church, says Watson, the historian of Wisbech, that of Thomas de Braunstone is the most ancient. He was Constable of the Castle there, and, dying in 1401, was interred in the south aisle, where is a gravestone with his effigy engraved on brass plates. He is represented, under a rich Gothic canopy, in plate armour and painted helmet, with a lion at his feet, and this inscription round the verge of the stone:—

“Cy gist Thomas de Braunstone, jadis Conestable du Chatel de Wisebeche, qui mourut le vingt septieme jour de Maii, l' an de notre Seignour Mil CCCC primer. De l' alme de qui Dieu par sa grace ait mercy. Amen.”

There seems also to have been another monument of Bramstone of Wisbech in the church of Boston or Walpole; but nothing certain is known as to their being the ancestors of the Skreens family.—History of Wisbech, p. 259.

page xii note * Memoir, page 3.

page xiv note * Memoir, page 158.