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the first was called Bockland, whose owners were men whom we now call Freeholders; the second was called Folk-land, the owners of which were of servile condition, and possessed at the will of their lord. The inheritance, or freehold, did not in those days descend to the eldest son, but to all alike; which in Saxon was called Landescyftan; and in Kent, to Shiftland, whence came the custom Gavelkind. And the reason why it was retained in Kent more than other places, was, that the people of Kent, upon the Norman invasion, could not be reduced to surrender to the Conqueror, but ou these conditions, that they should retain their antient country customs without any infringement or diminution; and especially that of Gavelkind.

In the reign of Henry VI. there were not above thirty or forty persons in the county of Kent, who held by any other tenure than this of Gavelkind; which was afterwards altered upon the petition of several Kentish gentlemen, with regard to great part of the land in this county, so as to be descendible to the eldest son, according to the common law: by 31 Hen. VIII. c. 3. Though the custom to devise Gavelkind still remains; and all lands in Kent shall be taken to be gavelkind, except those which are disgavelled by particular statutes, the distinguishing properties of this tenure are various; some of the principal are these; the lands held under this denomination of Gavelkind, which is an antient soccage tenure, descend equally, and are divided, share and share alike, among all the male children; and in defect of these, among the females, They are of age, or qualified to take the lands upon them, at fifteen; and may then give, vend, or alienate the same to any person, without the consent of any lord: and children here inherit their father's land, though convicted of felony, murder, &c. according to the maxim:

The father to the bough

The son to the plough.

The tenants of Gavelkind are to do fealty, and to be in the tuition of the next a-kin, who is not next heir, to

them,

then, till fifteen years of age; and to pay acknowledgment to the lord for the lands, and various other customs*.

The county of Kent is remarkable on many accounts. History informs us that it was the first county in England; and the men of Kent boasted their superior strength, courage, and valour, in the antient wars with the Danes, &c. The front of the battle was looked upon as belonging to them, as so many Triarii, who, among the Romans, were the strongest men, and on whom the stress of the battle lay; and on these accounts the nobility of Kent laid claim to honours of the first rank. This antient spirit they still boast of, but at the same time it is blended with humanity.

William of Malmsbury writes, that "they retain a spirit above the rest of the English, being more ready to afford respect and kind entertainment to others, and less inclinable to revenge injuries."

This just compliment to Kent has been also a theme of high poetic lore. The immortal Shakespeare thus expresses himself:

Kent, in the Commentaries Cæsar writ,

Is term'd the civil Place of all this isle;
Sweet is the country, because full of riches,
The people, liberal, valiant, active, wealthy.

The inspired Drayton, also, in his Poly-Albion, thus exclaims:

O famous Kent,

What county hath this Isle, that can compare with thee!
That hath within thyself as much as thou canst wish;
Thy rabbits, venison, fruits, thy sorts of fowl and fish;
As what with strength comports, thy hay, thy corn, thy wood,
Nor any thing doth want, that any where is good.

Time, has not yet deprived this county of its antient name, but as Caesar, and others, called it Cantium, so the Saxons named it Cantpa-panic, i. e. the Kingdom of the Cantwari, People of Kent.

* Encyclopædia.

If

If the computation already given, is accurate, there are not more than five counties superior to Kent in size: but, extensive as it is at present, it is supposed to have been of larger extent. The western quarter particularly, is thought to have included all the land lying on the north side the road from New Cross, through Peckham, and from thence to Lambeth Ferry. Subsequent even to the Norman Conquest, the inhabitants of Surrey seem to have encroached on the boundaries of Kent; the parish of Deptford having been wholly within the latter, though Surrey now claims that part in which are the manor of Bredinghurst, and the manor and seat of Hatcham. Bredinghurst, at Peckham Rye, is particularly recorded as being one of the knights fees in Kent; divers inquisitions also taken since the time of Henry II. have found Hatcham to be within the same county. Hatcham lies at a little distance on the north side of the road. The old manor house was taken down but a few years since, and nearly on the same site is erected that large building, which can hardly fail of drawing the tra veller's attention. Mr. Hasted, in his valuable History of this county, observes that the name Hatcham denotes its situation close to the confines of both counties; as KentHatch in Westerham points out its situation at the very. outside of Kent, and as a messuage, called Kent House, does its near neighbourhood to the boundaries of it between Beckenham and Croydon, in Surrey. At present, and certainly for several centuries, the entrance this way into the county is not far from New Cross. The reception of prisoners from the county of Surrey having been for a long space of time at New Cross, inclined several to be of opinion, that the limits of the county are upon that spot; but in this they are mistaken, for they extend to a small bridge, now concealed by the raising of the road beyond Hatcham, near the way to Bredinghurst +.

After passing through the gate at New Cross, the road on the right hand leads to Lewisham, Bromley, Sevenoaks, and

* Yorkshire, Devonshire, Lincolnshire, Hampshire, and Northumberland. + Hasted's Kent.

VOL. V. No. 104.

K

Tunbridge,

Tunbridge, in Kent; and to Rye and Hastings, two of the cinque ports on the coast of Sussex.

LEWISHAM is situated in the lath of Sutton, and on the river Ravensbourn. It is a pleasant village on the borders of Surrey. The manor, according to Dugdale's Monasticon, is said to have been given, with its appendages Greenwich and Comb, by Elthreda, niece to Alfred the Great, to the abbey of St. Peter, at Ghent, to which this place became a cell. The grant was confirmed by king Edgar in 964, and in 1044 by Edward the Confessor, with many additional privileges.

The manor, &c. are thus described in Domesday Book: "In Grenviz hundred the abbot of Ghent holds Levesham of the king, and he held it of king Edward the Confessor; and it then was, and now is taxed at 2 sulings. The arable land is 14 carucates. In demesne there are 2 carucates, and 50 villeins, with 9 bordars, who have between them 17 ploughs. There are 8 slaves and 11 mills, with the rent of the socmen, amounting to 87. 12s. Of the profit of the haven (of Greenwich) 40s. There are 30 acres of meadow, and of wood. Pannage for 50 hogs. The whole manor in the time of king Edward was worth 16 pounds, and afterwards 12 pounds, and now 30 pounds."

The manor continued in the possession of the abbot and convent, till the dissolution of alien priories by Henry V. when it was granted by that monarch to his new founded priory of Shene. Upon the general dissolution of monasteries, this manor became the property of the crown, and was bestowed on John earl of Warwick, eldest son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland; on his attainder it reverted to the crown, and was bestowed by queen Elizabeth on his brother Sir Ambrose Dudley, who had been restored in blood by queen Mary, and, by Elizabeth, created lord L'Isle, and earl of Warwick. From this nobleman, after various changes, it came by purchase, with the rectory, &c. to George Legge, Esq. admiral of the royal navy, and afterwards earl of Dartmouth, in whose family it still continues, and constitutes the second title of the earldom, the eldest

2

eldest son being always denominated, by courtesy, lord Lewisham. An ancestor of the earls of Dartmouth was Thomas Legge, or as pronounced, Leggy, citizen and skinner, sheriff, and twice lord mayor of London, in the reign of Edward III.

Lewisham, on account of its length, has been subjected to the vulgar distinction of "long, lazy, lousy Lewisham," very undeservedly; its length is about a mile, interspersed with good houses, and gardens, the river forming a pleasant canal along the whole. The parish is of large extent, and the common between Blackheath and Sydenham, comprises nearly one thousand acres.

The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a new and handsome structure, erected in 1774, and adorned with monuments to the memory of some of the family of Petrie; one of which, for Mrs. Anne Petrie, and her son, consisting of a bas-relief of white statuary marble, enclosed within a border of dove marble, representing, in figures of the natural size, the deceased lying on her death-bed, her relations lamenting, was executed in Italy. The other, to the memory of Mrs. Margaret Petrie, who died in 1791, was executed by Banks, and represents her expiring in the arms of Religion, supported by Faith and Hope. In the vault, among others, is a memorial for Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury, and vicar of this church; and against the south wall, on the outside of the building, is a tablet in memory of the beneficent Abraham Colfe, minister, who died in 1657. Among the monuments in the church-yard is one to Benjamin Martyn, Esq. who died October 25, 1763, aged sixty-four. "He was the first promoter of the design of erecting a monument to the memory of Shakespeare, in Westminster Abbey, which was carried into execution by him, with the assistance of Dr. Mead and Mr. Pope, by the profits of a play; the prologue spoken on that occasion was wrote by him." There is also a monument to the rev. William Louth, M. A. brother to the learned bishop of Louth, vicar fifty-five years.

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