Brampton
Leman coat of arms The Leman family lived in Brampton Manor from1606-1807 (see Yeoman)
1 Topography
The above map shows the importance of rivers in the alignment of parish boundaries.
The River Wang flows west to east across the bottom of the map separating Wangford from Uggeshall and Sotherton from Brampton. Its northern tributary stream separates Brampton from Uggeshall and then Uggeshall from Stoven.
The picture above is a view from the road through the small community of Uggeshall Hill, south into the fenland pastures.
The northern part of the boundary between Brampton and Stoven at the top of the map branches off along a small stream through Brampton Town Fen and gradually climbs onto the clay lands to the west of Stoven Wood to the hundred boundary.
This sketch map shows the drainage pattern between Stoven and Spexhall in relation to the hundred boundary and the eastern edge of the clay plateau. The black circles mark the positions of churches and the green areas are the main woodlands (Swd Stoven Wood; Twd Titsal Wood).
Stone Steet runs north/south along the eastern edge of the plateau at a height of about 40 metres. The line of the road separates the tributaries of the Hundred River (from the Ilketshalls, through Redisham and Shadingfield and Sotterley (S)) and the River Wang (from Westhall, through Brampton and Sotherton) from the drainage of the Northern Blyth (from Spexhall and Wissett (Wis)).
The hundred boundary more or less follows the southern branch of the Hundred River which rises in Spexhall and Redisham. The boundary is often that of the stream itself and in other places it runs parallel to it on the southern side of the valley. The northern branch of the Hundred River runs through Ellough and Willingham (W). The parish boundaries also run more or less east west along the river valleys. There terminal alignments are parallel to Stone Street and this has been taken to mean that Stone Street pre-dates the settlements on either side of it. The road is thought to be a Roman transport link between the corn growing lands of Blything and the Roman outposts of the lower Waveney Valley.
The picture above was taken in July 2005 and shows the dry southern tributary of the Hundred River, which forms the boundary between Shadingfield and Brampton
2 Community Perspective
White
BRAMPTON, on the Beccles road, 4.5 miles N.E. of Halesworth, is a pleasant village and parish, containing 384 souls, and 1966A. 2R. 14P. of fertile land. The manor and advowson have been held by the Lemans since 1600, and now belong to the Rev. George O. Leman, of Brampton Hall, a handsome red-brick mansion, in a small, but well-wooded park, erected after the old hall had been destroyed by fire, in 1733. The Earl of Gosford, Mr. Henry Jex, Thos. Farr, Esq., and several smaller owners, have estates in the parish, and part of it is a small manor, called Hales Hall. The Church (St. Peter) is a small structure, with a tower and five bells. The rectory, valued in K.B. at £20, is in the patronage of the Rev. G. O. Leman, M.A., and incumbency of the Rev. Thos. O. Leman, B.A., who has a good residence, 11A. of glebe, and a yearly modus of £420 in lieu of tithes. The Town's Houses and about 3A. of marsh land let for £8, and a house in four tenements, let for £3 a-year, are vested with the churchwardens for the relief of the poor. About 12a. of meadow land, called the Town Fen, is let for £30 a-year, and the rent is applied in the service of the church. The original acquisition of the property is unknown. A Sunday School here has £9. 6s. 8d. yearly from Leman's Charity.
Cleveland John, veterinary surgeon and vict. Dog
Halifax Richard, blacksmith
Lay Wm. joiner
Lemon Rev George Orgill, M.A. Brampton Hall
Leman Rev Ts. Orgill, B.A. Rectory
Quadling Edw. wheelwright & smith
Sales John, blacksmith
Suggate Thomas, beehouse
Todd Robert, bricklayer
FARMERS .
Butcher John
Chipperfield Jno.
Clutton Samuel,
OLD HALL
Crickmer John
Gibson J.
Hamblin Wm.
Jex Hy.(owner)
Quadling Chas.
Read John
Skoulding Sarah
Squire Wm.
Woods George
Kelly
BRAMPTON is a village and parish (with a station 1.25 miles north-west on the East Suffolk branch of the London and North Eastern railway), 5.5 miles south from Beccles and 5 north-east from Halesworth, in the Eye division of the county, Blything hundred, petty sessional division and union, Halesworth and Saxmundham county court district, rural deanery of North Dunwich, archdeaconry of Suffolk and diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich. The church of St. Peter is a flint building in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and an embattled western tower containing 5 bells: in 1857 it was reseated with open benches and a new desk and pulpit of oak were erected, and in 1883 a fine new screen was plated in the church: the stained windows include two memorial windows to the Rev. Thomas Orgill Leman M.A. rector from 1837, d. 1873, and another to Henry Jex, d. 1862: there are 170 sittings. The register dates from about the year 1760. The living is a rectory, net yearly value £411, with 8 acres of glebe and house, in the gift of and held since 1914 by the Rev. Herbert Alfred Phelps Gardiner M. A. of St. John's College, Cambridge, who is also vicar of Stoven. In the churchyard is a marble cross, on the base of which are inscribed the names of the men of the parish who fell in the Great War, 1914-1918. The town estates produce £4 yearly, which is given to the poor, and about 12 acres of meadow land, called the "Town Fen", is let for £20 yearly, which sum is applied to church purposes. There is also an endowment left in 1805 by Miss Leman, to this parish and the parishes of Cratfield and Redisham, for the support of Sunday schools, from which, this parish receives about £6 yearly. Brampton Hall is the residence of Mrs.Coney. Miss Beryl Naunton Leman is lady of the manor, and Messrs.W.J.Overland and Sons are the principal landowners. The soil is partly mixed and partly heavy; subsoil, clay. The chief crops are wheat, barley, beans, roots and sugar beet. The area is 2,074 acres: the population in 1921 was 336.
Sexton , George Last.
Post, T.& T.E. D. Office(telephone calls available to places within a limited distance).Letters through Beccles. Wangford is the nearest M.O.office.
Dutt
Brampton (station l and a quarter m. distant) is a village on the main road between Beccles and Halesworth. In 1606 the lord and patron of this place was Sir John Leman, who ten years later became Lord Mayor of London. To him was dedicated a curious poem dealing with the Gunpowder Plot, he being described as " the high-topt-cedar of Lebanon, chief magistrate of the famous city of London." The dedicator of this poem, which is entitled " Mischief's Mysterie, or Treason's Masterpiece," was John Vicars, "who translated and very much dilated it" from the Latin of the Rev. Dr Herring. The lordship of the manor is still held by the Lemans, who possess a portrait of Sir John in his mayoral robes. The church was originally E.E., but is now chiefly Perp.
3 Titsal Wood
Titsal or Titsall Wood is on the hundred boundary and shared between Brampton and Shadingfield. It is one of only five woods classified by Oliver Rackham as medieval woods in Blything. Medieval woods were not necessarily natural woods with a species continuity with the original wildwood. It is likely that since before Domesday they had been intensively managed by the local community as a renewable resource. Every five to twenty years the wood was cut down and allowed to grow again from the stools to yield underwood- poles and rods used for fuel, fencing, wattle and daub walling. It was common to have, scattered among the underwood, oaks that had been allowed to stand for 25 to 100 years, which when felled were a source of timber i.e. for beams and planks for building houses and barns.
The following map is part of the Brampton Tithe Map.
The parish boundary cuts through the wood,which at that time belonged to the Earl of Gosford. The portion in Shadingfield was about three times the size as the Brampton portion. The green dotted line in the photograph indicates the position of the parish boundary to the north east of Wood Farm. It runs across field 268, which was thereby divided between the two communities.
Titsal wood is in fact dominated by hornbeam coppice. The picture above shows part of the north western corner of the wood which appears to have been enclosed from the main body of the wood by a deep, wide rectangular ditch. All of the trees are hornbeams that have not been coppiced for decades.
The origin of these hornbeam woods is unknown but it can be surmised that they were deliberately planted because of the value of the coppice. In this respect the hornbeam was valued more than the ash, maple and hazel that were naturally the commoner species in a wood left to its own devices.
The ground flora in this part of Titsal Wood consists of patches of moss, an indicating that the closed canopy of hornbeam restricts sunlight reaching the woodland floor.
This picture shows a veteran hornbeam pollard, on the outskirts of the wood, close to the river.
Titsal Wood is one of a small cluster of ancient woods in the contiguous parishes of Brampton, Shadingfield, Willingham, Sotterly and Wrentham. These five communities straddle the northern border of Blything.
Another cluster is to be found straddling the south western edge of the hundred comprising the villages of Ubbeston, Laxfield, Dennington, Bruisyard, Sibton and Benhall.
These woods seem to be the remnants of a much wider cover at Domesday which stretched in a swathe of communities across the northern claylands of Blything
Ancient woods, practically all of which have been coppiced since mediaeval times or earlier, are found throughout the East Anglian Plain. There are around 1,000 ancient woods more than one hectare in size, covering about 7,200 hectares. About 40% of woods are less than five hectares in area and most of the rest are between five and twenty hectares. The woods are not equally distributed across the Plain. The South Suffolk and North Essex Claylands has about three times the density of woods and a higher proportion of larger woods than Mid Norfolk area and the South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands. In comparison with other Natural Areas, the East Anglian Plain is of high value within England for its ancient woods, when comparing the amount of ancient woodland, the proportion that still has semi- natural vegetation, and the variation within the vegetation types.
The sketch map to the left shows the positions of other woods to the north of Titsal Wood (TW) taken from the current O.S. map. The circles represent community churches. The one cloe to Redisham Hall ( RH) is the ruined church of St James.
Sparrow's Thicks (ST) is interesting. Like Titsal it is divided by a parish boundary (Weston and Shadingfield). The other point of interest is that the name Sparrow probably refers to the Sparrow family of Worlingham, a parish to the north east on the outskirts of Beccles. At the time of the Tithe Apportionment, the Countess of Gosford was Mary Sparrow heiress of the Worlingham Hall estate. This marriage is probably how her husband came to be listed as owner of Titsal Wood. The Sparrows owned land in several parishes to the south of Beccles.
The woods are all situated close to parish boundaries. The cluster on the boundary between Ringsfield and Redisham appears to be centred on Little Redisham Hall (RH) which is actually now in Ringsfield. Just to the north of the Hall is the ruined church of St James Little Redisham. The village of Ringsfield is much further to the north at Rinsfield Corner. There is very little evidence to trace the development of compartmentation of parishes in Suffolk. At Worlingham a detailed map of the manor has survived c 1606 and this together with a good manorial archive has provided evidence the community's open fields and greens at the edges of the parish were the last to be enclosed.
To place the woods in a regional context, it should be noted that the ancient woods of East Anglia are amongst the richest in the country for flowering plants. Some of the most attractive species are also abundant, with carpets of anemones, bluebells or violets being present in many. Plants, such as wood millet, wood sorrel, and herb paris are not found in the East Anglian Plain except in ancient woods. Oxlip is abundant in many west Suffolk and north-east Essex woods. The only other areas in Britain where it exists are a much smaller group of woods west of Cambridge and a few woods in the Thames Valley. Unspotted lungwort occurs in just three woods in the East Anglian Plain, and nowhere else in Britain. Trees such as wild pear, small-leaved lime and service are found in these ancient woods, but they are not generally found outside ancient woods unless they have been planted by man, although small-leaved lime is found in a few hedges in part of Norfolk and south Suffolk around Layham and Groton.
Two main vegetation types (as described in the National Vegetation Classification) dominate the Natural Area's ancient woods. These are ash-maple-dog's mercury woodland (W8) and oak-bramble-bracken woodland (W10). The ash-maple-dog's mercury woods are found on chalky clay soils, and have the highest number of ancient woodland plants. Oak-bramble- bracken woodland is found on neutral or acidic soil and is less rich in species. It is this community that has the attractive carpets of bluebells in the spring. Within the ash-maple- dog's mercury group, there are woods dominated by hornbeam (in the extreme south of the East Anglian Plain and in a cluster in north-east Suffolk/south-east Norfolk), and small- leaved lime (in Mid Norfolk and in the east of the South Suffolk and North Essex Claylands). Elm occurs as a shrub in some woods although it is now more common in hedges, particularly in the South Suffolk and North Essex Claylands.
4 Yeoman
Brampton has a railway station; Brampton' has a pleasant hostelry, standing on four crossways, and undoubtedly well known to travellers in the neighbourhood. But take away these two amenities and there seems to be very little in Brampton at all, for as one very often discovers there is really nothing resembling a street or anything similar-that is, if one excepts the habitations close by the station, but which cannot be said to typify the cottages of the countryside, resembling as they do the smaller houses of a town, which, of course, is only to be expected in view of the nature of their situation.
Yet, if Brampton, as a village-speaking in the way that one generally understands the term-has no particular visible existence, it would be wrong to imagine that it lacks the common appeal of the Suffolk countryside, for in point of fact Brampton is placed in very pleasant surroundings. And it is in one of the most enticing positions of all that the house of worship is raised, standing as it does on an eminence, as the guidebooks say-on an eminence and on a corner with towering trees around the churchyard, the latter now fragrant with the simple scent of primrose and violet and overlooking the rich green meadows in whose very appearance there is something rare and refreshing.
A long church-much more so than many others-St. Peter's possesses several features of interest, even although much of its original Early English style has been replaced, notably the tower, which is an excellent example of fifteenth century workmanship. In fact, this tower is quite impressive, and certainly massive, and in quaint contrast to its sturdy splendour, are several tiny windows, so small, in fact, that they seem almost toy-like by comparison.
Then, over the large Western window is a niche where a figure once stood, but having said so much it is advisable to inspect the interior of the church, although on the way we notice that the South porch also possesses an empty niche over the outer entrance, and lancet windows in the walls, whilst the inner door is of the solid, imposing type one associates with the fifteenth century, to which, in fact, it belongs, and even a casual glance reveals that it has suffered little through the passing of the years.
And immediately the inside of the church is gained one is confronted by what is probably the most interesting survival which the building retains. For here is a font of such uncommon design that it immediately attracts the attention, and, although restoration on a somewhat extensive scale has occurred-so much so, that it appears modern rather than old-it still exists as a worthy specimen of the Perpendicular style, whilst the sex-foil and eight-foil carving on the octagonal bowl are responsible for the uncommon style on which I have commented.
A piscina remains in the chancel, and is quite a good specimen, and nearby a window has been lowered to form sedilia. And as we are in chancel it is as well to notice the excellent priest's doorway, dating from the fourteenth century, whilst in the opposite wall is a very fine arched recess.
Much restoration has occurred in Brampton Church, notably in the middle of the last century, when open benches of oak were installed,and a new pulpit and reading-desk erected. Then in 1883 a screen was added, but this latter certainly exhibits some quite artistic carving, so that it assists to beautify the chancel and to prove that modern work can be quite as tasteful as the efforts of the old-time craftsmen
Several floorstones are in evidence, and amongst them can be seen matrices showing where brasses were affixed originally. But most of the slabs are of much later date, with their inscriptions perfectly legible, and amongst them are some to various members of the Leman family, who have been connected with the parish for many, many years.
And, having said so much, a fitting opportunity is provided of discussing the two manors of Brampton, and of these the far more important is that of Brampton itself, which, towards the end of the thirteenth century, was owned by Alan de Wymundale, who, if he did nothing else, is worthy of remembering in view of the fact that he obtained a grant of a market for the village. After Alan de Wymundale came several owners, until in the latter half of the fifteenth century it was purchased by Sir Roger Townshend, a member of the well-known Norfolk family, and a Justice of the Common Pleas.
A descendant of Sir Roger was present at that stirring sea-fight, where the little English ships-and the English elements-put to flight and shattered the stately galleons of Spain, and for his gallantry on that wonderful occasion he received the honour of knighthood at the hands of Howard himself.
The affray between the seadogs of England and the chivalry of Spain occurred, of course, in 1588, and about this time Brampton Manor was acquired by John Aylmer, Bishop of London, and Samuel Aylmer. They, however, were only here a comparatively short time, as in 1606 we find John Leman in possession, descendant of John de la Mans, who in the fifteenth century fled from his native Netherlands and found sanctuary in England's pleasant soil.
This John Leman, the new owner of Brampton Manor, was fated to play a prominent part in the country of his adoption, and amongst his many good deeds was the founding of the free school at Beccles which bears his name.
It is not only in Suffolk, however, that John Leman has left a reputation of some consequence, for when he acquired the manor of Brampton he was a Sheriff of London, and some ten years later he won for himself a Mary honour which has been bestowed frequently enough on people connected with Suffolk -he was made Lord Mayor of London. And when John Leman attained this distinction, no ordinary ceremony was sufficient to celebrate the occasion, for, being a member of the Fish mongers' Company, his associates naturally considered the honour to enhance, more or less, the dignity of their calling, and to throw a certain reflected glory upon themselves. Thus, they provided a truly impressive pageant-a pageant not merely spectacular, but magnificent in the extreme, and that John Leman was well able to play his part nobly in the affair subsequent events proved.
For soon afterwards he was knighted, and probably in honour of this further social success he held a sumptuous banquet at his residence in the neighbourhood of Billingsgate, a banquet to which he invited many leading people in the land, including members of the Privy Council,and, had not king James been otherwise engaged-in Scotland, as it happened - he would have been there as well, without a doubt.
The end of this popular and wealthy gentleman occurred in 1632, and he was interred in St. Michael's Church in Crooked Lane, where, I believe, the monument erected to his memory can be seen to-day.
Incidentally, Sir John Leman died a bachelor,in which he created something of a record, for not since the end of the 15th century had London possessed a celibate Lord Mayor.
At his death his nephews received his property, and Brampton Manor itself was in the possession of the Lemans until 1807, when the, last of the line died. This was Miss Mary Leman; but even then the name was to be - perpetuated, for she bequeathed the estate to a close relation-the Rev. Naunton Thomas - - Orgill, rector of Worlingham and Brampton, who adopted the name and arms of Leman, and, as a point of interest, the manor is still owned by the family.
Having mentioned Miss Mary Leman, it is worthy of notice that a monument to her exists on the South wall of the chancel of Brampton Church, erected "as a memorial of his own gratitude, and of the Virtues of his Benefactress" by the Rev. Mr.Orgill, who, as we have seen, had very good reason to bless her memory. Incidentally, on the opposite wall is another monument to the lady's parents. Robert Leman, who died in 1788, and Mary, daughter of Nunn Pretyman, who left this World some 26 years before her husband.
The original residence of the Lemans is the extensive farmhouse now known as Brampton Old Hall, and although I have described it as extensive now it was obviously much more so in the years gone by. For about 200 years ago a very serious fire occurred at this ancient manor-house, and so firm a hold did it obtain and so tremendous was the damage that much of the building was razed to the ground.
Yet, looking at Brampton Old Hall to-day, it seems impossible to credit the occurrence of such a fierce catastrophe, for, quite definitely, the old Hall is a most imposing place, with its magnificent old chimneys, its roof of thatch, and its general aspect of matured age and colourful dignity. The old Hall, in fact, is one of those fine old farmhouses of Suffolk which seems in some subtle manner to retain all the fragrance, all the beauty of a tinted past, and which brings a touch of old-time grandeur into the more mundane present. Then there is a, moat-or rather, two moats - one surrounding the house itself and another further afield. And it is these pleasant survivals which, so far as Brampton Old Hall is concerned, assist to complete and embellish a picture in which everything is painted with consummate artistry.
In contrast to this fine old place, Brampton Hall itself, standing on ground overlooking the church, is a somewhat plain affair, with that square and comfortable but scarcely picturesque look one associates with the larger houses erected towards the end of the eighteenth century, when, in fact, this new hall came into being. Yet the green grass and the trees help to beautify the building somewhat, for always where Nature reveals her most enchanting moods there is a glory for those who care to seek.
Another manor in Brampton was known as Hales Hall, and although this was only a small affair, and was held of Brampton Manor itself, it has a certain interest, through its association with people of some consequence. It obtained its name from Walter Hales, who was in occupation during the early years of the fourteenth century, but later it became the property of the Dukes, who resided in Brampton in very early times, for we hear of them in the village when the third Edward was King.
And it is, of course, through the Dukes that Hales Hall has a certain link with affairs of some consequence, but perhaps the most interesting item which emerges from their association with Brampton is the fact that one of them was Lord Mayor of London on no fewer than four occasions, and, what is more, on four occasions in succession. The member of the family who attained this signal honour was Roger Duke, and the years of his civic triumphs ranged from 1227 until 1230.
Thus Brampton can claim quite an intimate connection with the story of London Town itself, although, as I have conveyed earlier, Britain's premier city was glad enough on several occasions to avail itself of a Suffolk man or one connected with Suffolk when choosing its leading citizen. And such experiences only prove what many natives of our county persistently ever-that quiet, pleasant Suffolk, with its rippling streams, its green meadows, its tangled woodland, has never been behind hand in producing figures of outstanding importance in many and varied spheres.
5 Earls and Sparrows
Maps permeate our lives in ways that are often unacknowledged. In particular, through the naming of things, they are important repositories for the process of reconstructing old cultures and human relationships. Maps are our supreme fictions of the world, the surveyed side of our dreams. Stone Age hunters contemplated patterns in animal tracks; the frst stargazers made maps of the sky and built cities on the plains; sailors came home with salt in their beards because they could read rocks, winds, and stars. Maps merit meditation, if only in fragments, like murmurs on a summer night, variations on a theme. What theme? Call it the 'imagination of maps', their stories and histories as people pass through a land that charts their passage in ciphers as intriguing as the Rosetta Stone.
The account of people of the Blyth often extends into the border communities of adjacent hundreds. This story begins on the high clay plateau marking the division between the old hundreds of Blything and Wangford. Where this lonely boundary sparates the communities of Brampton in Blything and Shadingfield in Wangford, it actually passes through Titsal Wood, which is thereby divided between the two parishes. This wood is virtually unchanged from the Tithe Maps of the 1830s and 40s, when both parts of the wood were owned by the Earl of Gosford. A name and pedigree to conjure with.
On the modern map, a few miles to the north west of Titsal, is another wood named Sparrow’s Thicks, divided by the parish boundary between Shadingfield and Redisham.
The human connection between these two topographical features and the three parish histories is the marriage on 20th July 1805 of Archibold Acheson, second Earl of Gosford to Mary Sparrow, only child and heiress of Robert Sparrow of Worlingham Hall.
Through the Acheson family this story from a map takes a 400 year sweep of British Imperial history. In a narrower sense, the Sparrows throw light on the intense intellectual activities of the Victorian upper classes of the 'Sunrise Coast'.
The Acheson noble pedigree
Gosford Castle, Northern Ireland
The title Earl of Gosford was created in 1806 for Arthur Acheson, 2nd Viscount Gosford. The subsidiary titles held along with the Earldom are: Viscount Gosford (created 1785), Baron Gosford (1776), Baron Worlingham of Beccles (1835) and Baron Acheson (1847). The barony, viscountcy and earldom of Gosford are in the Peerage of Ireland, while the remaining baronies are in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The Earl is also a baronet, of Glencairny, Armagh, in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia. This was created on 1 January 1628.
Baronets of Glencairny (1628)
- Sir Archibald Acheson, 1st Baronet (died 1634)
- Sir Patrick Acheson, 2nd Baronet (c.1611-1638)
- Sir George Acheson, 3rd Baronet (1629-1685)
- Sir Nicholas Acheson, 4th Baronet (c.1656-1701)
- Sir Arthur Acheson, 5th Baronet (1688-1749)
- Sir Archibald Acheson, 6th Baronet (1718-1790) (created Viscount Gosford in 1785)
Viscounts Gosford (1785)
- Archibald Acheson, 1st Viscount Gosford (1718-1790)
- Arthur Acheson, 2nd Viscount Gosford (c. 1745-1807) (created Earl of Gosford in 1806)
Earls of Gosford (1806)
- Arthur Acheson, 1st Earl of Gosford (c. 1745-1807)
- Archibald Acheson, 2nd Earl of Gosford (1776-1849), elected a Representative Peer in 1811
- Archibald Acheson, 3rd Earl of Gosford (1806-1864)
- Archibald Brabazon Sparrow Acheson, 4th Earl of Gosford (1841-1922)
- Archibald Charles Montagu Brabazon Acheson, 5th Earl of Gosford (1877-1954)
- Archibald Alexander John Stanley Acheson, 6th Earl of Gosford (1911-1966)
- Charles David Alexander John Sparrow Acheson, 7th Earl of Gosford (b. 1942)
The Heir Presumptive is The Hon Patrick Bernard Victor Montagu Acheson, (b. 1915)
His heir is Nicholas Hope Carter Acheson (born 29 Oct 1947)
The Nova Scotia connection
In America in 1621 there was a New England, a New France, and a New Spain. An enterprising Scot, Sir William Alexander of Menstrie who was made a Knight in 1609, proposed that it might encourage development of a New Scotland if King James (VI of Scotland and I of England) were to offer a new order of baronets. The King who held court regularly at nearby Stirling, acted upon Sir William's idea. Cash for peerages was all the rage. His creation of clutches of Baronets of England in 1611 and the Baronets of Ireland in 1619 had raised £225,000 for the Crown.
At Windsor Castle on September 10, 1621 King James signed a grant in favour of Sir William Alexander taking up all of the lands ' between 'our Colonies of New England and Newfoundland, to be known as New Scotland ' (Nova Scotia in Latin). This was an area larger than Great Britain and France combined. On October 18, 1624 the King announced his intention of creating a new order of baronets to Scottish ' knichts and gentlemen of cheife respect for the birth, place, or fortounes ',
James I died on March 27, 1625 but his heir, Charles I, lost no time in implementing his father's plan. By the end of 1625 the first 22 Baronets of Nova Scotia were created and, as inducements to settlement of his new colony of Nova Scotia, Sir William offered tracts of land totalling 11,520 acres ' to all such principal knichts & esquires as will be pleased to be undertakers of the said plantations & who will promise to set forth 6 men, artificers or laborers, sufficiently armed, apparelled & victualled for 2 yrs '.
Baronets could receive their patents in Edinburgh rather than London, and an area of Edinburgh Castle was declared Nova Scotian territory for this purpose. In return they had to pay Sir William 1000 merks for his ' past charges in discoverie of the said country '.
The harsh climate killed many of the early settlers but the fatal blow for those who remained came in 1632 when Charles I ceded the lands to Louis XIII of France and ordered the removal of the colony and destruction of Charles Fort at Port Royal. Sir William Alexander, who was born at Menstrie Castle in 1567, was by now Earl of Stirling and Viscount of Canada. He died bankrupt in London in 1644 and his embalmed body is interred in the family vault in the High Kirk of Stirling. In Halifax's Victoria Park a cairn dedicated to Sir William Alexander, often referred to as the "Founder of Nova Scotia", stands at one end, with a statue of Robert Burns at the other.
The Order of Baronets continued and grants of land were made until the end of 1639, by which time 122 baronetcies had been created, 113 of whom were granted lands in Nova Scotia. The Order continued until 1707, by which time 329 baronetcies were made. None of the 207 Baronets created after 1639 received land grants in Nova Scotia.
There are still about 100 Baronets of Nova Scotia in existence, many of them descendants of those who once owned land there - land which they never set foot upon.
with acknowlegements to Marie Frazer