Charlecote.details

Charlecote,
Near Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire.—Lucy.

Not to know Charlecote “argues one self unknown,” for it is to confess to ignorance of “Justice Shallow,” nd therefore of Shakespeare himself.

Falstaff. You have a goodly house and a rich.

Shallow. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John; marry good sir!

The knight’s opinion rather than the disparaging one of the owner, will be that of every one who can appreciate the beauty of an old English mansion.

On the banks of the winding Avon, about four miles from the native place of the great poet, stands Charlecote Hall, the ancient seat of the Lucy family.

In Saxon times [i.e. before 1100 or so—Liam] the castle was possessed by one of the name of
Saxi. It subsequently was held by the
Earl of Mellent, from whom it passed to his brother,
Henry de Nergurgh, Earl of Warwick, who enfeoffed with it
Thurstane de Montfort, whose son
Henry de Montfort, bestowed it on
Walter, son of Thurstane de Charlecote, or Cherlcote, (a son probably of De Montfort,) who by his wife Cicely had a son
William de Charlecote, who changed his name to
Lucy, in consequence, as is supposed by Sir William Dugdale, of his mother having been a Norman heiress of that name. He was one of the bold Barons who took up arms against King John, and was in consequence deprived of his lands, which were, however, subsequently restoerd to him in the first year of the reign of the succeeding monarch.

A lobg line of knightly descendants followed him, and in the Wars of the Roses the then head of the family took the side of the House of York, and his great grandson,

Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlecote, who lived under Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth, rebuilt the manor house, as it now stands in all its main features, in the first year of the reign of the latter. He was Member of Parliament for Warwickshire, and a Justice of the Peace—the “Justice Shallow” of the “Merry Wives of Windsor.”

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