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But Ashford’s proffer passeth all—

It was both rare and gentle;

They would have pay’d his funerall

T’ have toomb’d him in their temple.

ssss1 Though a paragon, she lived, he would say, a quiet, retired life, obedient and loving to her husband.

ssss1 “Countrie”, seems not unlikely to be used here, as in the Discoverie not unfrequently, and twice in Wood’s notice just given, and, as then, for county.

ssss1 “Meane”, that is, moderate, midway between the very rich and the poor.

ssss1 “Envied”, most probably in its then frequent sense of hated.

Before returning to Richard and Reginald, we may conclude this short notice of their ancestors by mentioning the very probable circumstance that the former were, by the female line, descendants of John Gower, the poet, as explained in the following table:

The Pashells, or Pashleys, were descended from Sir Edmund de Passelege, a Baron of the Exchequer, who purchased a manor in Smeeth in 1319; he died 1327. The family resided at Iden, Sussex; and the house there, and the manor in Smeeth, devolved on the Scots, Anne Pympe being her father’s only child. It is true that John Gower, the poet, does not mention any children in his extant will, but he was probably seventy-eight when he died; and, what is more to the purpose, his published will was probably only his testament, the will or declaration of uses of the land being commonly at that time a separate instrument. Th. Gower, of Clapham, given above as the father of Lowys, was probably the son or grandson of John Gower (see Sir Harris Nicolas in The Retrosp. Rev., 2 Ser., ii, 103-17). Also Gower the poet is known to have had property in Southwark; and Th. Gower, of Clapham, refers in his will (1458) to his tenement called The Falcon, in Southwark, near the hospital; and in Manning and Bray’s Surrey, iii, 623, there is noticed a deed of conveyance dated 22nd November 1506, of part of the site of St. Thomas’s Hospital, in Southwark, made by John Scot, of Iden, and Anne his wife, daughter and heir of John Pashley, who was cousin and heir of John Gower. It may be added as curious that Sir Robert Gower, who is believed to have been uncle to the poet, was buried in Brabourne church in 1349; his monument, now destroyed, being noticed in Weever.