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The Sussex Regicides, &c. 185 |
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memory of his widow, and traced by the hand of love forty years afterwards, may serve as a type of the strong feelings of that turbulent age, though, indeed, even she quietly laments his not having embraced the whole truth, as she complacently considered herself to have done."
Mr. Blaauw refers to the adoption by Sir W. Springet's widow of the tenets of the Quakers. This she did on her marriage with Isaac Pennington, son of the Regicide of the same name; and it was, doubtless, owing to this connection that her daughter, Gulielma, became the wife, in 1672, of the celebrated William Penn. But, though thus weaned (and wedded) from the vanities of the world, the widow of Sir William Springet never forgot her first love; and in her letters to her grandson, which she wrote in 1680, and which have been published, she dwells upon his virtues, and does not fail to initiate the young man into the secret of his Sussex and Springet ancestry.
Two Chaloners, Thomas and James, were nominated upon the High Court of Justice, and one of them, Thomas Chaloner, signed the death-warrant. But neither of these was a member of the Sussex family. The head of the Sussex Chaloners, Robert Chaloner, of Kenwards, Lindfield, was, however, engaged in the same cause. He was a Major in the Parliamentary army and an active supporter of the Protector. In the Parish Register of Lindfield, about 1655, his name frequently appears attached to the entries of marriages which were performed by " Ye Major," not at the Parish Church, but at Kenwards, his mansion at Lindfield. His possessions in East Sussex were very extensive; but the Restoration was fatal to him and his family, and from this period the Sussex Chaloners declined, till they disappeared altogether from the gentry of the county. Of the fate of Robert Chaloner, " Ye Major," of Kenwards, Lindfield, we are ignorant, but the tradition in the neighbourhood of his estate is, that he had to fly the country and died abroad. His house at Lindfield was dismantled, and the only part of it that now remains is the |
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