CHAPTER XXV

THE BOLLES FAMILY

The byway which runs west from the Spilsby and Alford road, at the foot of Milescross hill near Alford station, after passing Rigsby, comes to a farm with an old manor-house and tiny church in a green hollow to the left. A deep sort of cutting on this side of the church has, along its steep grassy brow, a line of very old yew trees, not now leading to anything. This is all there is of the hamlet from which an ancient and notable family derived its title, the Bolles of Haugh.

_Haugh_ church is a small barn-like building of chalk; the nave twenty-four feet, and the chancel twenty-one feet long, with an enormously thick, small, round-headed arch between them. The chancel is floored with old sepulchral slabs and stone coffin tops, several with Lombardic lettering, and all apparently of the Bolle or Bolles family who lived partly at Haugh in the old manor close to the church, and partly at Thorpe Hall, Louth.

[Sidenote: SIR JOHN BOLLES]

[Sidenote: COLONEL BOLLES AT ALTON]

The family of Bolle seemed to have lived at Bolle Hall, Swineshead, from the thirteenth century till the close of the reign of Edward IV., 1483, when, by an intermarriage with the heiress of the Hough family, the elder branch became settled at Hough or Haugh, near Alford, and one of the younger branches settled at Gosberkirke (Gosberton) and spelt their name Bolles. The men of both branches were active both in civil and military positions. Sir George of Gosberton succeeded to the manor of Scampton, near Lincoln, from his father-in-law, Sir John Hart, Lord Mayor of London, 1590. He too became Lord Mayor in 1617, both men being members of the Grocers’ Company. He was knighted by James I., after withstanding his majesty in the matter of travelling through the city of London on a Sunday, on which occasion his conduct somewhat recalls that of Judge Gascoigne in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” He died in 1621, and his monument is in St. Swithin’s church, London. His son John was made a baronet by Charles I., and _his_ son George is commemorated on a monument opposite to that of his grandfather, in a pretty Latin inscription beginning—

Nil opus hos cineres florum decorare corollis; Flos, hic compositus qui jacet, ipse fuit.

We hear of a Sir George Bolle being killed at Winceby in 1643, fighting against Cromwell; certainly George’s brother, Sir Robert of Scampton, was one of the jury in 1660 for trying the regicides, and at the death of his son, Sir John, in 1714 the title became extinct. The distinctions of the elder branch, who settled at Haugh, were more military than civil. Their name also has passed away, their lineal descendants being named Bush, Ingilby, Bosville and Towne. The earliest monument to this branch is on a brass plate in Boston Church to Richard Bolle of Haugh, 1591, son of Richard Bolle of Haugh and Maria, daughter and heiress of John Fitzwilliams of Mablethorpe. He was thrice married, and his only son Charles died a year before him, 1590, and is commemorated at Haugh. His daughter Anne married Leonard Cracroft, the others married John and Leonard Kirkman of Keel. His son Charles, whose mother was a Skipworth of South Ormsby, had four wives, his first wife a daughter of Ed. Dymoke of Scrivelsby, and his fourth a daughter of Thomas Dymoke of Friskney. His only son, John, was the son of number two, Brigitt Fane; and his daughter Elizabeth of number three, Mary Powtrell. To this son John, there is also in Haugh Church a well-preserved monument, which shows him kneeling with his wife, attended by their three sons and five daughters, in the usual Jacobean style; date 1606, Aet. suæ 46. Sir John built Thorpe Hall, and was a famous Elizabethan captain. He was at the siege of Cadiz under Essex, 1596, and had custody of the young lady of high position who goes by the title of the Spanish Lady or the Green Lady, and whose story is told in Percy’s “Reliques” in the ballad of “The Spanish Lady’s love for an Englishman.” Sir John Bolle is the hero of the story. The lady fell in love with him, but on hearing that he had a wife at home, she retired to a nunnery and sent rich presents to his wife of tapestry, plate and jewels, and her picture in a green dress. The jewels are now in the hands of many of Lady Bolle’s descendants, the necklet of 298 pearls being, it is said, in the Bosvile family at Ravensfield Park, Yorkshire. The last warden of Winchester College was called Godfrey Bolles Lee, and was related to the Bosviles; and, curiously enough, in the Cathedral of Winchester is a brass plate giving an account of the death of Colonel John Bolles. It seems that Charles, the elder of the three sons whose effigies are on Sir John’s monument in the quaint little church of Haugh, was a Royalist, living at Thorpe Hall, Louth, where he raised a regiment of foot, which was commanded by his brother John, a soldier of unusual gallantry. Charles once saved his life when pursued, by hiding under the bridge at Louth. The regiment was engaged at Edgehill and other places, and finally cut to pieces in a most bloody engagement inside Alton Church in Hampshire. Clarendon tells us that Sir William Waller, finding that Lord Hopton’s troops lay quartered at too great distance from each other, had, by a night march, come suddenly upon the Royalist forces at Alton. The horse made good their escape to Winchester, and Colonel Bolles, who was in command of his own regiment of 500 men, being outnumbered, retired with some four score men into the church, hoping to defend it till succour arrived. But the enemy, as he had not had time to barricade the doors, entered with him, and some sixty of his men were killed before the rest asked for quarter; this was granted, but Colonel Bolles refused the offer, and was killed fighting. Alton is seventeen miles from Winchester, and the little brass plate on the eastern pillar of the north arcade of the nave in Winchester Cathedral, just where the steps go up to the choir, has a counterpart in Alton Church. The inscription on it was composed almost fifty years after the event by a relative who describes himself M.A., but he does no credit to the learning of the time, for it is full of errors, both of spelling and of facts; for instance, he calls the gallant Colonel, Richard instead of John, and gives the date of the fight as 1641 instead of December, 1643; but it is too quaint a thing not to be transcribed in full.

[Sidenote: THE WINCHESTER BRASS]

A Memoriall.

For this renowned Martialist Richard Boles of ye Right Worshipful family of the Bolleses in Linkhornsheire; collonell of a ridgment of Foot of 1300 who for his gratious King Charles ye first did Wounders att the Battell of Edgehill: his last

## action, to omit all others, was at Alton in this County of

Soughthampton, was sirprised by five or six thousand of the Rebells, which caused him there Quartered, to fly to the church, with near fourscore of his men, who there fought them six or seven houers, and then the Rebells breaking in upon him he slew with his sword six or seven of them, and then was slayne himselfe, with sixty of his men about him.

1641

His Gratiouse Souveraigne, hearing of his death, gave him his high comendation in ye pationate expression. Bring me a Moorning Scarffe; i have Lost one of the best Comanders in this Kingdome.

Alton will tell you of that famous Fight Which ye man made and bade this world goodnight, His Verteous life feared not Mortalyty, His body might, his Vertues cannot die. Because his blood was there so nobly spent This is his Tombe, that church his Monument. Ricardus Boles Wiltoniensis in Art Mag: Composuit Posuitque dolens An Dom 1689.

A somewhat similar bit of spelling is this from a private diary:—

“The iiii day of Sept 1551 ded my lade Admerell wyffe in Linkolneshire and ther bered.”

The third brother, Edward, died and was buried at Louth, 1680 A.D., at the age of seventy-seven. He left £600 to purchase land, the rents “to be divided among the poorest people of Louth at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide for ever, and to be disposed of ‘in other charitable and pious uses for the good of the said Toune.’” The income of the bequest is now worth £85 a year.

[Sidenote: THE GREEN LADY]

Sir Charles, the elder brother, had a son and a grandson called John, the last of the name. This John’s half-sister, Elizabeth, whose mother was a Vesci, married Thomas Bosvile, rector of Ufford, and was buried at Louth in 1740; their daughter Bridget also marrying a Bosvile. The children of Bridget’s elder sister Elizabeth married into the families of the Ingilbys and the Massingberds, while another sister, Margaret, married James Birch, James Birch’s daughter married a Lee, and his grandson, Captain Thos. Birch, assumed the name of Bosvile and sold Thorpe Hall. He died in 1829. Sir Charles also had a daughter Elizabeth, who married Thomas Elye of Utterby, whose granddaughter Sarah married Richard Wright of Louth, whence are descended the Wrights of Wrangle. Canon Wright, her great great grandson, has a picture of this Sarah Elye in which she is represented as wearing a ring which was one of the Spanish jewels, some of which are in possession of the Canon’s family now. The picture of the Green Lady was unfortunately sold at the Thorpe Hall sale, and it is said that another small picture of her, painted in the corner of a portrait of Sir John Bolles by Zucchero, was lost when the picture was restored and considerably cut down, in the last century.

##