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| Judge Sir Richard Bingham of Watnall and his wife Margaret Freville¹ |
One of old Watnall's most eminent residents was Sir Richard Bingham, the illustrious "Chief Justice of the King's Bench" during Edward IV's reign in 1474. He married a rich widow Margaret Freville and moved from his Watnall Chaworth manor to her estate of Middleton in Warwickshire. It was while living there in his old age that he was called upon to adjudicate in a tale of young love and fair maids...
An Olde Love Story
"ON a steep eminence overhanging the river Thame in Warwickshire, not far from the ford which gives the hundred of Hemlingford its name, is the fortified mansion of the Bracebridges and the church of Kingsbury. In the time of the Heptarchy, some of the Mercian kings held their Court on this fair spot.
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| The seven kingdoms of England during the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy |
During the troublous Plantagenet days, the Bracebridges fought bravely and held their heads amongst the proudest knights and squires of the land. They fortified their home at Kingsbury, and the existing fortifications show an interesting example of the crenelated house of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Within these romantic walls during the time when the feuds of Yorkist and Lancastrian disturbed the land, and the bear and ragged staff was the universal cognizance of the midlands, fair Alice Bracebridge dwelt and loved. She thought that she was loved also, and that John Arden, the heir of Peddimore, dreamed of her fair face as he wandered round Park Hall and thought of his Saxon ancestry and the misfortunes of his house. His mother belonged to another race, for his father, Walter Arden, had wedded Eleanor, the daughter of John Hampden, the ancestor of the famous Buckinghamshire squire. They did not look with favour upon the alliance of their son with the poor and proud Bracebridges, who owed to the Ardens their estates and position in Warwickshire.
The Bracebridge's fortified manor house
on its "eminence" above the River Thame
at Kingsbury, Warwickshire
Richard Bracebridge, of Kingsbury, was not made of that yielding stuff to brook in silence or in disdain the rejected alliance of his family by his kinsmen, the Ardens of Peddimore.
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| The bear and ragged staff - emblem of Warwickshire |
To steal a man's daughter was a venial offence, but to abduct a son was unpardonable. The Ardens appealed to law - they represented the matter to King Edward IV, to the lords of the land, and demanded justice and the restitution of their son and heir, but in the meantime, John Arden remained within the strong walls of Kingsbury and comforted himself with the company of Alice Bracebridge.
It was a soft imprisonment, and it mattered but little to them what kings, lords, and lawyers might say or do. They little cared when Sir Simon Montford of Coleshill and Sir Richard Bingham, the judge, then living at Middleton, took the matter into their grave deliberation and decreed that the pair should be married in February, 1474, and that the lady should have a portion of 200 marks as a jointure settled upon her.
Richard Bracebridge, in expiation of the trespass he had committed, was ordered to give Walter Arden the best horse that could be chosen in Kingsbury Park. When Walter died he made John Bracebridge one of his executors. For many years - for more than two centuries - the descendants of John Arden and Alice Bracebridge lived lords of Peddimore at Park Hall, and then founded the Staffordshire family of that name.
The double moat yet remains at Peddimore, and the home of the Bracebridges is silently going to decay, like the family. Within the fortified walls there remains the dwelling house erected in the time of Elizabeth, when the last Bracebridge, of Kingsbury, sold his paternal estate, and the death of the last of the Bracebridges was recorded when Charles Holte Bracebridge, of Atherston Hall, was laid in his grave".
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| Peddimore's double moated manor house where John and Alice lived happily ever after... |
- Sir Richard Bingham (d. 1476) was a Justice of the King's Bench.
- Lady Margaret (c. 1401-1493) was a wealthy landowner who lived for over 40 years after her husband's death.
- The original effigies are located at St John the Baptist Church in Middleton, North Warwickshire, England.
- The image itself is a 16th-century print, part of a series illustrating various religious and civic costumes.
- Here lies Richard Bingham, knight, Justice of the King's Bench, who died on the 17th day of May in the year 1476, and Lady Margaret, his wife, whose souls may God have mercy upon. Amen.
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