prepared and provoked the civil war. In the reign
of James the First of England a satirical poet
said:

They wore a farm in shoestrings, edged with gold,
And spangled garters, worth a copyhold.

Harrison, the old chronicler, said of the women
of London even in the reign of Elizabeth, "I
have met with some so disguised that it hath
passed my skill to discover whether they were
men or women."

Three years after writing his advice to his
sons, Leonard Gale the elder died in 1690, and
Leonard, his eldest son, succeeded to his
property. This Leonard resided four years as a
gentleman commoner at University College, and
was called to the bar.  Being," he says, "very
distrustful of my own abilities, and too great a
lover of idleness and ease, I neglected the study
of the law, and devoted myself to management
of my property in the country." Eight years
later he bought the estate and timber of Crabbett
for £9000. "Two reasons," he says, "chiefly
induced me to buy Crabbett; one was that my
estate might lie together, and the other that I
might have a good estate, which I had not before,
for I was always afraid of building. Building is
a sweet impoverishing." . . . "August 19, 1703,
being near thirty years old, I married with Mrs.
Sarah Knight, my mother's sister's only daughter,
after I had made my court to her for two or
three years. By her I had a plentiful fortune
(between £7000 or £8000). We were married
in the parish church of Charlwood by Mr.
Hesketh, the rector. She was truly my own
choice, and I am extremely well satisfied with it,
and do verily believe that for truth and sincerity,
kindness and fidelity, humility and good nature,
she has few equals. I am sure none can exceed
her, and I pray God to continue us long
together in health and prosperity, and to crown us
with all those blessings which He has promised
to those that serve Him and walk in his ways."

This blacksmith's son was elected a Member
of Parliament for East Grinsted in 1710, without
expense or opposition. The power of bribes
and threats he deplores as "an eternal scandal
to the whole nation." "Our lands and liberties
must be precarious; our so much boasted
privilege of having free parliaments must be
utterly lost. For this is an observation founded
on the greatest truth, that he that will buy his
seat in parliament will sell his vote; and to
what misery and poverty such men will soon
bring this nation God only knows!" This
Leonard Gale advised his children to be sure as
they grew rich in estate to grow richer in
wisdom and virtue, taking care that their income
should exceed their expenses, and that they daily
heard and read more than they spoke or told.
When he was fifty-two years of age, he said, "I
am now worth at Michaelmas, 1724, at a reasonable
computation, £40,667; though I have been
guilty of many oversights in missing good
bargains and taking bad." When fifty-eight
years of age, he said, " My memory is growing
worse, for I have made some mistake in my
accounts within the last three years of above £150,
which I cannot possibly find out after my utmost
endeavours." His account of the marriage of
his daughter Philippa reminds us of the change
which has come over English manners during
the past century. "My daughter Philippa, 'an
ornament to her sex, her parents, and the family
she is grafted in,' was married January 21,
1730, to James Clitherow, Esq., she being in
the twenty-first year of her age, and he about
thirty-seven. I gave her £8000 to her portion,
and she has £1200 per annum settled upon her
and her heirs, of which £600, per annum is for her
jointure. All our relatives, except Dr. Woodward
and his wife, were at the wedding, which
was on Thursday, and they stayed a week with
us at Crabbett, and that day fortnight she went
home to Brentford, accompanied by her mother,
who stayed three weeks with her, and Mrs. Ann
Clitherow, his sister; and Tim Nightingale, who
had lived with us near twelve years, went with
her for her maid. There was abundance of
people at Worth church on the wedding, and a
great many strowers; and the Sunday following
there was a prodigious congregation at church,
when Mr. Hampton preached an excellent
sermon on this text, 'Marriage is honourable in
all men, and the bed undefiled;' being the same
sermon he preached the next Sunday after I
marryed, near twenty-five years before."
Leonard Gale died in his seventy-seventh year,
a few months after the death of his only son
Henry, and the wealth earned by three generations
of frugal and careful men passed to the
families of the husbands of his daughters.

The most celebrated, however, of the Sussex
ironmasters was far more ancient than the
Gales, the legendary St. Dunstan. The tendency
of historical criticism has not been favourable
to the more piquant points of ancient story;
and Mr. Mark Antony Lower allows no great
antiquity even to the tongs which is said to
have held so firmly the nose of the arch-tempter.
The parish of Mayfield was famous for its iron.
There were considerable ironworks upon the
archiepiscopal estate. The massive iron hand-
rail of the grand staircase is one of the relics of
this manufacture. "The hammer, anvil, and
tongs of St. Dunstan preserved here," says Mr.
M. A. Lower, "seem to refer as much to the
iron trade so famous in these parts, as to the
alleged proficiency of the saint in the craft of a
blacksmith. The anvil and tongs are of no
great antiquity, but the hammer with its iron
handle may be considered a mediæval relic."
Archbishops, like doctors, differ; and, although
Archbishop Parker, as we have seen, denounced
the iron trade as a plague, there have been
ecclesiastical dignitaries equally high who have
encouraged it, and saints who pursued it with
marvellous results.

The Morleys of Glynde worked the forge at
Hawksden. They were established there in the
sixteenth century, and, in the seventeenth,
Herbert Morley, the regicide, died, possessed of
these works, which descended to his sons.

Among the greatest of these families of iron-