17th Century
The le Stranges of Hunstanton
As an orphan, Sir Hamon le Strange of Hunstanton (1583-1654) was left under John Spelman's guardianship, during the final years of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Destined for Edinburgh [Scotland] at the tender age of 18 years, he accompanied Sir Robert Carey on horseback in order to notify James VI of Scotland of the Queen’s death, for which he refused the offer of a baronetcy. The placement of a Stewart monarch (as James I of England) on England’s throne, triggered the Guy Fawkes plot a year later and a long and tedious century ahead of the ardent Royalist le Stranges. Their inbred sympathies toward the crown perhaps were born out of a connection with the fitz Alan Family who are Stewart ancestors, and it was to play a major role over the course of this family’s lifetime.
In 1609 Sir Hamon was made Sheriff of Norfolk, and in 1620 became a local M.P. Early in his military career, he married Alice Stubbe (1585-1656) who bore their first child, Sir Nicholas L’Estrange (1604-1655) whose participation in the civil war (1642-1649) with his brothers, Hamon L’Estrange (1605-1660) & Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616-1704), was obligatory it seemed. From his letter to another Norfolk nobleman, Sir John Hobart, he pardoned himself and his family to attend a military meeting excusing his lame horses for their non-arrival. After this, his relation Captian James Calthorpe was promoted to Colonel in his place resulting it seemed, in a lot of loud bawling when they met at future conferences.
During the civil war Sir Hamon was Governing a town nearby of King’s Lynn that was under threat by Oliver Cromewell. Henry VIII had established this town thus taking it's name. There are various records of the family involved in this war and on one occasion Sir Hamon was laid up in bed for days after walking for 24 hrs from a siege. His squirrel hunting had to wait, and his authorisation for the hanging of a Catholic monk was a one off occasion that he didn’t wait around to see. Also during this time, when he was in his early 60's the surname was altered to the spelling many Irish descendants bear; L'Estrange, though for unknown reasons it suggests a connection with the latter branch.
As a whole, the two generations living at Hunstanton in the 17th century grew to be music enthusiasts. Sir Hamon took up playing the viols, which he practiced away from his wife in his specially built octagon. His children who acquired his passion were involved in the same musical societies that were so much the rage in those days, and with neighbours like John & Pocahontas Rolfes, the music of John Jenkins, Thomas Brewer, and William Lawes, being all master musicians, encompassed much of their household entertainment.
Lady Alice was coheir of her father, Richard, at Sedgeford and made a name for herself in the town. She was said by one of her contemporaries to be “a woman of unconquerable spirits” and had gained her reputation as a talented nurse by dressing wounds and assisting in operations. Three of their 7 children did not reach adulthood, but two of their sons, Sir Nicholas and Sir Roger were renowned for their works as musicians & writers.
Sir Nicholas L'Estrange 1st Baronet of Hunstanton appears not to have inherited his father's military prowess, though otherwise excelling musically. On the first day of June 1629, King Charles I conferred upon him the first baronetcy previously offered to his father by King James. In the same year he married Anne Lewknor whose father, Sir Edward was heir to the Barony of Camoys. The couple set up house at the old home where Sir Nicholas, inspired by dinner table conversations, began writing his Merry Passages and Jests, a collection of anecdotes which inspires historians today.
It wasn’t until the following year in 1630, that he bought the organ for Ł11 now housed at St. Luke's in America. In his youth, he met John Jenkins at Lincoln's Inn Law School after 1624. The masque balls inspired him, and performances they held inevitably led to their musical partnership. While Jenkins was under the le Stranges employment they worked on the Le Strange Music Manuscripts, which incorporated utilizing his favourite instruments in a number of airs, fantasias, and pieces for bass, treble bass, organ, and viols.
Housed mainly in London, the manuscripts were handed down to his 18th century descendant, Nicholas Styleman le Strange, who was dubbed the Jolly Gentleman out of his tendency to gamble. Though much to his mother's despair such antics led to the story of the Family ghost or the 'Grey Lady' who has been seen since her death in and around the ancestral home. But if his antics were founded on gain, his gift of the manuscripts to his musician friend, Charles Burney, was none the less a generous one leading to their preservation at the British Library today.
The question of warfare manifested in the works of his brother Hamon L'Estrange, when he wrote Alliance of Divine Offices and others about Charles I in the outbreak of civil war. Their influence as children of a quick-witted mother, Alice Stubbs, perhaps governed the youngest son, Sir Roger L'Estrange's dexterous writing career in journalism. "The Blood-hound of the Press" according to one author, and a contemporary who once described him as "the one in black, standing bareheaded, playing of a fiddle” during a Pope-burning pageant, led a controversial existence in the public eye. His misspent youth in prison as a Cavalier come spy in the civil war was his first attempt at quashing the uprising movements of the Parliamentarians. A mistake that he, as a Royalist paid four years in chains for, at the sacrifice of his mother who continued to clothe him. He narrowly escaped a death penalty by a stroke of luck with friends in the opposition whose position as Parlimentarians had temporarily weakened. His release, for which he begged on the floor before the jury on the grounds of his health, took him away from Newgate Prison to join the Royalist movements in Kent where he was welcome. Though he was not expected to recover, he quickly regained his health and organised the production of pamphlets in protest marking his new career in Journalism.
Fresh air proving the dying man's cure, not long after, his 10 year exile away from family and friends, took him to Germany and Holland where he sought the company of like-minded musicians and was welcomed by Cardinal van Hesse, having deserted his followers on the smoky battlefield.
Finding the family estate in financial hardship on his return after the civil war, under Cromwell’s government Charles I, who had supported the right to his divine ruling, had been executed. It had unsettled many Royalists and Parliamentarians including Cromwell who despaired over his decision to carry it through. Sir Roger had been wanting to speak to Oliver Cromwell on a matter of importance when he was dubbed by his enemies as Cromwell's Fiddler which arose from an inopportune moment when Cromwell visited found him at the house of his musician.
But the Journalist who established the conventional newspaper pursued his career, and in 1662 when he was aged 46, he became the Surveyor of the Press, which ideally gave him the freedom to regulate the press & publishing houses for the first time. Samuel Pepys, writing many a favourable word about him in his Dairies, was an avid reader of the papers; the Oxford Gazette the forerunner of the London Gazette (1665-6), the Intelligencer, and the Observator which was briefly confiscated by James II owing to their differences.
In 1685 his wife Anne Dolman (d.1694) bore their son Roger (d. 1705) whom died aged 20. They had two other sons whom died in childhood and a daughter called Margery (d. 1705) who "caused him much distress" by changing her religion. However, career wise, not only was he steered but stirred by his religious beliefs and Royalist sympathies, but also so perhaps was music by learning how to play Scottish bagpipes and tuning church organs. As an old man, he perhaps became more introspective with translating classic literature such as Ćesops Fables and Tacitus' annals among many other interesting Greek philosophical works. His lifetime achievements had spanned the course of Stewart monarchs, creating a new vacuum for his workflow when Queen Anne took their final place upon England's throne, when he died not long after.