HETESOPE in the Book of Winchester:
to give Domesday its correct title - was the Manor and principal residence
of the FOLJAMBES who remained until the reign of Richard II(1377-1399).
The infant heiress to Hassop became a ward of the King. He sold her
for 50 marks to Sir John Leake, who speedily made one hundred percent
profit by re-selling her at a price of 100 marks to Sir William Plumpton,
who wished to secure her as a wife for his son. The matrix for England
was still that increasing power struggle between the Barons and the
only real power was the possession of land. The Foljambe heiress was
eleven months old when her covenant of marriage was made, and her considerable
dowry of Hassop with a dozen other Lordships and moieties in twenty
townships passed to the PLUMPTON family.
At the close of the 15th century,
they sold Hassop to Catherine, widow of Stephen Eyre. From 1498 at the
time of the purchase, the Eyre family who were Roman Catholic and staunch
Jacobeans moved into that testing period of religious persecution. Throughout
the reign of Elizabeth I they suffered a great deal in consequence,
emerging steadfast. They were among those few Catholic families of the
nobility who did not switch sides as a temporary expedient.
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