SIR JOHN MARKHAM is mentioned by Polydor Virgil as one of the leaders who were present at the battle of Stoke in 1488, on the side of Henry VII. He is described as a man of great prowess, and was much employed in public affairs. "But," says Dugdale, "he was an unrulie spirited man, and, striving with the people of Long Benington in Lincolnshire about the bounderies of their lordships, he killed some or other of them (some have it he hanged the priest), for which retiring, he lay hid at a place called Cressi Hall, which he had through his great-grandmother the daughter of Sir John Cressi of Hodsac. Here it was his good fortune to entertain the lady Margaret, mother of King Henry VII., who not only procured his pardon, but married her kinswoman Anne, the daughter and heir of Sir George Neville, to his son, likewise called Sir John," by Alicia his wife, daughter of Sir William Skipwith. At this period the Markham family were at the height of their fortunes, enjoying vast estates in different parts, and the favour of their sovereign; for, though they opposed the line of Lancaster till the union of the Roses, yet the service performed by Sir John at the battle of Stoke (an event which added so much security to Henry`s throne,) obliterated what might have been considered former delinquencies, and established the family again in favour at court.* * A question has long existed in the family, as to what the exact device of our crest is, whether the head of the lion should be surrounded with rays, and what instrument it holds in its paw. This may be set at rest by an entry in one of the Harleian MSS. "Standard of Sir John Markham in temp. Henry VIII. Per fesse, gold and blue. The device (or crest) a lion rampant gules, with wings endorsed or, holding a pair of horse heames of the first. The Lion of St. Mark, and the hames forming a very indifferent pun on the name. (Harl. MSS. Fol.209.) In a beautifully illuminated pedigree attested by Camden's signature, the head of the lion has a sort of cap. So again in MS. of F. Markham, temp. James I. Besides the various properties before mentioned, Sir John Markham had lands in East Bridgenorth on the hill, "next beyond the parsonage in a place heretofore called Sir John Markham's manor;" and there was a great house of friars at Newark of the order of St. Augustine which was in his possession, and in which he occasionally lived. It has been already stated that Sir John Markham's spirit was not of the gentlest, a sad additional proof of which is furnished in a most singular letter of his to Sir Thomas Stanhope, on account of an affront that the latter had passed upon him in some doggrel rhymes. It should be premised that these two quarrelsome old knights were both on the verge of the grave, Sir John being nearly ninety years old, and, however feeble he may have become in his body, his mind seems to have retained the same unruly spirit which led him to hang the priest of Long Benington. The letter is entitled- "Sir John Markham's railing Letter sent to Sir Thomas Stanhope. "Hast thou, base and unworthie knyghte, bene soe longe practysed in Markham's damned devyces, and can thy grosse heade in the conclusion of thy corrupted carcase bringe forthe no better fruits than countlesse fooleries: yet since your cankered knyghtshippe hath in verse given the first occasion of this scolding combat, I in my prose will make replication, not to thyselfe, lest I shoulde so far move thy putriditie, as in thy fearful choler, offeringe to cast my letter from thee, thou with it shouldst cast thy arm from thy body, and soe by thy untymlie deathe cozen the devil of his due. But I to pleasure them, will scold to thee, thy brother, sonne, and sonne in lawe; and if they or any equally of them dares maynteyne thy execrable actions, I doe give them the lye in the throte. "To make answere to thy lyinge lybell, first for the foremost of them, beinge as I thinke some one of thy hundred instruments, I leave him to the revenge fit for a keep doore . . . . And, good well shapte kin, though I be crook backed, yet it is not any disease that makes me sit lyke a deformed ape under a tree, with my head and knees so neare confyned, as if I took some pleasure in my knees that I could not abstain from kissing them. But for my birthright the gallowes, as thy lyinge lybell saythe, if any of my ancestors had chanced to dye so unkyndlie, as one under a tree, I must needs have blushed to have any of my knaves offer the gallows to thee. For thy coarse cuttinge, or any lybell settinge forthe, knowe then, envyous excrement of nature, that to anye of thy followers, kynde, or friends who thynke I touch them for thys and the whole lybell, I give them the lye in the throte. For my name of knave, I thynke surelie thy knavish actions, thy lyinge, and therefore duringe thy life weare thou the title, and at thy deathe leave it thy heyre. But nowe Sir, to conclude, let me question you a lytelle. And you not a slanderous knave upon record? Did you not . . . . .? Are you not . . . . .? Are you not . . . . .? Knowe Sir, if in thys thou be faultie, I hope what slanders and lybelles be set forthe by thee, the world will esteeme to come from a lyer, a slanderer, and one worse than the devil. And now, leavynge unexamined myllions of knaveries, I wist "from thy godsonne who hates thy damned condytions, "John Markham."* * Lansdowne MSS. It is a melancholy aspect of the times, that men in the position of Sir John Markham could have indulged in such coarse vituperation, and a matter of regret that one so near his latter end should have swollen his natural indignation with so great a breach of christian charity. It is probably, however, that this letter met with its reward, for there is every reason to suppose that it found its way into Lansdowne collection of manuscripts, from having been made the subject of a prosecution in the Star Chamber, and thus became mixed with other documents of less unworthy character. Sir John was twice high sheriff for the counties of Nottingham and Derby, 10 Henry VIII. and 17 Henry VIII. He died at a very advanced age, being near one hundred years old, about the year 1536, and was succeeded by his only son. SIR JOHN MARKHAM married the daughter and heir of Sir George Neville, who on the female side was of royal descent. Her mother, the daughter of Sir Humphrey FitzLewes, was a grand-daughter and coheir of Edmund Beaufort, Marquess and Earl of Somerset (slain at the battle of St. Alban's), the grandson of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster (third son of King Edward III.) and Catherine Swynford, daughter of Sir Payn Roet, Guyenne King at Arms. Independent of the brilliancy of this alliance, considerable property also accrued to the family in consequence of it, for the lady herself was her father's heir, as was her mother of Sir Humphrey FitzLewes. Sir John Markham enjoyed considerable reputation as an able soldier, and among other places of military trust, was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower during the reign of Edward VI., while the Duke of Somerset was Lord Protector, a post then of great importance. When the duke's fortunes however began to wane, and his enemies combined to destroy him, Sir John Markham, his firm friend, also felt the effects of their hostility, for the Earl of Warwick and his confederates contrived for their own purposes to discharge him forcibly from his office, and confer it upon Sir Leonard Chamberlayne in his stead. In King Edward's journal of his own reign is this entry, "a letter directed to Sir Arthur Darcy to take the charge of the Tower, and to discharge Sir John Markham; upon this, that, without making any of the council privy, he suffered the duke to walk abroad, and certaine letters to be sent and answered between David Seymour and Mrs. Poynings, with divers other suspicions." Any suspicion attaching to Sir John's loyalty does not seem to have rested long upon the King's mind, for in a manuscript entitled "Injunctions given by the King's Majesty's Visitors to all and every the Clergy and Laity now resident within the Deanory of Doncastre," will be found the name of Sir John Markham, as the Chief of the King's Visitors for the Reformation in the North. A portion of these injunctions will be found in the Appendix.* * See Appendix (D). Besides the large possessions which devolved upon Sir John, on the demise of his father, who appears by his son's will to have died outlawed,† and those which came by his marriage with the heiress of Sir George Neville, who succeeded to the estates of Sir Humphrey Lewes, whose wife was daughter and coheiress of Edmund Beaufort Earl of Somerset; he had grants of several others, among which is one bearing date 28 Hen. VIII. "The house and site of the Abbey of Rufforth, with large manorial possessions attached, were, under the great seal of the Court of Augmentations, demised to Sir John Markham, Knight, and his assigns for twenty-one years, for the yearly rent of twenty-two pounds eight shillings, which, with a vast deal of other property, was by reason of a certain act for dissolving certain religious houses." † Whether the outlawry of Sir John arose from his attack upon the people of Long Benington, or was a sentence passed on him by the Star Chamber, owing to his "railinge letter" to his kinsman Sir Thomas Stanhope, cannot at this distance of time be determined. The interesting and curious will of Sir John is given in Appendix (E). "Nothwithstanding his prosperity during the greater part of his life," Thoroton relates, "Sir John was at last utterly ruined; yet the Earl of Shrewsbury, whom he had undesignedly made his enemy, helped to raise his children." Sir John was high sheriff for the counties of Derby and Nottingham 30 Henry VIII. and for the county of Lincoln 24 Henry VIII. and again for the counties of Derby and Nottingham 37 Henry VIII. He served also as knight of the shire 1 Edward VI. And 4 and 5 of Philip and Mary. He was thrice married; first to Anne, daughter of Sir George Neville, by whom he had two sons, John and Henry. This latter was in holy orders, and was installed Precentor of Lincoln Cathedral, March, 26, 1550. He died without issue. ...