TALES FROM THE HILLS

(Ashmansworth and Crux Easton)

While we celebrated the Coronation of King Charles III, Crux Easton also commemorated the Restoration of his predecessor, King Charles II, 363 years earlier. The connection is as follows:

During the reign of Charles I, Crux Easton was owned by Sir William Lisle. He was a staunch royalist – so staunch that, after Charles I lost his head, Sir William’s sense of loyalty to the new king, Charles II, prompted him to abandon his estates and to accompany Charles into exile, sharing with his sovereign all the hardships that exile entailed.

By accompanying the new king abroad, Sir William forfeited everything he possessed at home, including his estate at Crux Easton, which was quickly seized by Oliver Cromwell and his Roundheads.

William’s younger brother, John Lisle, was a very different character: not only was he one of Cromwell’s men; he was also one of the judges who had condemned Charles I to death. Once his elder brother had been banished, John seized Crux Easton for himself.

He didn’t enjoy possession of it for long: with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, John was forced to flee for his life, while William and the King returned in triumph.

The story continues with the nine Lisle sisters – Sir William’s granddaughters – who built the Grotto. Their family had lived through stirring times in the history of this island, and some had taken key roles. With a leading royalist for their grandfather, with a regicide for their great-uncle, and with their great-aunt Alice famous for becoming the first victim of the notorious Judge Jeffreys’ ‘Bloody Assize‘ at Winchester in 1685 (a verdict reversed by Act of Parliament but too late to save her), it is perhaps understandable that the girls and their father preferred rural seclusion at Crux Easton, where they practised only the peaceful arts of gardening, painting and sculpture, and the science of farming.

Agricola, June 2023