The King did not for long retain the manor of Ash in his own hands, nor for that matter did its new grantee, Thomas Cromwell.²⁵  Cromwell, who must rank as one of the ablest but more unpleasant lords of Ash, was in the year 1540 ennobled, disgraced and beheaded, all within the space of a few months. His ultimate sin, his use of Holbein’s all too flattering portrait of Anne of Cleves, was perhaps his least sin, but was for him the most costly.
   With Cromwell’s fall, the Ash manor again reverted to the Crown. There for the present we leave it, to return to a family who probably knew little of and cared less for the more distinguished or notorious personages who had latterly been lords of that manor. Likewise, we leave those other Ash manors that, with the dissolution of the Hospitallers aid of the nuns of Halywell, had also fallen into the hands of Henry VIII.
   The Hodsolls had made their bow in these parts 

before the end of the twelfth century, as appears from the fact that in 1198 one Ralph de Hodeshole was a party to two Fines relating to land in the parish of Southfleet. Then, in 1271, there is record of two of their number, William and Michael de Hodeshole, giving evidence, in company with two other local residents, John de Chimbeham and Thomas de Peavincomp, in a law suit at Westminster. The case, which was heard before Sir Stephen de Penchester, the most notable of the Penchesters of Penshurst Place and the builder of Allington Castle, concerned the escape of four robbers from the prison of the manor of Kingsdown. The lord of a manor being liable to a penalty if felons escaped from his gaol, the question at issue was whether Ralph Fitz Bernard had been, at the time, of age and so the fully fledged lord of Kingsdown manor, or whether the