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confines of the parish; so, oddly enough, did the manor
house in which he lived His bequests to Ash church, sundry sums in cash
and in kind two cows, included gifts to the light of the Blessed Mary and
the light burning before the Cross, both apparently in need of repair, and
to the light of St Nicholas. He asked to be buried before the Cross, his
being perhaps the first burial within the church to which a name can be
put. Amongst other bequests were gifts to the Carmelite brothers of
Aylesford to say masses for his soul. The residue of his estate he divided
between his wife Magaret and his son, who like so many other Hodsolls was
called William.32
In the mid-fifteenth century, as the Hundred Years War drew
to its bitter ending and the Wars of the Roses loomed tragically ahead,
revolt broke out under the so-called Captain of Kent, John Mortymer, alias
Jack Cade. Ash was not unrepresented in the rebel ranks, since amongst
those who subsequently received the royal |
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pardon was Robert atte Wode of
‘Asshe juxta Frenyngham’, yeoman. Wrotham had sent a strong
contingent that included John Cattys, one of the local gentry, and eleven
yeomen and the smaller Ightham had provided at least six men, including
the village baker. Another representative of the gentry had been Richard
Lovelace of Kingsdown; the Lovelaces were not men to sit at home when they
saw work to be done.33
At the time, the county had suffered for a decade under the
maladministration of James Fiennes, Lord Say, and neither the crushing of
Cade’s revolt nor the appointment of a commission to punish those guilty
of malpractice and extortion in the period that had led up to it brought
an end to the unrest. A second commission was appointed in 1451 to deal
with continuing malcontents and many were brought before it. Amongst those
were an Essex yeoman alleged to have broken |