Thus, the Scotgrove estate in the latter part of the fourteenth century looks to have been of some substance and was in the ownership of an important and much landed family. That family had so many strings to their bow that it would be rash to assume that any of thee actually lived there. They may have put in a bailiff to farm the land but, with the dearth of labour that stemmed from the Black Death, are likely to have found letting to tenant farmers more economic. Idonea Colepeper had covenanted to make restitution if any of the property of which she became life tenant should be passed out of her hands, but there is no reason to suppose that such need arose. Scotgrove, at any rate, stayed with the Colepepers until the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, when it was carried in marriage by Jocosa, daughter and heiress of Nicholas Colepeper, to Walter Lewkner of Warbleton in Sussex, a younger son of Sir Thomas Lewknor of Goring in Essex; it was said by this time to be held by knight service from Sir Edward Poynings, as of his manor of Ash. Walter Lewknor died about 1521, leaving Scotgrove to his son and heir, Humphrey Lewknor.¹⁸
   Humphrey Lewknor sold Scotgrove to Thomas Fane of London, who was the third son of John Fane, or Vane, of Tonbridge. This Thomas died about 1532, leaving his estates in Ash to his son of the same name.¹⁹ 

Some twenty years later, the lands of Scotgrove were part of the broad acres of another Thomas Fane, son of George Fane of Badsell in Tudeley; he was the last of the family to own the Scotgrove site.
   The Fanes or Vanes were usually a thorn in somebody’s flesh and, true to type, the last-mentioned Thomas joined in Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion against Mary Tudor’s intended marriage with Philip of Spain. When that rising was crushed, Fane was removed to the Tower of London where he and a fellow prisoner, in what they must have thought their last days, inscribed for posterity their names and the words 
   ‘Be faithful unto Deth and I will give thee a Crown of Life’.
It was a close run thing. Fane was attainted of high treason, a warrant was issued for his execution and then Mary, taking pity on his youth, pardoned him. He was at liberty to resume a career that was to prove one of some distinction.²⁰
   For his very considerable estates, forfeit to the Crown on his attainder, Fane was allowed to compound for the sum of one hundred pounds. His property was mostly in the Tonbridge and Sevenoaks areas, much being leased to a widow, Alice Hudson by name, whose demise included two hundred and ten acres that were situate