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accepted the King’s death as the end of all things,
the more so as two of his near neighbours played leading
roles in the building anew of a Royalist organisation in Kent. They were
Francis Lovelace of Hever in Kingsdown, kinsman of Richard Lovelace the
Cavalier poet, and young Francis Clerke of Ford in Wrotham, a man who had
much to avenge.5
After he had wed Alice Fowler, Reginald Peckham settled at
Ash Place and, whatever his political activities may have been, that
remained his base throughout the period of the Commonwealth. Nursery
accomodation may have become somewhat strained as three little Peckhams,
Reginald, born in 1649, Christopher, born in 1650, and Edmund, born in
1651, were quickly added to the young family already there.
The Peckhams were still at Ash Place in 1664, as appears from
the Hearth Tax assessment of that year, but probably they left at much
about that time. In the same year Thomas Fowler, Alice’s son by her
first marriage, came of age and he and his wife Jane were at Ash by
October 1665, when their daughter Jane was born. Presumably Edmund Fowler,
who ultimately succeeded to the family honours, was also a child of Thomas
and Jane; there is no record of his christening at Ash, so perhaps he was
born before his parents came there. |
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It could be that they had been living
in London and hastened into the country to escape the Plague.
However that may be, tragedy soon again overtook the family and Thomas
Fowler died about Christmas time in the following year; he was only twenty-three.
Thomas was apparently the only head of the family to be buried at Ash.
History repeated itself. Jane Fowler only remained a widow
for a year or two and then, on 16 February 1669, ‘Leonard Bosvile of
Bradbourne Esqr and Mnris Jane Fowler of this parish, widdow’
were married. They settled at Ash Place and. the nursery, initially more
sparsely occupied than on the previous occasion, was soon plentifully
supplied. Before the year was out, their eldest son, William Bosvile, was
born and he was followed by Margaret in 1670, by Jane in 1671, by Raph
(sic) in 1673 and by James in 1676.
The arrival of Leonard Bosvile forged the first link in an
association between Ash and the town of Sevenoaks that was to continue for
more than two hundred and fifty years. Bradbourne, one of the manors of
that place, had been in the possession of the Bosvile family since the
middle years of the sixteenth century; another branch of the family was
settled not far away, at Eynsford. Leonard Boavile was the |