Walter of Horton Kirby, was married to a Stacey;⁷  the propensity of Walter ladies for marrying into the clergy suggests that he might have been the Henry Stacey who followed Dr Maxfield as rector of Ridley and later became also rector of Hartley. Henry Stacey was followed at Ridley by another Stacey, John, and, twenty years after, he too came to share Ridley with Hartley. John Stacey was, in his time, chaplain to Charles, Duke of Lennox and Richmond, of Cobham Hall;⁸  maybe it was he who tied the knot when, to the great fury of another Charles, La Belle Stuart, the famous Court beauty, eloped with the Duke.
   No such heights were reached by the marriages which it fell to William Baker to solemnise. Two Hodsoll daughters were wed in his time, but there were only two marriages to which some social elaboration was given in the Ash register and both were of non-residents. 

One, in 1624, was between ‘Michael Petly (Gent)’ and ‘Mary Gilburne’. If Mary was a Gilbourne of Otford, both bride and groom would have come from the vale of Darent; whether or not they returned thither, there is no indication that they tarried in Ash. The other wedding, in 1633, was of William Brown, perhaps of the family of Brown or Browne who then lived at Reynold’s Place in Horton Kirby, and ‘Mistress Dorothe Smyth, widdowe’. Dorothy Smith was Anne Baker’s surviving sister. She had buried her first husband in Fawkham church only seven months before, which may explain the choice of a different venue for her second venture. She returned with her new husband to Fawkham, where they lived on until well into the days of the Commonwealth. Then death did them part, but they were not in death long divided.