Horn

THE LORDSHIP of the Manor of Horn was inherited in 1592 by Sir John Harington on the death of his father John. Harington was born at nearby Exton Hall and his family were the largest landholders in Rutland. Harington was educated in the Law and sat in Parliament for the county in 1571. On his marriage to Anne Kelway, about this time, he inherited the wealthy Combe Abbey estate in Warwickshire. Harington spent much of the 1570s and 1580s as a mid-ranking official, with a number of posts, including sitting on the commission of the peace for Kesteven, Lincolnshire. He later served as sheriff for Warwickshire in 1582–3. He was knighted in 1584, and was county MP in 1586. In this year also he was given the job of accompanying Mary Queen of Scots as she travelled through Warwickshire on her way to Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire where she was tried and beheaded in 1587.

After he succeeded to his father’s estates, including Horn, in 1592, Sir John was appointed deputy lieutenant of Rutland and Warwickshire during the 1590s, and by 1600 he was one of the foremost knights in England. He was said to be as wealthy as many of the nation’s barons. He consorted with nobility and was careful to cultivate a good relationship with King James I, going so far as having the King’s Princess Elizabeth to stay at Combe Abbey in 1603. His planning paid off when James I rewarded him with a peerage just before his coronation in October 1603 and he was created Baron Harington of Exton.

Harington’s daughter Lucy was a close companion of Queen Anne of Denmark, and his son Henry was a friend of the Prince of Wales. The closeness of Harington and the Royal Family is illustrated in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. After Guy Fawkes’s failure to blow up the Houses of Parliament, it was discovered that part of the conspirators’ plan had been to kidnap Princess Elizabeth from Combe Abbey, where she was again staying. Harington heard of the plan in time to swiftly remove his household to Coventry only a few hours before the raid was due to take place.

Harington literally paid a price for his loyalty and ran up a large debt in paying for the Princess to live at his home. The King, not always known for his generosity, did little to help Harington and the Baron was honest enough not to try to defraud the royal coffers. Instead, Harington sought a licence from the king to mint brass farthings for three years as a payment. These became known as Haringtons and although they did go some way to helping his finances, he still had an estimated debt of £40,000 at his death in 1613.

The Lordship of Horn had been purchased by the Haringtons in 1517. It lies in a former parish of the same name which had been a small village in Saxon times but over the century was reduced to a large expanse of farmland. It receives a note in Domesday Book, where it is recorded as being in the possession of the Bishop of Durham:

“The Bishop of Durham holds two hides of the King in Horn. There is land for 4 ploughs. There is now in demesne 1 plough and 12 villains with a priest and 1 sokeman and 7 bordars and 1 slave, have 4 ploughs. There are 3 mills rendering 20s. There is woodland 1 furlong and 12 perches in length and 17 perches in breadth. It was and is worth £4. Langfar held it during the reign of Edward with sake and soke.”

Evidence of a priest and three mills indicates that Horn must have been a fairly busy and developed settlement in the 11th century. The next record of the Manor occurs 150 years later when John de Hamby was found to be Lord of Horn, holding it of the Bishop as part of the Honour of Huntingdon. Hamby was a patron of the parish church and after his death the Lordship seems to have passed to his wife and then her second husband, William de Curzan. In 1256 he sold it to William de Frankton who in turn sold it to his kinsman, Nicholas de Frankton. In 1287, a legal suit ensued between Frankton and Richard de Seyton over control of the advowson. It was found that this belonged to Seyton and had been previously separated from the Manor.

Alan de Frankton succeeded to the ownership of Horn but by the middle of the 14th century it had passed to the de Deneford family. Roger de Deneford quitclaimed the Manor in 1361 to Sir Roland Daneys who held it until his death in around 1377 when it passed to his nephew John. The descent of Horn was then from John to his son John, then to his son Robert and from him to his daughter, Elizabeth, who was married to William Hasilden.

John Hasilden succeeded his father and in 1509, his son, Francis, received a licence to enter ‘the manor of Hemseld or Homseld.’ In 1517 he sold the Lordship to Sir John Harington and it descended with that family until six months after the death of the first Baron Harington when it was sold to Baptist Hicks, Viscount Campden. From him it passed to his son-in-law, Edward, Lord Noel of Ridlington. His son and heir, Baptist,

was created Earl of Gainsborough, and the Lordship of the Manor of Horn has descended with this family until the present day. The descent of the Gainsboroughs appears under Uppingham in this catalogue.

The parish of Horn contains about 1,000 acres (approx 400 h) and the Great North Road (the A1), between Stamford and Grantham, drives through the north-east of the Manor. The church of All Saints had probably become ruinous by the 15th century.

Source notes

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Historical holder / succession information

1. Haringtons
   1517 · purchased_by · historical_holder_or_transferee
   Source wording: The Lordship of Horn had been purchased by the Haringtons in 1517.
2. his wife [source claim requiring identity review]
   passed_to · historical_holder_or_transferee
   Source wording: Hamby was a patron of the parish church and after his death the Lordship seems to have passed to his wife and then her second husband, William de Curzan.