Extract from chapter 22

1852: three brothers

Bid farewell to the popular squire of Godmersham Park.

The news of Charles’s death reached Hampshire at the end of November, when one of his old neighbours heard about it on a trip to Southampton. This, however, was too late to reach the ears of Edward in Godmersham.

Photo: Godmersham Park, Kent

He was now eighty-five, and his days, understandably, took on a slower pace. He took his exercise within his estate and each morning by riding in a carriage around his park. . One day in the middle of November, he did not feel up to the exertion, and when his servant came in the next morning to wake him up, Edward asked to sleep in a little longer.

When the servant returned later, his master had died in his sleep.

Photo: The Vyne, Basingstoke

This was 19^th November 1852, and on the 27^th he was buried beside his wife, Elizabeth, in the family vault at Godmersham church.

Photos: St. Lawrence the Martyr church, Godmersham

Edward Jr. inherited his father’s three estates but never came back to live in Kent, where he had been shunned so publicly because of his elopement. He let out Godmersham Park to a tenant for a while and then sold it outright two decades later.