founders, or vested in trustees, who have the power and direction thereof: as

I. The great Alms-house founded by Ellis Davy, citizen and mercer of London, in the year 1443, for seven poor people, men and women, who were incorporated the 25th of December, 23 Hen. VI. by the name of Tutor and Master of the poor people of the Alms-house of " Ellis Davy, at Croydon, in the shire of Surrey."

The said poor to be persons who have lived seven years as householders in Croydon, if any such there be, or of other adjacent villages within four miles thereof; of which said Hospital the vicar and churchwardens of Croydon, for the time being, and four of the most worthy householders dwelling within the said parish, are appointed governors, and the company of Mercers overseers.

The said Ellys Davy likewise devised several statutes for the said Alms-house, which, being antiquated, were August 6, 1566, reviewed by the most Rev. Father in God, Matthew, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and established under his public seal.

II. The Hospital of the Holy Trinity, founded by the Most Reverend Father in God, John Whitgift, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who in his life-time built and finished the same, the 10th of July, in the year 1599, for thirty brethren and sisters at the least, and so many more under forty, as the revenues will maintain; one of the brethren to teach a grammarschool, and one to be called Warden; and for their support endowed the said hospital with revenues, amounting to £202 6 6 per annum.

III. The gift of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, who in his life-time,

10 Car. I. purchased of John Newdigate, Esq. a messuage and lands in Albury, in the county of Warwick, in the name of Sir John Tonstall, and others, at and for the sum of £300; the rent and profits of which lands were to be yearly applied by the feofees for the placing out poor children of the said parish as apprentices; which lands being remote, and the tenants becoming insolvent, were, pursuant to a decree of the court of chancery, made in Easter Term, 1656, sold for £225 and therewith, and with £35 raised by the trustees among themselves, other lands were purchased of one William Bish, lying in Horne in the County of Surrey, now let for £15 per

annum.

IV. The most Rev. Father in God Thomas Tenison, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, did likewise in his life time, in the year 1714, purchase a messuage or tenement in Croydon, and a farm and lands in Limpsfield, in the county of Surrey, of the yearly value of £42, and settled the same in trustees for ever, for the teaching of twenty-eight poor boys and girls of the said parish to read and write, and maintaining a master for that purpose; and further, by his last will left to the said trustees the sum of £400 to be laid out in land for the augmentation of the said charity.

V. The last mentioned most Reverend Prelate did likewise in the year 1709, at his own charge, cause the new markethouse, then quite decayed, to he rebuilt for the use and benefit of the parishioners, who let the room over the same for £3 per annum.

CHAP. XII.

The Palace of Croydon, and Archbishops who resided in it.

SINCE this venerable structure has long ceased to be the residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, has been used for other purposes, and has very much fallen into decay, we think we can do no better than present to our readers the account given of it by the learned Dr. Ducarel, as it was in his time.

"Before I enter into any account of the palace of Croydon, it will not, I hope, be thought improper to consider in what manner the former Archbishops were employed, and to say something of their place of residence in general.

"It appears from the register at Lambeth that before the reformation these prelates had a great deal of business upon their hands; for besides their metropolitical visitations, ordinations, institutions, and collations, they likewise granted probates of wills, administrations, marriage-licenses, commissions and dispensations of divers kinds, and performed many acts of the like sort, which, since the reforma

tion, have either totally ceased, or been transferred to the Vicars general and other officers.

"This business therefore, being inseparable from the person of the Archbishops, necessarily followed them wherever they went, and upon a visitation or a journey we find the registers filled with acts of this nature, nor was going out of the kingdom any excuse to them in this respect, there being in Archbishop Chichele's register some acts dated in 1418, from Rouen and Evreux, in Normandy, and even from Manto, in the diocese of Chartres, in France. All the old registers, namely, those from Archbishop Peckham's to Archbishop Parker's time are very exact in the dates when, as well as the places where, the several Archbishops performed such acts: but the names of such places do not appear after Archbishop Parker's time in ordinary acts, but only in commissions, and acts of more than ordinary consequence, though the dates are carefully preserved, and these latter registers kept in very good order.

"The Archbishops had Manor-houses belonging to their See, from whence the above mentioned Acts are dated. Canterbury, indeed, is called their palace in very old Acts, but the rest are called their manors only; the chief of them were, in Surrey, Croydon,

Lambeth, Mortlake, Sheen in Kent, Aldyngton, Cherrynge, Cranbroke, Knoll, Lyminge, Mallynge, Maydenston, Otteford, Settlewode, Tenham, Wengham, Wrotham: in Sussex, Maghefeld, Slyndon.

"Archbishop Cranmer exchanged several of these manors with King Henry VIII. for other lands; amongst others Settlewode, Lyming, Croydon Park, Slyndon, Otteford, Maydeston, Knoll, &c.

"A knowledge of the residence of the Archbishops is only to be obtained by carefully examining the names of the places from whence their Acts are dated-Having found but little in the Registers relating to the palace of Croydon, recourse was had to the rolls of accounts preserved in the manuscript library at Lambeth; amongst these, though very numerous, no more than four could be found relating to Croydon, though of almost every other manorhouse, two of them torn where the date should be, and therefore of no use; the other two have only furnished this account with some few repairs about the year 1400.

* An account of most of the Archbishops houses in Kent, is to be seen in Hasted's History of that County.