OLD ROYAL LEGACY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 244, 15 October 1931, Page 7

OLD ROYAL LEGACY

RECIPIENTS IN SYDNEY. DATING BACK TO 1651. SYDNEY, Oct. 1. Two brothers who live at Ashfield, a suburb of Sydney, share an annuity of £l4 16s 6d granted by King Charles 11. to his rescuers away back in the seventeenth century. In 1651, fleeing from the defeat by Cromwell and his Roundheads at the Battle of Worcester, King Charles escaped westward to the forests, saw the peculiar shaped chimneys which cold him that goud friend Penderell’s house was a Catholic sanctuary, and dived into the famous Boscobel Oak lor safety. The loyal Penderells heaped great mounds of cheese before the secret passage that led from tho house to the Oak, so that the baying bloodhounds behind would be thrown off the Royal scent. It is because of that action that Messrs. B. G. Walsh and E. J. Walsh—the latter is at present visiting England—share in tho annuity which signified Royal pleasure. The mother of the two brothers, the Into Mrs. E. M. Walsh, was a descendant of the William Penderell of 1651, and through tho years the annuity has been paid under an order of tho Chancery division of tho English High Court, dated 1890. Some years after tho Restoration, when the smiles of Sweet Nell were interesting the courtiers of the period, the Merry Monarch granted to the Penderells—tho name was aftrwards spelt Pendrell—a good annuity. William and Richard Penderell received £lOO a year each; Humphrey, John and George Penderell 100 marks each; and Elizabeth Yates, daughter of old William Penderell, and his wife Joan, £5O a year. Mr. R l . G. Walsh explained the other day that the money was paid regularly in equal instalments twice a year. His brother and her brother received it before him and his brother, and he supposed that the family would go on receiving it for years to come.