Born in the early years of eighteenth century, she passed her girlhood in the days of good Queen Anne, married when George I. was yet king, and gaily led the world of fashion, not only throughout the long reign of his successor, but for twenty-eight years of that of his grandson. She came into the world before the last echoes of the English Revolution had died away, leaving it only when the thunder of the French upheaval was beginning to stun the ears of Europe.

My Lady Townshend came of a good old stockthe Harrisons of Balls, near Hertford, descendants of a Sir John Harrison who had fought stoutly for King Charles against the rebel Roundheads.

When the Civil War broke out, Sir John had but lately purchased the Balls estate from one Sir Richard Willis, whose wife Jane was the heiress of the Henmarsh family, owners of Balls in the days of Elizabeth.

The place was originally so called from one Simon de Ball (or Bawle), a burgess in Parliament for the borough of Hertford as long ago as the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Edward I. The name, variously spelt, occurs again and again in the list of freeholders of the neighbourhood. A meadow in the parish of All Saints, Hertford, was known for two hundred years or more as Ball's (or Balle's) Hook, and there was a brass on the floor of the church of All Saints, asking for prayers for the soul of Thomas Barle (1456), who might well have been one of the same family.

The old hall on the estate, existing in Tudor times, had been pulled down in the reign of Charles I., and a new house was built by Sir John Harrison about the year 1642 or 1643. Evelyn, in his Diary, writing under date of April 16, 1643, says, and near the town

of Hertford, I went to see Sir John Harrison's house

new built. . . ." It is described by Chauncey in his old History of Hertfordshire as—

a fair stately fabrick of brick in the middle of a warren, consisting of a square pile with a court in the middle thereof, every side equally fronted and exactly uniform, the ceilings within the house wrought with several and distinct patterns of fretwork: the steps in the great staircase wainscoted in panes: the hall paved with black and white marble: the inward court with fine stone.

...

Sir John Harrison and his immediate family merit more than a note in passing. He was born at Bemond in the county of Lancaster, and was M.P. for the city of Lancaster in three separate Parliaments of Charles I., by whom he was appointed a Farmer of Customs. Throughout his life he employed his energies and his fortune in promoting the interests of the King. When Charles unfurled the Royal Standard at Nottingham, he at once attached himself to the cause, and in 1643 joined his Sovereign at Oxford.

Dr. Salmon, in a History of Hertfordshire, says that he was forced to leave his house "when the Parliament drove, as the rest of the King's friends did their habitations and estates ", and that he made himself obnoxious by his loyalty in the House of Commons, where he sat for his native borough of Lancaster. The old chronicler of the county continues quaintly to note that

... his malignant estate was sequestered, and he passed the Purgatory of the Times in a private Retirement or Voluntary Exile. Yet he lived to see the Tragic Past of his Fortunes blown over, to enjoy Nine Years of the serenest Weather England ever knew...

His daughter Ann, wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, describes the distresses suffered by her family when

the rebels had expelled her father from the House of Commons, and deprived him of his estate.

... My father commanded my sister and myself to come to him at Oxford, where the Court then was, but we, who till that hour lived in great plenty and great order, found ourselves like fish out of water, and the scene so changed that we knew not at all how to act any part but obedience; for, from as good houses as any gentleman in England had, we came to a baker's house in an obscure street: and from rooms well furnished, to lie in a very bad bed in a garret: to one dish of meat and that not of the best ordered: no money, for we were as poor as Job, nor cloaths more than a man or two brought in their cloak bags we had the perpetual discourse of losing and gaining towns and men: at the windows the sad spectacle of war, sometimes plague, sometimes sickness of other kind, by reason of so many people packed together as I believe there never was before of that quality: always in want, yet I must needs say that most bore it with a martyr-like cheerfulness: for my own part, I began to think we should all, like Abraham, live in tents all the days of our lives. . . (Memoirs of Ann, Lady Fanshawe, 1600-1672.)

At the Restoration, Sir John Harrison's estates were restored to him. He lived to a good old age, dying when past his eightieth year. According to his daughter Ann, he was a handsome gentleman of great natural parts, a great accountant, of vast memory, an incomparable penman, of great integrity, of service to his Prince, and a good husband and father. He was twice married. His first wife was Margaret, daughter of Richard Fanshawe, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. The eldest was married three times and left descendants, but was disinherited by his father for taking the side of the Parliamentarians.

One can well imagine the indignation of the loyal old knight, who could never forgive such treachery to his Sovereign. John tried on more than one occasion