This historical detail, gathered from Domesday Book, Dugdale, and other authorities, is narrated in consequence of its bearing upon some celebrated poems hereafter to be noticed, and is continued up to the present period for a like reason.
Sir Christopher Hatton died in 1591, and settled his estate on Sir William Newport, whose daughter became the second wife of Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, who purchased the estate of Stoke. After the dissolution of the Parliament by King Charles the First, in March, 1628-9, Sir Edward Coke being then greatly advanced in years, retired to his house at Stoke, where he spent the remainder of his days in a quiet retirement, universally respected and esteemed; and there, says his epitaph, crowned his pious life with a pious and Christian departure, on Wednesday the 3d day of September, A. D., 1634, and of his age 83; his last words, "THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE!"
Upon the death of Sir Edward Coke, the manor and estate of Stoke devolved to his son-in-law, Viscount Purbeck, elder brother of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who perished by the hand of the assassin, Felton.
Lord Purbeck, upon the death of his wife, daughter of Sir Edward Coke, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Slingsby, by whom he had a son, Robert, which Robert, marrying the daughter and heir of Sir John Danvers, one of the judges who sat on the trial of King Charles the First, obtained a patent from Cromwell, Protector of the Commonwealth, to change his name to Danvers, alledging as the reasons for his so doing "the many disservices done to the commonwealth by the name of the family of Villiers."
In 1657, Viscount Purbeck granted a lease of the manor and house of Stoke, to Sir Robert Gayer during his own life; and in the same year, his son, Robert Villiers, or Danvers, sold his reversionary interest in the estate to Sir R. Gayer for the sum of eight thousand five hundred and sixty-four pounds. The family of Gayers continued in possession until 1724, when the estate was sold for twelve thousand pounds to Edmund Halsey, Esq., M.P., who died in 1729, his daughter Anne married Sir Richard Temple, created Viscount Cobham, who survived him; and she resided at Stoke until her death in the year 1760.