daughters were Mrs. Fanshawe, your great-grandmother-in-law; the
second married Sir John Scott, of Kent; the third married Sir John
Davies, of the same county; the fourth married Sir Robert Poynz, of
Leicestershire; the fifth married Thomas Butler, of Herald, Esq.; and
the sixth married Sir Henry Fanshawe, your grandfather: these all left
a numerous posterity but Davies, and this day they are matched into
very considerable families. [Footnote: Lady Fanshawe is not quite
correct in her account of the Smythe family, and the statements in
Peerages are equally erroneous. Thomas Smythe, Esq. of Ostenhanger, in
Kent, Farmer of the Customs to Philip and Mary, and to Queen
Elizabeth, was the second son of John Smythe, Esq., (whose ancestors
were seated at Corsham, in Wiltshire, as early as the 15th century,)
by Joan, daughter of Robert Brounker, ancestor of the celebrated
Viscount Brounker. Customer Smythe died in 1591, and had by Alice,
daughter and heiress of Sir Andrew Judde, Lord Mayor of London, and
one of the representatives of Archbishop Chicheley, seven sons and six
daughters, 1. Andrew, who died young. 2. Sir John, of Ostenhanger,
father of Sir Thomas Smythe, K.B., who married Lady Barbara Sydney,
daughter of Robert first Earl of Leicester, K.G., was created Viscount
Strangford, in Ireland, in 1628, and was the ancestor of Percy Clinton
Sydney Smythe, sixth and present Viscount Strangford and first Baron
Penshurst, G.C.B. 3. Henry Smythe, of Corsham. 4. Sir Thomas Smythe,
of Bidborough, in the county of Kent, ambassador to Russia in 1604,
whose male descendants became extinct on the death of Sir Stafford
Sydney Smythe, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, in 1778. 5. Sir Richard
Smythe, of Leeds Castle, in Kent, whose son, Sir John, dying
issueless, in 1632, his sisters became his co-heiresses. 6. Robert
Smythe, of Highgate, who left issue. 7. Symon Smythe, killed at the
siege of Cadiz in 1597. Of the daughters of Customer Smythe, Mary
married Robert Davye, of London, Esq.; Ursula married, first, Simon