n good authority."[2] It is inferred that her captivity at
Wingfield commenced in 1569, in which year an attempt was made by
Leonard Dacre to rescue her; after which, Elizabeth, becoming
suspicious of the Earl of Shrewsbury, under pretence of his lordship's
being in ill health, directed the Earl of Huntingdon to take care of
the Queen of Scots in Shrewsbury's house; and her train was reduced to
thirty persons. This event happened the year after Mary was removed
from Bolton Castle, in Yorkshire, to Tutbury Castle, in Staffordshire,
and placed under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury. Her captivity at
Wingfield is stated to have extended to nine years; but it is
improbable that so large a proportion of the time she was in the
custody of this nobleman, should be spent here: for it is well known,
that from 1568 to 1584, she was at Buxton, Sheffield, Coventry,
Tutbury, and other places, and, if her confinement here continued so
long, it must have been with many intervals of absence.

[2] Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet, vol. i.

The Manor-House continued to be the occasional residence of the
Shrewsburys till the death of Earl Gilbert, in the year 1616, who
dying without male issue, the whole of his estates in this part of the
kingdom descended to his three daughters and co-heirs by marriage, and
their descendants, till one of the latter, the Hon. Henry Howard,
becoming Duke of Norfolk, sold his portion to different tenants; and
in the year 1666, we find Mr. Emanuel Halton resident at the
Manor-House. He was a man of considerable literary and scientific
attainments, as well as of good family, his father being sheriff of
Cumberland in 1652. Being employed as auditor to Henry, Duke of
Norfolk, he was, through that connexion, introduced into Derbyshire,
and spent the latter part of his life, which was devoted to music and
mathematics, at Wingfield. In the Appendix to Foster's _Mathematical
Miscellanies_ are some of his pieces. In the year 1676 he observed an
eclipse of the sun at Wingfield, which was published in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ for that year. The Manor was, in 1817, in
the possession of Wingfield Halton, Esq., great grandson of the
aforesaid Emanuel; but it was not then inhabited. The last of the
Halton family who resided at the Manor-House became its spoiler; for,
desiring to build himself a house at the foot of the high hill upon
which the mansion stands, he pulled down and unroofed part of the fin