This forest or chase, manor, &c. were granted by queen Elizabeth, in her 14th year, to one of her chief favorites, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, for a term of years, at the expiration of which she granted the fee of them to Frances, widow of Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, who was the sole daughter and heir of that great stateman, Sir Francis Walsingham, and had first married Sir Philip Sydney; the countess of Essex, afterwards re-married Richard Burgh, earl of Clanrickard, and it is no wonder this lady married him when Smollet says he was a very handsome gallant young nobleman, and very like the late earl of Essex; insomuch, that the queen, then far advanced in years, made some advances to him, which he declined. He became by this marriage possessed of this estate, and built a noble mansion at a very large expence, on a pleasant eminence on the northern part of it, which he did not finish till the latter end of king James I.'s reign, and gave it the name of SOMERHILL. In the 22d year of that reign he was created baron of Somerhill, viscount Tunbridge; and in the 4th year of king Charles I. earl of St. Albans, at which time he had likewise other Irish honors conferred on him, as baron of Imaudy, in Conaught, and viscount of Galloway, bearing for his arms, Or, a cross gules, in the dexter canton, a lion rampant sable. He resided much at Somerhill, and dying in 1636 was buried in Tunbridge church.