If so, it was severed in the Carolian times because my ancestors fought on the side of Parliament.
My father was a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth.

Being very High Church for those days he was not popular with the family that owned the Priory before me.
Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost persecuted him, as he was in a position to do, being the local magnate and the owner of the rectorial tithes.
I mention this fact because owing to it as a boy I made up my mind that one day I would buy that place and sit in his seat, a wild enough idea at the time.

Yet it became engrained in me, as do such aspirations of our youth, and when the opportunity arose in after years I carried it out.

Poor old Enfield! He fell on evil fortunes, for in trying to bolster up a favourite son who was a gambler, a spendthrift, and an ungrateful scamp, in the end he was practically ruined and when the bad times came, was forced to sell the Fulcombe estate.

I think of him kindly now, for after all he was good to me and gave me many a day's shooting and leave to fish for trout in the river.
By the poor people, however, of all the district round, for the parish itself is very small, my father was much beloved, although he did practise confession, wear vestments and set lighted candles on the altar, and was even said to have openly expressed the wish, to which however he never attained, that he could see a censer swinging in the chancel.