_The Brownes of Cowdray, Sussex._--E. H. Y. (Vol. iii., p. 66.) is wrong in
assigning the title of Lord _Mountacute_ to the Brownes of Cowdray, Sussex.
In 1 & 2 Phil. and Mary, Sir Antony Browne (son of the Master of the Horse
to Henry VIII.) was created Viscount _Montague_ (Collins). When curate of
Eastbourne, in which parish are situated the ruins of their ancestral Hall
of Cowdray, I frequently heard the village dames recite the tales of the
rude forefathers of the hamlet respecting the family.
They relate, that while the great Sir Antony (temp. Hen. VIII.) was holding
a revel, a monk presented himself before the guests and pronounced the
curse of fire and water against the male descendants of the family, till
none should be left, because the knight had received and was retaining the
church-lands of Battle Abbey, and those which belonged to the priory of
Eastbourne. Within the last hundred years, destiny, though slow of foot,
has overtaken the fated race. In one day the hall perished by fire, and the
lord by water, as mentioned by E. H. Y. The male line being extinct, the
estate passed to the sister of Lord Montague. This lady was married to the
late W. S. Poyntz, Esq., M.P. The two sons of Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz were
drowned at Bognor, and the estate a second time devolved on the female
representatives. These ladies, still living, are the Marchioness of Exeter,
the Countess Spencer, and the Dowager Lady Clinton. The estate passed by
purchase into the hands of the Earl of Egmont.
The old villagers, the servants, and the descendants of servants of the
family, point to the ruins of the hall, and religiously cling to the belief
that its destruction and that of its lords resulted from the curse. It
certainly seems an illustration of Archbishop Whitgift's words to Queen
Elizabeth:
"Church-land added to an ancient inheritance hath proved like a moth
fretting a garment, and secretly consumed both: or like the eagle that
stole a coal from the altar, and thereby set her nest on fire, which
consumed both her young eagles and herself that stole it."