thinke the dungeon of sum olde castelle was there. By
olde Torkesey standith southely the ruines of Fosse Nunnery, hard by the
stone-bridge over Fosse Dik; and there Fosse Dike hath his entering ynto
Trente. There be 2 smaul paroche chirches in new Torkesey and the Priory
of S. Leonard standith on theste [the East] side of it. The ripe [bank]
that Torkesey standith on is sumwhat higher ground than is by the west
ripe of Trent. Trent there devidith, and a good deale upward,
Lincolnshire from Nottinghamshire." (Itinerary: Oxon, 1745: vol. i. page
33.)

II.

THOROLD.

The high character for generousness and hospitality assigned to this
most ancient of Lincolnshire families, by history and tradition, was my
only reason for giving its name to an imaginary lord of Torksey.
Ingulphus, the Croyland chronicler, in a passage full of grateful
eloquence,--(commencing, "Tunc inter familiares nostri monasterii, et
benevolos amicos, erat praecipuus consiliarius quidam. Vicecomes
Lincolniae, dictus Thoroldus,"--but too long to quote entire,)--relates,
that in a dreadful famine, which occurred in the reign of Edward the
Confessor, Thorold, sheriff of Lincolnshire, gave his manor of Bokenhale
to the abbey of Croyland, and afterwards bestowed upon it his manor of
Spalding, with all its rents and profits. (Gale's Rer. Ang. Script. Vet.
Tom. i. page 65. Oxon, 1684.)

Tanner thus briefly notices the latter circumstance: "Spalding. Thorold
de Bukenale, brother to the charitable countess Godiva, gave a place
here, A.D. 1052, for the habitation, and lands for the maintenance of a
prior and five monks from Croiland." (Notitia, page 251. fol. 1744.) The
generosity of the female Thorold, Godiva, is matter of notoriety in the
traditionary history of Coventry; and her name, and that of her husband,
are found in connection with the history of the very ancient town of
Stow, in Lincolnshire, as benefactors to its church. "Leofricus, comes
Merciae, et Godiva ejus uxor ecclesiam de S. Marie Stow, quam Eadnotus,
episcopus Lincolniae, construxit, pluribus ornamentis ditavit"--Leofric,
earl of Mercia, and Godiva his wife, enriched with many adornments the
church of St. Mary at Stow, which Eadnoth, bishop of Lincoln, built.
(Leland's Collectanea, vol. i. page 158. London, 1770.)

In Kimber and Johnson's Baronetage (vol. i. page 470.) the Thorold of
the reign of Edward the Confessor is said to be descended from Thorold,
sheriff of Lincolnshire in the