d to Sir George Throckmorton, of Coughton (though his grandfather was
alive), and he married Mary, third daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton.
Brodesley,[411] Dudston, and Hybarnes were delivered to him 7 Elizabeth,
and in 15 Elizabeth he was called upon to prove his title to Curdworth
and to Berewood[412] Hall, which had been given by Hugh Arden to the
Canons of Leicester (Henry II.), and after the Dissolution purchased by
his grandfather, Thomas, and uncle, Simon, for L272 10s., with a yearly
rent of 30s. 4d., and settled on William, 37 Henry VIII. Various
purchases of land are recorded in Coke's "Entries."[413] He impaled the
park of Minworth on the other side of the Tame, to add to that of his
own Park Hall.[414]

Edward seems to have been highly respected in his time, and was Sheriff
of the County in 1575.[415] But he had offended Leicester[416] by
refusing to wear his livery (as many of the gentlemen of the county were
proud to do) and by disapproving openly of his relations with the
Countess of Essex before her husband's death. Leicester waited his time.
Edward Arden's sons were Robert (who married Elizabeth, daughter of
Reginald Corbet, Justice of the Royal Pleas, about 1577), Thomas,
Francis. Of his daughters, Catherine married Sir Edward Devereux, of
Castle Bromwich; Margaret, John Somerville, of Edreston; Muriel, William
Charnells, of Snareston, Leicestershire; and Elizabeth, Simon
Shugborough, of Napton, co. Warwick.

Edward Arden bore the family arms: Ermine, a fesse chequy or and azure.
Crest: On a chapeau azure, turned up erm., a boar passant or. Motto:
_Quo me cunque vocat patriam._

He appointed Edmund Lingard to Curdworth Church, 1573.

Edward Arden was a temperate follower of the old faith; but his
son-in-law, John Somerville, an excitable youth, seemed to chafe under
the increasing oppression of the Catholic Church and its adherents.[417]
The evil reports concerning the Queen and Leicester increased the
friction. Shut out from travel or active exercise, as all Catholics then
were by law, he studied and pondered, and his mind seemed to have given
way in his sleepless attempts to reconcile faith and practice. He
started off suddenly one morning before anyone was awake, attended only
by one boy, who soon left him, terrified; and when he reached a little
inn on the lonely road by Aynho on the Hill, he spoke frantically to all
who chose to hear that he was going to London to kill the Queen.[418]
Then f