Henry Chaplin A Memoir: Youth I. The demesne of Blankney had been the property of the Deincourts since the Conquest, until in the fifteenth century it passed through the marriage of an heiress [Alice Deincourt 6th Baroness Deincourt, Baroness Lovel and Sudeley] to the Lovels of Tichmarsh. All the estates of the house of Lovel were, however, confiscated to the Crown by Henry Vll., after the battle of Stoke-on-Trent, when Lord Lovel himself only escaped by swimming his horse across the river. Blankney was bought by the Thorolds, who did much to embellish the house with the fine carved panelling of the period. But in the reign of Charles I., through a marriage with the Thorold heiress [Mary Thorold], it passed into the hands of Sir William Widdrington, who was created Baron Widdrington of Blankney in 1643. Lord Widdrington's great grandson [William Widdrington 4th Baron Widdrington] had the indiscretion to take part in the rebellion of 1715; he was taken prisoner at Preston and convicted of high treason, and though his life was spared his estates were confiscated in the following year.