Gage Family

One of the most remarkable families in Sussex is the ancient House of Gage, still in the village of Firle, the home of their ancestors.

The Gages first appeared here in the 14th century through marriage to the heiress of the St Cleres. The first notable member of the house was Sir John, who was much in the company of Henry the Eighth. Henry left him four thousand pounds in our money, and named him one of the Council during the minority of Edward the Sixth.

Dudley having deposed him, Sir John was out of office during the days of Lady Jane Grey's brief reign, but as an ardent Roman Catholic he was brought back to power by Mary for a terrible task. He was related by marriage to Lady Jane Grey, but had to preside at the execution. It was to Sir John that poor Jane turned when, having seen the mutilated remains of her young husband, she wrote a heartbroken comment in a succession of languages on her tablets, and handed them as her dying bequest to her kinsman-gaoler.

He lived to receive one more illustrious prisoner at the Tower, the young princess who was to become Queen Elizabeth. He died here in 1556. His son, Sir Edward, also Constable of the Tower, was one of the officers who carried out Mary's fearful sentences against the Sussex Protestants. There was not a Protestant Gage, in spite of all the ebbs and flows in national faith, until 1695.

The family remained prominent after Tudor days, and figures in a romance which reads like a variant of the Odyssey with its faithful Penelope. The lady, a daughter of Earl Rivers, was wooed by Sir George Trenchard, Sir John Gage, and Sir William Hervey, who were at daggers drawn over her.

 

She threatened to visit the first aggressor with her lasting displeasure, adding consolingly that if they would wait with patience she would have them all in turn. She was as good as her word: Trenchard left her a widow at 17, by Gage she was the mother of nine children, and she died the wife of Hervey.

A Thomas Gage was Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in America at the outbreak of the War of Independence, which followed his skirmish at Lexington in April 1775.

 

Two months later he fought the battle of Bunker's Hill and resigned. His brother, afterwards Admiral of the Blue, was the William Hall Gage whom Nelson warmly commended for the daring capture of one ship and the sinking of another in the presence of the whole Spanish fleet, the first of many daring exploits which made him famous in an age of great fighting seamen.

 

 

 

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