Author’s Note
The Tichborne Dole really did exist. In the 12th century, an ailing Lady Tichborne crawled around 23 acres so that the produce from that land would be given to the poor. To ensure that her miserly husband kept his word, she also laid the following curse: if the dole were ever to be stopped, the Tichborne family would bear seven sons and those sons would bear seven daughters, resulting in the family’s name dying out. The dole was stopped during the Georgian era and seven sons were born, the eldest of whom had seven daughters. At that point, the dole was resumed for fear that the curse was coming to fruition.
Alas, droit de seigneur was alive and well in England for many centuries. (The diaries of Samuel Pepys make for horrifying reading. Pepys was a member of parliament and
