Lot Essay
Anne Earle (b. 1634) was the daughter of Erasmus Earle (1590-1667) of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, and his wife, Frances, daughter of James Fountaine, of Salle, Norfolk, whom he had married in 1616. Her father was Member of Parliament for Norwich in 1640, in the Long Parliament, and in 1648 was appointed by Oliver Cromwell as his own Sergeant-at-law, an office he continued to hold under Richard Cromwell and King Charles II, who granted him a pardon. He acquired the house and estates at Heydon in 1643. Anne Earle married William Darwin (d. 1675) of Cleatham Hall, Kerton-Lindsay, Lincoln, Recorder of the City of Lincoln, in 1653. Charles Darwin, the eminent naturalist, was their great-great-grandson. Anne Earle's brother, John (1622-97) and his wife, Sarah, daughter of Sir John Hare of Stow Bardolf, were painted by Lely in a very fine double portrait (R.B. Beckett, Lely, London, 1951, no. 175, plate 33).