Sir John Gage held various posts in the court of Henry VIII, including Vice-Chamberlain, Knight of the Garter and Constable of the Tower of London. He was in charge of the Tower of London when the future Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoned there.
Sir John Gage was a Catholic, and his family was barred from advancement after Henry VIII became head of the independent Church of England. However his descendent, Sir William Gage (1695-1744) joined the Church of England in 1730. He set about enhancing Firle Place, by building two long galleries and an external facing of Caen Stone around the property.
Other well-known members of the Gage family included George Gage, (1572-1638), who was chosen to negotiate on behalf of James I to obtain a papal dispensation to enable his son, Prince Charles, to marry the Infanta of Spain.
Sir Thomas Gage (1719-1787), joined the armed services and went to America, where he became commander in chief of the British forces. He was a contemporary of George Washington. His actions in America are said to have contributed to the start of the American War of Independence. He was defeated in a famous battle at Bunker Hill. Portraits of him wearing the 'red coat' of the British forces hang on the walls of Firle Place.
In the 19th century, another Sir Thomas Gage (1781-1820) is credited with creating the name of the greengage plum. Sir Thomas was a horticulturalist who imported plum trees from Chartreuse, where his brother was a Roman Catholic priest. The labels for the trees were apparently lost in transit, and the plums became known as greengages after Sir Thomas.
The Gage family continue to live in Firle Place, and the house reopened to the public in 2013, after restoration work.
Village of Firle
'Firle refers to an old-English/Anglo-Saxon word fierol meaning overgrown with oak...During the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042–66) Firle was part of the Abbey of Wilton's estate.
Following the Norman conquest of England the village and surrounding lands were passed to Robert, Count of Mortain. Half-brother of King William I, Robert was the largest landowner in the country after the monarch.
The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book, referred to as 'Ferla'. The value of the village is listed as being £44, which was amongst the highest values in the county.
The manor house, the site on which Firle Place now stands, was occupied from the early fourteenth century by the 'de Livet' (Levett) family, an ancient Sussex gentry family of Norman descent who owned the manor...
On the bankruptcy of lord of the manor Thomas Levett in 1440, the owernship passed to Bartholomew Bolney, whose daughter married William Gage in 1472. Following the death of Bartholomew Bolney (d. 1476) without a male heir the seat of Firle Place was passed to William Gage.'
'St Peters Church contains an alabaster effigy of Sir John Gage wearing his Order of the Garter and lying beside his wife Philippa. It also has a John Piper stained-glass window in warm colours, depicting Blake's Tree of Life.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firle
Well-known residents
'The writer Virginia Woolf visited nearby Lewes in December 1910 and decided to relocate in Firle, where she rented a house and renamed it Little Talland House. Pointz Hall, a fictional manor from her novel Between the Acts, is believed to be inspired by Firle Place.
Woolf's sister, painter and interior designer Vanessa Bell, moved to Firle in 1916 taking residence with her live-in lover Duncan Grant in Charleston Farmhouse, which subsequently became a regular haunt of the Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa Bell, her son Quentin Bell, and Duncan Grant are all buried in the churchyard of St Peter's, Firle.
The Welsh Actor Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn who famously starred in 17 James Bond films as the character Q ("Major Geoffrey Boothroyd" ) was a resident of Firle when he died in 1999.
Writer Katherine Mansfield, who had close ties with the Bloomsbury Group, also lived in Firle for a brief time. Her landlord was economist John Maynard Keynes, who moved to Firle in 1925 and died there in 1946.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firle
Sources: http://www.firle.com/family
http://www.stately-homes.com/firle-place
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firle
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