It was in the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the
monasteries, that, by a royal grant, the church and priory of
Newstead, with the lands adjoining, were added to the other
possessions of the Byron family.[7] The favourite upon whom these
spoils of the ancient religion were conferred, was the grand-nephew
of the gallant soldier who fought by the side of Richmond at Bosworth,
and is distinguished from the other knights of the same Christian name
in the family, by the title of "Sir John Byron the Little, with the
great beard." A portrait of this personage was one of the few family
pictures with which the walls of the abbey, while in the possession of
the noble poet, were decorated.

At the coronation of James I. we find another representative of the
family selected as an object of royal favour,--the grandson of Sir
John Byron the Little, being, on this occasion, made a knight of the
Bath. There is a letter to this personage, preserved in Lodge's
Illustrations, from which it appears, that notwithstanding all these
apparent indications of prosperity, the inroads of pecuniary
embarrassment had already begun to be experienced by this ancient
house. After counselling the new heir as to the best mode of getting
free of his debts, "I do therefore advise you," continues the
writer,[8] "that so soon as you have, in such sort as shall be fit,
finished your father's funerals, to dispose and disperse that great
household, reducing them to the number of forty or fifty, at the most,
of all sorts; and, in my opinion, it will be far better for you to
live for a time in Lancashire rather than in Notts, for many good
reasons that I can tell you when we meet, fitter for words than
writing."