Wimbledon (Wibbandune) is supposed to have been the scene of a battle in 568 between Ceawlin, king of Wessex, and Ethelbert, king of Kent, in which the latter was defeated. At Domesday it formed part of the manor of Mortlake, held by the archbishops of Canterbury. Afterwards the name was sometimes used interchangeably with Mortlake, and in 1327 it is described as a grange or farm belonging to Mortlake. On the impeachment of Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1398, it was confiscated. In the reign of Henry VIII. Cromwell, earl of Essex, held the manor of Wimbledon, with Bristow Park as an appendage. On the confiscation of Cromwell’s estates in 1540 it again fell to the crown, and by Henry VIII. it was settled on Catherine Parr for life. By Queen Mary it was granted to Cardinal Pole. In 1574 Elizabeth bestowed the manor house, while retaining the manor, on Sir Christopher Hatton, who sold it the same year to Sir Thomas Cecil. In 1588 Elizabeth transferred the manor to his son Sir Edward Cecil, in exchange for an estate in Lincolnshire. At the time of the Civil War the manor was sold to Adam Baynes, who shortly afterwards sold it to General Lambert; and at the Restoration it was granted to the queen dowager, Henrietta Maria, who sold it in 1661 to George Digby, earl of Bristol. On his death in 1676 it was sold by his widow to the lord-treasurer Danby. Some years after Danby’s death it was purchased by Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, who demised it to her grandson, John Spencer. It was sold by the fifth Earl Spencer in 1877. Wimbledon House, built by Sir Thomas Cecil in 1588, was destroyed by fire in 1785, and a new house, called Wimbledon Park House, was erected about 1801.