sentences:  Sir Thomas Heneage received the estate of Copthall on 13 August 1564 from Queen Elizabeth I, where he subsequently built an elaborate mansion from the designs of John Thorpe.The Queen was a frequent visitor to Essex and she is recorded as having visited Heneage at Copthall in 1575.His daughter, afterwards Countess of Winchelsea, sold it to the Earl of Middlesex in the reign of James I.