Edmund's four-winged house around a central courtyard is recognisable by the thickness of the 4 ft deep walls that form the core of the existing mansion.

As a result of this lifelong friendship, Henry VIII gave William, who was also to become a military hero, many rewards, amongst them the ruinous Fulbroke Castle.

The frequency with which they entertained state visitors was a barometer of their wealth, and this was an era in which a one-day visit from the monarch could, and frequently did, bankrupt the host.

[5] An anecdote from the time of the Civil War is that the Cromwellian commander of the house took such a liking to the gilded bed of state, slept in by so many monarchs, that he sequestered it for himself.

Spencer, 2nd Earl of Northampton, a godson of Elizabeth I, was a close friend of Charles I, and the Comptons had strong Royalist ties during the civil war.

The Parliamentarians were recorded as having taken 120 prisoners, £5000 (equivalent to £720,000 in 2008), 60 horses, 400 sheep, 160 head of cattle, 18 loads of plunder (the furnishings of the mansion) and six earthen pots of coins recovered from the moat.

[5][7] There is a legend that the widow of the 2nd Earl remained hidden in the attics of the vast house tending to Royalist wounded, undetected by the Cromwellians, until their escape was possible.

In 1835, the 2nd Marquess of Northampton (the family had been elevated from Earls in 1812) visited Compton Wynyates for the first time and found the house in a ruinous state; he made some minor renovations to prevent complete dereliction.

[9] He also employed the architect Sir Digby Wyatt to gothicise the out-of-keeping east front and create a new staircase in the house.

[9] Wynates is the birthplace and burial place of Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, considered to be the second Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

[10] The house today remains essentially the mansion that Edmund Compton and his son William completed within a thirty-year period during the reigns of the first two Tudor monarchs.

On the succession of Spencer, 7th Marquess of Northampton, it was decided that in order for the family to survive the 20th century, Castle Ashby would have to be heavily commercialised.

[11] A dead-end public footpath runs from the village of Upper Tysoe about a mile away, ending at a tall locked gate a few yards short of the estate church, where walkers are instructed to return the way they came.

Compton Wynyates has occasionally been used as a filming location, including: The Black Tent (1955); Carry On Camping (1969),[12] (Coincidentally these establishing shots are said to have come from the earlier Black Tent footage); Candleshoe (1977); Death on the Nile (1978); the 1980s television show Silver Spoons; An Instance of the Fingerpost (1998); The Mirror Crack'd (1980); a 1995 episode of Keeping Up Appearances and the television series The Tudors.