THE BATTLE ABBEY ROLL. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NORMAN LINEAGES. BY THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. IN THREE VOLUMES.—VOL. I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1889. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. This electronic edition was prepared by Michael A. Linton PREFACE. -------*-------- No one can be more sensible than I am myself that the task of investigating the Battle Abbey Roll should have been committed to more competent hands than mine. My only excuse for attempting it is that it has in reality been unattempted hitherto, as Sir Bernard Burke, in his commentary on Holinshed's list, has only dealt with two hundred and nine of the best-known names, passing over the remaining four hundred and twenty without notice, and Sir Egerton Brydges' brief and peremptory annotations were evidently made in haste, and refer to an imperfect copy. From being a resident at Battle Abbey, and entertaining a higher opinion than is expressed by many of my contemporaries for "the scum of Bretons and rags of France" that conquered and colonised England, I have felt an interest in the subject, and a desire to do my best, at all events, towards elucidating it. For this purpose I have waded through many county histories, peerages, and other volumes that are scarcely lively reading, but I have received most assistance from 'The Norman People' and the 'Recherches sur le Domesday.' Chartularies and public records appear to be the only reliable guides in the study of genealogies, for the Visitations furnish no dates,[1] and I own to having been lost in amazement at some of the pedigrees furnished by the heralds. Take one instance only. Is it not a cruel mystification for an old county family to be led to believe that the son of their ancestor Clement Cox (such a name for a Saxon noble!) received an Earldom from Edward the Confessor, and that his descendant, who fell at the battle of Naseby, is styled on his monument "the twenty-fourth titular Earl Cox"?[2] This does not apply to Dugdale, who evolves no fictions from his inner consciousness, but is invariably and scrupulously honest; and I may add that Mr. Planche, in his 'Conqueror and his Companions,' aims only at being impartial and truthful. I think I can, with all due humility, say the same of myself. But I have found the pursuit of truth a path bristling with thorns, and beset with pitfalls. One of the chief difficulties to be met is the confusion caused by contradictory statements that no ingenuity can reconcile; and in too many cases conjecture alone is possible. Although I may conscientiously assert that I have taken all imaginable pains to be accurate, I am aware that I must have made plenty of mistakes. I shall be most grateful to be corrected. From the great number of names of which I have endeavoured to give an account, each account is necessarily brief and more or less imperfect, as in so limited a space it would be utterly hopeless to trace out every collateral branch in detail. Until I commenced this undertaking, I had no conception how deep a root these ancient lineages had struck in the land, and how numerous and widely spread their ramifications were. I have retained the picturesque old legends that have been so long associated with them as to form part of their history. What would De Vere be without its meteor star, or De Albini without its conquered lion? I have also given all the anecdotes that I could collect, partly to relieve the inherent dullness of a mere catalogue of descents, and partly because many of them incidentally furnish vivid pictures of manners and customs long since passed away. INTRODUCTION. --------*-------- The famous Roll of Battle Abbey is believed to have been compiled in obedience to a clause in the Conqueror's foundation charter, that enjoined the monks to pray for the souls of those "who by their labour and valour had helped to win the kingdom."[3] The great Sussex Abbey that was "the token and pledge of the Royal Crown," had been intended to be not only a memorial of his victory, but a chantry for the slain; and the names of his companions-in-arms, enshrined on this bede-roll, might thus be read out in the church on special occasions, and notably on the anniversary feast of St. Celict. It was most likely originally copied from the muster-roll of the Norman knights, that had been prepared by the Duke's orders before his embarkation, and was called over in his presence on the field of battle, the morning after it had been fought.[4] The list, thus composed, was inscribed on a roll of parchment, and hung up in the Abbey Minster, with this superscription: "Dicitur a bello 'BELLUM' locus hic, quia bello Angligenae victi sunt in morte relicti, Martyris in Christi festo cecidere Calixti. Sexagenus erat sextus millesimus annus. Cum pereunt Angli, Stella monstrante cometa."[5] With it were preserved two other mementos of the conquest of England. King William's sword,[6] and the robe he had worn at his coronation, and specially bequeathed to the monks by his will. This "royal pallium was beautifully ornamented with gold and very costly gems, and three hundred amulets suitably fabricated of gold and silver, many of which were attached to chains of those metals, and contained innumerable relics of the saints;" and he also gave "a feretory in the form of an altar, in which likewise were many relics, and upon which, in his expedition, mass had been accustomed to be celebrated."—Battel Abbey Chronicle. These relics, according to Mr. Lower (the translator of the Chronicle) "must have been the same with those which William had, in 1065, surreptitiously introduced under the portable altar upon which he had compelled Harold to take a solemn oath to assist him in his designs upon England. In the Bayeux Tapestry, where the scene is represented, Harold is placing his right hand upon an altar in form of a feretory." But these precious bequests were not suffered to remain untouched for more than ten years from the date of the Conqueror's death. Before the end of the century, Henry, second Abbot of Battle, cut off and sold some of the gold and silver chains and amulets of the coronation robe, to make up a sum of money that had been demanded of him by William Rufus; and the remainder of these valuables were finally disposed of by his successor, who invested the proceeds in land. They had been gradually dropping off and disappearing—even some of the jewels of the feretory were missing, lost or "despoiled by unfortunate mischances," and it was probably judged wisest to put the rest out of the reach of temptation. For the relics they had enshrined, a reliquary was provided, and solemnly consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester. Nor did the Roll fare any better. As time went on, it became more and more an object of ambition to own an ancestor that had come over with the Conqueror; and the monks were always found willing to oblige a liberal patron by inserting his name. "Such hath been the subtilty of some Monks of old, that, finding it acceptable unto most, to be reputed descendants to those who were Companions with Duke William in that memorable Expedition whereby he became Conqueror of this Realm, as that, to gratify them (but not without their own advantage) they inserted their Names into this antient Catalogue."—Dugdale. Camden likewise speaks of these interpolations. "Whosoever considers well shall find them always to be forged, and those names inserted which the time in every age favoured, and were never mentioned in that authenticated record." Thus its value as an authority is irretrievably lost; and though the earlier genealogists and county historians often quote and refer to it, it has latterly been altogether discredited and condemned. Like many of the other familiar credences of our forefathers it has fallen into disgrace and suffered obloquy. Sir Egerton Brydges, in the Censura Literaria, calls it "a disgusting forgery:" Mr. Freeman, "a source of falsehood" and "a transparent fiction;" the author of 'The Norman People' declares that its date is "a mere myth, depending on the authority of some unknown herald of the sixteenth century:" while another writer (in the Sussex Archaeologia), settles the question according to the summary process by which Garibaldi disposed of the claims of poor St. Peter, and declares that it never existed at all. It is at least certain that it does not exist now: nor is it precisely known what has become of it. According to family tradition, it passed into the possession of Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the Horse to Henry VIII., who in 1538 received a grant of "the house and site of the late Monastery of Battel in Sussex" about three months after it had been taken possession of by the Royal Commissioners. He commenced building a manor house there, which was completed by his son Viscount Montague, but seldom occupied by his descendants, who transferred their residence to Cowdray, in the western division of the county: and finally, in 1717, the sixth Viscount sold the place to Sir Godfrey Webster. The three precious memorials of the Conquest, the King's sword, his despoiled pallium, and the Roll of Battle Abbey, were then, with several other curious and interesting relics of the former monastery, removed to Cowdray, and perished in the great fire of 1793 (see Browne). This is the only explanation I have ever heard given of the disappearance of the Roll; and though I can certainly furnish no proofs in confirmation of the statement, there would seem to be no particular reason for doubting its probability. Nothing, at all events, now remains to us but copies of this celebrated record. Of these there are three; one published by Leland in his Collectanea, which was the first that ever appeared: another in Holinshed's Chronicle, dated 1577: and a third printed a few years later by Stowe, and afterwards copied by Duchesne, who received it from Camden. There are at least ten—if not more—other lists of the Norman Conquerors; but none of them even pretend to have any connection with the bede-roll of Battle Abbey. One solitary exception, however, must, according to the old adage, prove the rule. This, which shall be number one in our catalogue, is a list published by Hearne, and taken from the collections of William of Worcester, a chronicler of the fifteenth century. It is prefaced by the five Latin lines (already quoted) that are given by Holinshed, with the addition of a sixth— "Et tunc praeteritos numerus praesens notat annus;" referring to the number CCCLIII. in a marginal note. This is supposed to indicate that the list was written three hundred and fifty-three years after the battle, which would give the date 1419, when William of Worcester was a boy of four years old. Hearne believes that it was "undoubtedly copied from some noted register of Battle Abbey, from which register the Tetrastich, which heads it, was, in all probability, also taken; but whether in actual connection with the list of names is not apparent. I certainly do not consider," he continues, "that the names were taken from the well-known Roll of which Leland made use, and which clearly differs from this register, as in fact it does from that given by John Stowe; but whatever the register may have been, it was certainly a noteworthy monument of antiquity, and the time-honoured names it enrolls deserve to be cherished by all interested in antiquity." Quite true; but they are so mangled and distorted by their strange orthography as to be mostly unrecognizable. Take the following specimens—Seintbrewel: Wadel: Spigurnel: Tupz: Butet: Punchet: Pachet: Parli: Cunli: Cicerli: Wilbi: Spinevile: Ferebrace: Feteplace: Gunter: Carli: Brok: Kusas: Escot: Figarvi: Kosni, &c. As far as we are enabled to judge, these maltreated patronymics are not found on our Roll. The second list—an additional one furnished by Leland—is entitled 'Un role de ceux queux veignont in Angleterre ovesque roy William le Conquerour:' and gives fifty-eight names, declaring "Tous ycels seigners desus nome estoient a la retenaunce Monseir de Moion." This (as has been shown by Mr. Planche in his Companions of the Conqueror) is simply a transcript of the list given in the Roman de Rou of the leaders at the Battle of Hastings, from line 13,621 of the poem to 13,761. The third is contained in the Chronicle of John Brompton, Abbot of Jervaulx in Yorkshire a.d. 1436. He tells us that he found it written (without informing us where), and introduces it in a piece of old French verse, in which he announces his intention of giving a catalogue of those who came over with the Conqueror. But, finding that the names given at the font are often changed, as Edmund into Edward, Baldwin into Bernard, Godwin into Godard, and Elys into Edwine, he will content himself with giving the surnames only, which were not changed. Then follow two hundred and forty of these, arranged in rhythmical order, beginning with "Maundevyle et Daundeville," and ending with "Straunge et Sauvage," all of which, he adds, were then in common use in England. The fourth, now in the Harleian Library, claims to be taken from a MS. of Matthew of Westminster in the library of All Souls College. The fifth, in the same collection, is an English poem, entitled, 'The names of Northmen and French that came in with William the Conqueror.' These follow in alternate rhymes, commencing "Percye and Browne, the Malet and Bewchampe, Menile-Vilers, and eke the Umfravile:" to the number of two hundred and forty. The sixth, in the same collection, is considerably longer, consisting of about five hundred and forty names in all. The first given are "Dominus Percy, Magnus Constabellarius; Dominus Mowbray, Mariscallus; Dominus Radulphus de Mortuo-mari omnium strenuissimus velut alter Samson leonina ferocitate:" These, however, are the only flights of fancy in which the author indulges, and he then proceeds with due sobriety; beginning with Ayncourt, and Bardolf, and ending with Percely and Perer. The seventh, in the same collection, classes the names according to their terminal syllables, as: Bastard, Baygnard, Brassard, Maignard, &c.: and comprises about four hundred. The eighth, of three hundred and eighty names, is printed by Fuller in his 'Church History,' and is arranged alphabetically, beginning with Archerd, Averenges, and ending with Yvoire. The ninth immediately precedes the Battle Abbey Roll in Holinshed's Chronicle. "We have here," he tells us, "in a table noted all the noble captains and gentlemen of name, as well Normans as other strangers, which assisted Duke William in the conquest of this land, as we find them written in the chronicles of Normandie by one William Tailleur." This list begins with "Odo bishop of Bayeux," and ends with "The erle of Hiesmes." One hundred and sixty-eight names are given, but of these several are duplicates. For instance, we have both "Hue de Gourney, alias Geneuay," and "Hue erle of Gournay" (the only instance in which he appears as an Earl): "Le seig. de Aurenchin," and "Richard d'Aurinchin;" "Le seig. de Touarts," and "Amaury de Touars," &c, &c. It is admitted to be very incomplete, for Holinshed adds at the end: "With other lords and men of account in great number, whose names the author of the chronicles of Normandie could not come by (as he himself confesseth). In consideration thereof, and bicause diverse of these are set foorth onlie by their titles of estate, and not by their surnames; we have thought it convenient to make you partakers of the roll which sometime belonged to Battell Abbeie, conteining also (as the title thereof importeth) the names of such Nobles and Gentlemen of Marque, as came at this time with the Conqueror, whereof diverse may be the same persons which in the catalog above written are conteined, bearing the name of the places whereof they were possessours and owners, as by the same catalog maie appeare." Then follows "The Roll of Battell Abbeie." The tenth is modern, having been inaugurated at the celebration of the eighth centenary of the battle, when it was solemnly affixed on a tablet in the ancient Church of Dives. For it was this small seaport on the coast of Normandy—now almost unknown—that had been the appointed trysting-place of the Conqueror's fleet in 1066; and it was in the church now standing that he offered up his parting prayer. I have given a copy of this list (v. p. xxxi.); only varying its arrangement by placing the surnames, instead of the Christian names, in their alphabetical order, as it can thus be more easily used as a reference. It is entitled 'Companions of William the Conqueror at the Conquest of England in 1066': and was compiled with much care and labour by M. Leopold Delisle, the greatest antiquarian authority in France, who professes to give no name that is not vouched for by some deed or document of the period. In many (perhaps most) instances it appears to be taken from Domesday Book: and it is especially useful as furnishing, besides the Christian names, the correct French spelling of the surnames. But it is to be regretted that he has in no case cited an authority, or given a reference. M. de Magny reproduces this list in his 'Nobiliaire de Normandie,' with the addition of fifty names "that his researches in the Norman and English archives have enabled him to include." He, too, eschews references; and I am curious to know upon what authority he has included Courtenay. There are probably other MS. lists with which I am not acquainted. All those I have mentioned, though very evidently the work of different hands, resemble each other in so far that they have many names in common. With these, however, we have not here to do, as only one of them (as I have already said) professes to derive its authority from the Roll of Battle, and they do not in the least resemble it in their arrangement. Leland, Holinshed, and Duchesne therefore alone remain in the field as its interpreters. Leland himself affords us no information respecting his list; for the two pages that precede it, as well as the four that follow it, are left blank in his MS. It is certain that he visited Battle Abbey, for he makes mention of the place, and gives a catalogue of the Latin books in the monks' library; and Browne Willis, and others declare this to have been "the table of the Norman gentry which came into England with the Conqueror, preserved by the monks of Battle." I think I shall be able to show that this is borne out by internal evidence; but I will begin with the two acknowledged copies of the Roll—Holinshed's and Duchesne's. When placed side by side, as I have here printed them (see p. xix.), it seems to me that no dispassionate person can doubt their common origin. In both, the names are arranged alphabetically, and (in spite of many gaps, and some differences of orthography) follow each other in the same order. Duchesne's copyist evidently did not relish his task, and skipped as much as he decently could; and thus, while Holinshed gives us six hundred and twenty-nine names, only four hundred and seven are to be found in Duchesne. As the work progresses, we see how he becomes puzzled as well as weary, and now and again helplessly loses his way in the entangling labyrinth of names. In the letter M he inverts the order altogether, by putting some last that should be first; and in his impatience to conclude his irksome labours, hurries over T, V, and W, leaving more and more yawning blanks as he goes. Yet, careless and ill done as his copy is, it provides us with forty names that are left out by Holinshed, and in several cases restores the proper spelling. What further liberties Holinshed's transcriber may have taken with the Roll we can only conjecture, but, from the number of duplicates to be found on his list, we may safely conclude that he was neither very painstaking nor very accurate. Nor ought we to forget that in neither case were these copies transcribed from the original, but taken from other copies that had probably undergone similar manipulation. Many of the lapses and omissions complained of in the Battle Roll thus admit of an easy explanation. A more trifling degree of negligence than that displayed (for instance) by Duchesne's scribe, would account for the disappearance of all the missing names that have an undoubted right to a place on a roll of the Conquerors of England. There are certainly not a few of them; but in this respect some copies appear to be more defective than others.[7] The one so severely handled by Sir Egerton Brydges must have been unusually meagre and imperfect, for he complains that it omits "among many others to be found in Domesday Book or other good authorities, the great names of Ferrers, Stafford, Gifford, Mohun, Malet, Mandeville, Baliol, Salisbury, Speke, Tony, Vesci, Byron, Gernon, Scales, St. Valery, Montfort, Montgomery, Churchill, Lovet, Lincoln, Pauncefoot, De Salsay, De Rie, De Brioniis, De Romare, De Vipount, De Creon, De Grentemesnil, Montfichet, Tatsall, &c." Yet, of these thirty names, ten only; that is, Baliol (which I believe appears as Bailif: see p. 76), Speke (or Espec), St. Valery, Churchill (Corcelles), Lovet, Pauncefoot, De Salsay, De Creon, De Romare, and Tatsall, are in reality absent; for the Earl of Salisbury is represented (as it is obvious he would be) by his surname of D'Evreux, Stafford by De Toesni, and Lincoln by De Gaunt. Even the reprints published by Sir Bernard Burke in 1848 ('The Roll of Battle Abbey, Annotated') are very far from being blameless in this particular, for eleven names are left out in Holinshed's copy, and two in Duchesne's. I should, however, be the last person in the world to throw a stone at these sorely tried transcribers, for I can vouch for the difficulty of the task imposed upon them. No one who has not personally attempted it (and I have myself done so more than once) can conceive how tedious and laborious it is to copy the Roll; nor how persistently the rows of disconnected names, piled one upon another, seem to slip out of their places. Leland's list, to which I now come, seems at first sight to be wholly different from the others, though the names are in truth almost all the same. This is simply owing to their arrangement, for they are here strung together in rude rhymes, most probably as an aid to the memory. There are four hundred and ninety-five names, comprised in two hundred and forty-seven lines, for each line consists of two names (in one solitary case there are three), generally beginning with the same initial letter; but, beyond this, no attempt is made to class them in alphabetical order. Now and then two successive lines commence with the same letter, and once we find as many as three; but these are merely the exceptions that prove the rule. Consequently, they are jumbled together in such utter confusion, that it seems hopeless to recognize any connection between them and the symmetrically arrayed columns of their compeers. Nevertheless, the connection is to be found. I took the trouble of sorting these lines, arranging them alphabetically (according to their first letter) in the order in which they occurred; and discovered that out of the four hundred and ninety-five names, one hundred and seventy-five followed each other as they did in Holinshed. By making some allowance for faulty spelling, and admitting names that are placed together in inverted order (probably to suit the metre) this number may be increased to two hundred and seventy-eight or more. Surely it would be idle to treat such a result as an accidental coincidence. Elsewhere the list, thus arranged, is printed at full length (see p. xxviii), in order that all may have an opportunity of judging for themselves; but I will here give, as a sample, the first part of the names commencing with the letter C. HOLINSHED. LELAND. Camois Camoys et Cameville Camuille Chawent Chavent et Chauncy Chauncy Conderay Soucheville, Coudrey et Colleville Coluile Chamberlaine Champernoun Chaumberlayn et Chaumberoun Comin Columber Comyn et Columber Cribet Creuquere Griketot et Grevequer Corbine Corbett Corby et Gorbet Chaundos Chaworth Chaundoys et Chaward Cleremaus Challouns et Challeys Clarell Clerevalx et Clarell Chopis Chaunduit Chapes et Chauduit It will be seen that there are three additions on Leland's side; but, if we eliminate these (Soucheville is plainly an afterthought edged in, for this happens to be the only line that has three names), and admit, with a few other discrepancies of spelling, the counterchange of G for C—not uncommon in old writings—the analogy is almost complete. The single exception, Cribet, I believe stands for Criket, the abbreviation of Criquetot. Leland's is probably what we should call "a popular edition" in the present day; curtailed in length, and rendered more palatable, as well as more easy to repeat and remember, by its jangle of rhyme. He begins, as Holinshed does, with Aumarle and Aincourt, and restores to us at least forty names that are given neither by the latter or Duchesne. He enables us to note the exact place where Avenel, Byron, Vipont, &c, stood on the original Roll; and in many cases also helps us to recover the original spelling. Thus, for example, "Pygot et Percy" identifies the name given as Pery in Holinshed and Pecy in Duchesne. The spelling is in fact the principal difficulty that we have to contend with in attempting to decipher the Roll; and no one has yet thought it worth their while to grapple with it fairly. Sir Egerton Brydges dismisses the list with a very cursory inspection; and Sir Bernard Burke, in his published 'Annotations,' takes notice of no more than two hundred and nine of Holinshed's six hundred and twenty-nine names, passing over in silence the additional one hundred and eleven found in Duchesne and Leland. Nor does his reprint aid us in our search for the correct orthography, but considerably adds to our impediments, as he makes eighty-six mistakes in copying Holinshed's list, and twelve in copying Duchesne's. Many of these are unimportant; but in some cases, such as Orival—given Ounell—the name of the great house of De Aureavalle becomes unrecognizable. Mallory is disguised as Mallony, Noers becomes Noell, Avverne Arwerne, Beteville Beteurville, Filioll Folioll, Taverner Tavernez, &c. There is another very evident error. The two names given by Holinshed as Mountmartin and Miners thus appear in Duchesne's copy: "Mountmartin yners." The letter M has clearly here been lost by some typographical accident. Yet the names are at once joined together as Mountmartin Yners! There can be no possible difference of opinion as to the fact that all the three copies which we possess of the Roll are more or less mis-spelt. Many of the names, as they stand, are unintelligible. No doubt this is chiefly owing to the negligence or misapprehension of the scribes, but we must not, on the other hand, lose sight of the latitude to be allowed to all ancient writers in that respect. Before entering upon this vexed question of spelling, we must lay aside all our modern notions (I will not call them prejudices) in regard to the observances, distinctions, and exigencies that surround it in the present day. We live in an age when people are punctilious and fastidious as to the way in which their names are spelt; when we should wound the susceptibilities of Mr. Smijth, Mr. Smythe,[8] or Mr. Smyth, if we inadvertently mistook them for Mr. Smith; when any one whose patronymic began with two little f's would be roused to just indignation by seeing it written with one large F. But it was far otherwise in mediaeval times. Men wrote their names—when they could write at all—in any way that occurred to them at the moment, for there was neither rule nor precedent to guide them. Mr. Henry Drummond, in his 'Noble British Families,' quotes eighteen different ways of spelling Nevill that he had met with in deeds and records; Nash, in his 'History of Worcestershire,' gives us twenty-three versions of Percy: and this uncertainty, if we are to judge by the example of Shakespeare, still continued in the sixteenth century. Again, al and au, beau and bel, mau and mal, are synonyms; and val and ville (at least in the Roll) are treated in a similar way. V and F, S and C, C and G, G and W, V and W, W and M, are also used indiscriminately to produce the same sound. Nor should we fail to remember how easy it is to confound one letter with another in the old black letter character. The u and n are there as undistinguishable as they are in the "running hand" of our own times. Sir Francis Palgrave mentions "the strange tricks produced by the ambiguity of the form of the n and the u in ancient manuscripts. It is very remarkable that in the old times, themselves, the very persons holding the names, either from caprice or ignorance confounded them. The name of Septvans or Septvaus affords a curious example of the fact, that in the black letter days, the old scribes could not always be certain of their own writing."—(See Vauville, vol. iii., p. 239.) The distinctions between them in the printed lists, given, as they must be, by guesswork, are very generally wrong. Further, the w easily merges into m; the s, so unlike an l in our modern print, becomes its twin sister as the black letter f, and is several times given for it. I might easily multiply these instances of confusion. Yet, with all such considerations to aid me in forming conjectures and solving difficulties, there remain eleven names of which I can make absolutely nothing, and have had to abandon as impregnable. The antiquity of these names can, on account of the admitted interpolations, only be accepted with great reserve. But Sir Egerton Brydges does them injustice when he stigmatizes the Roll as an imposture, because of "the insertion of families who did not come to England till a subsequent period, and of surnames which were not adopted for some ages after the Conquest: of which, the greater part of the list is composed. If the Roll of Battle Abbey had been genuine, it must have received confirmation from that authentic record of the reign of Henry II., the Liber Niger Scaccarii, published by Hearne, but no two registers can less agree." This is hard measure, for out of the seven hundred and forty names that I have here taken into account, by far the greater number actually receive this confirmation, and are to be found in the Liber Niger. Others may be recovered from the chartularies of the different religious houses. It is, however, in the pages of Domesday Book that we must chiefly look for clues to the interpretation of the list; and if the 'Recherches sur le Domesday, ou Liber Censualis d'Angleterre,' so admirably conceived and commenced by MM. Lechaud d'Anisy and de St. Marie, had ever been carried out to the end, we might seldom have sought in vain. The principal difficulty we encounter in dealing with the great Survey is, that by far the greater number of the persons entered are designated by no other than their Christian name, and can only be identified by means of patient and laborious investigation. Most of the great land-owners had the same sub-tenants in Normandy as in England, who can thus be traced through their suzerains; and these Norman antiquaries, thoroughly acquainted as they had made themselves with the contemporary families in the Duchy, knowing their kindred, their domiciles, their intermarriages, and the deeds and charters relating to their property, can generally decide to which of them each belonged. They likewise give us some valuable information as to the rules that then prevailed regarding the adoption of surnames (see Averenges). But the letter A alone was finished, and appeared as long ago as 1842; nor is there, as I understand, any prospect of the work being resumed. The Dives Roll, again, helps us to decipher some of these disfigured names; and Mr. Lower, in his 'English Surnames,' followed by the author of 'The Norman People,' have done us rare service in tracing out the corruptions and transformations that the Norman nomenclature has undergone in this country. A large proportion of the names on the Roll appear in this debased form: [9] and some even, through the ignorance or inattention of the monks, are given over again in their modern spelling, such as Limesay, repeated as Lindsay, Mucegros, as Musgrave, &c. But it is clear that the list must have been several times rewritten, as, from its alphabetical order, very few additions could have been managed without incurring this necessity. The number of these interpolations would seem to have been grossly exaggerated. If, with Sir Egerton Brydges, we admit (as I think we are justified in doing) that all those families which appear in the Liber Niger or occur in the twelfth century may be fairly assumed to date from the Conquest in England, most of our seven hundred and forty names are at once ratified; and of the remainder but few are excluded from the benefit of a doubt. So far from being "principally composed" of impostors and intruders, the Roll contains not more than ten proved interpolations. Of this great array of time-honoured names, very few are now borne by representatives in the male line. Some descendants survive under the name of their manors, for which, according to an early mediaeval practice still prevalent in Scotland, they exchanged their own; more still are probably lost to sight in poverty and obscurity, and have dropped all the links that connected them with their former degree. I fully believe that the class included in this latter category, though unknown and almost unsuspected, is a very considerable one, for nothing is more striking than the extent and variety of the ramifications belonging to each family that are brought to light by a careful inspection of its history. They are so numerous that, from want of time and space, I have, in most cases, not attempted to deal with them. Genealogists, as a rule, are solely occupied with making out the descent of a title or estate; and thus the erratic female baronies, conveyed by heiresses, are sedulously traced through a succession of often uninteresting families, while the disinherited younger branches of the parent stock are ignored. These must, of necessity, have frequently sunk into insignificance and passed out of notice, gradually falling, into the lower stratum of the social scale. I will quote a remarkable instance of this. "In 1872 a vessel was lying in the Thames, about to take its departure for Tasmania. It conveyed as passengers three hundred navvies, who had been engaged to proceed to the Colonies, to complete an intended railway. They were all on board, when a fatal collision at night sent the vessel and every human being on board to the bottom. "The list of the drowned passengers appeared in the public journals. It included a large number of purely Norman names. Several names were there recognized as formerly baronial and historical; and one baronial name the writer there discovered, the existence of which in England in the present age he had never before ascertained."—The Norman People. The great Norman name of De Venoix, transformed into Veness, is very common among the farm-labourers in the neighbourhood of Battle Abbey; and many Vaseys or Veseys, humble representatives of the powerful De Vescis, may still be found lingering in the county of Durham. But the authenticated male descents remain few and far between. I do not imagine that the present generation would invest much money in having their names added to the Battle Abbey Roll. In these days the monks would have driven but a sorry trade; and they were fortunate in living at a time when those who have gone before were more highly esteemed than they are now. The pride of ancestry has in a great measure passed away; for the fast-rising wave of democracy day by day obliterates the old landmarks and traditions that were once held dear. Far removed, indeed, are we from the period when the gentleman's right to bear arms was considered so high a privilege, that Henry V. offered it as a boon to those who had fought by his side at Agincourt[10] Heraldic bearings may now be assumed by any one who chooses to pay the coachmaker to mint them on his carriage,[11] and names and even peerages are bandied about without reference to any right of blood. It is a humiliating reflection that any swindler or scoundrel may, without incurring a legal penalty, call himself by an honourable and "unblamed" name, adopt its coat of arms, and drag it about in the dirt in all parts of the world. More lamentable is the belief so rapidly taking root among us, that money stands in lieu of all else; that the highest social position, and the good opinion and respect of our fellow-men, will always wait upon riches, and belong to their fortunate possessor.[12] The transmitted splendour of a glorious or venerated name, the honours gained on the field or at the council board, weigh but lightly in the scale that is so easily turned by gold. Some, however, I trust there are, to whom the great names of the past remain a living memory; who shape their course in this world under a deep sense of the responsibility of bearing them; and fill their appointed positions and do their appointed work "Commanded By the dead gaze of all their ancestors." To them, I feel I owe an apology for this cursory and imperfect retrospect. The subject deserves to be treated by an abler hand than mine; and if developed to its full proportions, would embrace nearly the whole of the eight last centuries of the History of England. HOLINSHED'S ROLL DUCHESNE'S A. A. Aumarle Aumerle Aincourt Audeley Audeley Adgillam Angilliam Argentoune Argentoun Arundell Arundell Auenant Auenant Abell Abel Auuerne Aunwers Angers Avvgers Angenoun Angenoun Archere Archer Anuay Asperuile Asperuile Abbeuile Andeuile Amouerduile Amonerduile Arcy and Akeny Arey Akeny Albeny Albeny Aybeuare Amay Aspermound Asperemound Amerenges B. B. Bertram Bertram Buttecourt Buttecourt Brebus and Byseg Brash us Byseg Bardolfe Bardolf Basset and Bigot Basset Bohun Bohun Bailif Baylife Bondeuile Bondeuile Brabason Barbason Baskeruile Beer Bures Bures Bounilaine Bonylayne Bois Botelere Bourcher Brabaion Barbayon Berners Berners Braibuf Braybuf Brande and Bronce Brand Bonuile Burgh Burgh Bushy Busshy Banet Blondell Blundell Breton Breton Belasyse Bowser Bluat and Baious Bayons Bulmere Browne Broune Beke Beke Bickard Bowlers Banastre Banestre Baloun Belomy Belknape Beauchampe Beauchamp Bray and Bandy Bandy Bracy Boundes Bascoun Broilem Broleuy Broyleby Burnell Burnel Bellet Belot Beufort Baudewin Baudewine Beaumont Burdon Burdon Berteuilay Bertevyley Barre Barte Busseuile Busseuile Blunt Blunt Beaupere Beawper Beuill Barduedor Brette Bret Barrett Barret Bonrett Bainard Barniuale Barneuale Bonett Barry Barry Bryan Bodin Bodyt Beteuile Berteuile Bertin Bertine Bereneuile Bellewe Belew Beuery Busshell Buschell Boranuile Browe Beleuers Beleners Buffard Buffard Boteler Boteler Bonueier Boteuile Botuile Bellire Bastard Bainard Brasard Brasard Beelhelme Belhelme Braine Brent Braunch Braunche Belesuz Bolesur Blundell Blundel Burdet Burdet Bagot Bigot Beaupount Beauuise Belemis Beisin Bernon Boels Bools Belefroun Belefroun Brutz Barchampe Barchampe C. C. Camois Camos Camuille Chanuille Chawent Chawent Chauncy Chancy Conderay Couderay Coluile Coluile Chamberlaine Chamberlaine Chamburnoun Chambernoune Comin Columber Cribett Cribet Creuquere Corbine Corbine Corbett Corbet Coniers Chaundos Chaundos Coucy Chaworth Chaworthe Cleremaus Claremaus Clarell Clarell Chopis Camnine Chaunduit Chaunduyt Claruays Chantelow Chantilowe Chamberaye Colet Cressy Cressy Curtenay Courtenay Conestable Constable Chancer Cholmeley Cholmelay Corleuile Champney Champeney Carew Chawnos Chawnos Comiuile Claruaile Champaine Champain Careuile Carbonelle Carbonell Charles Charles Chereberge Chareberge Chawnes Chawnes Chaumont Chawmont Caperoun Cheine Cheyne Curson Cursen Couille Conell Chaiters Chayters Cheines Cheynes Cateray Cateray Cherecourt Cherecourt Cammile Chaunuile Clerenay Clereney Curly Curly Cuily Clinels Chaundos Courteney Clifford Clyfford D. D. Denauille Deauuile Dercy Dercy Diue Dine Dispencere Dispencer Daubeny Daniell Daniel Denise and Druell Denyse Druell Deuaus Devaus Dauers Dauers Dodingsels Doningsels Darell Darell Delaber Delabere Delapole De la Pole Delalinde De la Lind Delahill De la Hill Delaware De la Wate Delauache De la Watche Dakeny Dakeny Dauntre Dauntre Desny Desuye Dabernoune Dabernoune Damry Damry Daueros Daueros Dauonge Duilby Delauere De la Vere Delahoid Durange Delee De Liele Delaund Delaward De la Warde Delaplanch De la Planch Damnot Danway Danway Dehense De Hewse Deuile Disard Disard Doiuile Durant Durant Drury Diury Dabitot Dunsteruile Dunchampe Dambelton E. E. Estrange Estrange Estuteuile Estutauille Escriols Engaire Engayne Estriels Euers Esturney Esturney F. F. Ferrerers Foluille Foluile Fitz Water Fitz Water Fitz Marmaduke Fitz Marmadux Fleuez Filberd Fiberd Fitz Roger Fitz Roger Fitz Robert Fauecourt Fanecourt Ferrers Fitz Philip Fitz Philip Filiot Furniueus Furniuaus Fitz Otes Fitz William Fitz William Fitz Roand Fitz Pain Fitz Paine Fitz Auger Fitz Aleyn Fitz Alyne Fitz Rauff Fitz Raulfe Fitz Browne Fitz Browne Fouke Foke Freuil Freuile Front de Boef Facunberge Faconbrige Fort Frisell Frissell Fitz Simon Fitz Fouk Filioll Filioll Fitz Thomas Fitz Thomas Fitz Morice Fitz Morice Fitz Hugh Fitz Hugh Fitz Henric Fitz Waren Fitz Warren Fitz Rainold Flamuile Faunuile Formay Formay Fitz Eustach Fitz Laurence Formibaud Formiband Frisound Frison Finere and Fitz Robert Finer Fitz Vrcy Furniuale Furniuall Fitz Geffrey Fitz Herbert Fitzs Herbert Fitz Peres Fichet Fitz Rewes Fitz Fitz Fitz Iohn Fitz Iohn Fleschampe G. G. Gurnay Gargraue Gressy Graunson Graunson Gracy Gracy Georges Glanuile Gower Gouer Gaugy Goband Gascoyne Gray Gray Gaunson Golofre Golofer Gobion Grensy Graunt Grauns Greile Greuet Gurry Gurley Gurly Grammori Gernoun Grendon Gurdon Gurdon Gines Griuil Greneuile Glateuile Gurney Giffard Gouerges Gamages Gamages Gaunt H. H. Haunteny Haunsard Hansard Hastings Hastings Hanlay Haulay Haurell Husee Husie Hercy Herioun Heme Heme Harecourt Henoure Houell Hamelin Hamelyn Harewell Harewell Hardell Hardel Hakett Hecket Hamound Hamound Harcord Harecord I. I. Iarden Iarden Iay Iay Ieniels Ierconuise Ianuile Ianuile Iasperuile Iasperuile K. K. Kaunt Karre Karre Karrowe Karron Koine Kimaronne Kiriell Kyriell Kancey Kenelre L. L. Lestrange Loueny Leuony Lacy Linneby Latomer Latomere Loueday Loueday Logenton Louell Leuel Lescrope Lemare Lemare Leuetot Litterile Lucy Lucy Luny Lislay, or Liele Logeuile Longespes Longspes Louerace Longechampe Lonschampe Lascales Lastels Lacy Lindsey Louan Leded Luse Loterell Loterel Loruge Longeuale Longuaile Lewawse Loy Loy Lorancourt Loions Limers Longepay Laumale Lane Laue Le Despenser Louetot M. M. Mohant Mowne Maundeuile Marmilon Marmilon Moribray Moribray Moruile Moruile Miriell Manlay Manley Malebraunch Malebranche Malemaine Malemaine Muschampe Mortimere Musgraue Mesni-le-Villers Mortimaine Mortmaine Muse Muse Marteine Marteine Mountbother Mountbocher Mountsoler Maleuile Maleuile Malet Mounteney Mountney Monfichet Maleherbe Maleherbe Mare Musegros Musgros Musard Musard Moine Montravers Mautrauers Merke Merke Murres Murres Mortiuale Monchenesy Mallory Marny Mountagu Montagu Mountford Maule Monhermon Musett Meneuile Manteuenant and Manfe Menpincoy Maine Mainard Morell Mainell Maleluse Memorous Morreis Morleian Maine Maleuere Montalent Mandut Mandute Mountmarten Mantelet Manle Miners Malory Mauclerke Merny Maunchenell Mouet Meintenore Muffet Meletak Manuile Mangisere Maumasin Mountlouel Mawreward Monhaut Meller Mountgomerie Manlay Maulard Menpincoy Mainard Mainard Menere Martinast Mare Morell Morley Mountmartin yners Mauley Mainwaring Mainwaring Matelay Malemis Mantell Malehaire Moren Melun Marceans Maiell Mayel Morton Morton N. N. Noers Neuile Neuile Newmarch Neumarche Norton Norbet Norbet Norice Norece Newborough Newborough Neiremet Neile Neele Normauile Normanuile Neofmarch Nermitz Nembrutz O O. Oteuell Olenel Olibef Olibet Olifant Olifaunt Osenel Oisell Oysell Olifard Oliford Orinall Orioll Oryoll P. P. Pigot Pigot Pery Pecy Perepount Perecount Pershale Pershale Power Power Painell Paynel Perche and Pauey Peche Peurell Peuerell Perot Perot Picard Picard Pudsey Pinkenie Pomeray Pimeray Pounce Pounsey Pauely Paifrere Plukenet Phuars Punchardoun Punchardon Pinchard Pynchard Placy Placy Pugoy Patefine Patine Place Pampilioun Pampilion Percelay Perere and Pekeny Poterell Poterell Peukeney Pekeney Perwinke Peccell Pinell Putrill Petiuoll Preaus Pantolf Peito Penecord Penicord Preudirlegast Perciuale Q. Q. Quinci Quincy Quintiny Quintine R. R. Ros Rose Ridell Ridle Riuers Riuell Rynel Rous Rous Rushell Russel Raband Ronde Rond Rie Rokell Risers Randuile Roselin Rastoke Rinuill Rougere Rait Ripere Rigny Richemound Richmond Rochford Rocheford Raimond Reymond S. S. Souch Seuche Sheuile Seucheus Senclere Sent Quintin Seint Quintine Sent Omere Seint Omer Sent Amond Seint Amand Sent Legere Seint Leger Someruile Soueruile Siward Saunsouere Sanford Sanford Sanctes Sauay Saulay Sules Sorell Somerey Somery Sent Iohn Sent George Seint George Sent Les Seint Les Sesse Saluin Sauine Say Solers Saulay Seint Clo Sent Albin Seint Albine Sent Martin Sourdemale Seguin Sent Barbe Seinte Barbe Sent Vile Souremount Soreglise Sanduile Sandeuile Sauncey Sirewast Sent Cheueroll Sent More Seint More Sent Scudemore Seint Scudemor T. T. Tows Toget Toget Talybois Tercy Tuchet Tuchet Tracy Truslot Trousbut Trusbut Trainell Traynel Taket Taket Trussel and Trison Talbot Talbot Touny Traies Tollemach Tolous Tanny Tanny Touke Tibtote Tibtote Trussell Turbeuile Turbeuill Turuile Turuile Tomy and Tauerner Trencheuile Trenchelion Tankeruile Tirell Triuet Tolet Trailers Tardeuile Turburuile Tineuille Torell Torel Tauers Tortechappell Torel Trusbote Treuerell Tirell Tenwis Totelles Totels Tauerner V. V. Vere Vernoun Vescy Verdoune Valence Valence Verdeire Vancord Vauasour Vauasour Vendore Vender Verlay Verder Valenger Verdon Venables Aubrie de Vere Venoure Vernoun Vilan Verland Verland Valers Verlay Vernois Veirny Verny Vauuruile Vilan Veniels Vmframuile Verrere Vschere Veffay Vanay Vian Vernoys Vrnall Vnket Vnket Vrnall Vrnafull Vasderoll Vaberon Valingford Venicorde Valiue Viuille Vancorde and Valenges W. W. Wardebois Ward Wafre Wake Wake Waledger Warde Wardebus Wareine Waren Wate Wate Watelin Wateline Wateuil Wateuile Wely Woly Werdonell Wespaile Wiuell Wyuell LELAND'S ROLL. [Alphabetically arranged.] Aumarill et Deyncourt Audel et Aungeloun Argenteyn et Avenele Sainct Amande et Adryelle Avenel et S. Amary Aimeris et Aveneris Bertrem et Buttencourt Biard et Biford Bardolf et Basset Bigot et Boown Baillof et Boundeville Briansoun et Baskerville Burnel et Buttevillain Bruys et Dispencer Boys et Boteler Brabasoun et Bevers Braund et Baybof Bruys et Burgh Bavent et Bussy Bretonn et Blundet Baius et Bluett Banestre et Bekard Bealum et Beauchamp Baudyn et Bray Burdet et Boroun Baudewyn et Beaumont Blundet et Burdoun Barray et Bretevile Blounte et Boseville Benny et Boyvile Broth et Barbedor Baret et Bourte Byngard et Bernevale Bonet et Barry Brian et Bidin Buscel et Bevery Bernevile et Bretevile Belew et Bertin Broy et Bromevile Bleyn et Breicourt Busard et Belevile Camoys et Cameville Chavent et Chauncy Chaumberlayn et Chaumberoun Comyn et Columber Corby et Gorbet Chaundoys et Chaward Challouns et Challeys Clerevalx et Clarel Chapes et Chaudut Cauntelow et Coubray Crescy et Courteny Constable et Tally Champeneys et Chanceus Coursoun et Courtevile Chartres et Chenil Deyville et Darcy Daubenay et Deverelle Denyas et Druel Delahay et Haunsard Dodingle et Darell De Lalaund et de l'Isle De la Pole et Pinkeney De Wake et De la War De la Marche et De la Mare Dakeny et Dautre Diseney et Dabernoun Damary et Deveroys Daverenges et Duylly De la Rivers et Revel Destraunges et Delatoun Dulee et De la Laund De la Valet et Veylaund Damot et Damay Duraunt et Doreny Disart et Doynell De la Huse et Howell Estraunge et Estoteville Fererers et Foleville Fiz Walter et Werdoun Fenes et Felebert Fitz Roger et Fitz Robert Fovecourt et Feniers Fitz Philip et Fliot Fourneux et Fournivaus Fitz Alayne et Gilebof Fitz William et Watervile Fitz Robert et Fitz Aleyne Fitz Ralph et Rosel Fitz Brian et Bracy Fryville et Fressel Fitz Rauf et Filiol Fitz Thomas et Tibol Fitz Morice et S. More Fitz Hugh et Fitz Henry Fitz Arviz et Esturmy Fitz Raynald et Roscelin Fitz Marmaduke et Mountrivel Fitz Eustace et Eustacy Fermbaud et Frisoun Fichent et Trivet Gurnay et Greilly Graunson et Tracy Gorgeise et Gower Griketot et Grevequer Gaunt et Garre Genevile et Gifard Gaugy et Gobaude Gray et Graunson Galofer et Gubion Grymward et Geroun Glancourt et Chaumont Graundyn et Gerdoun Hautein et Hauville Hastings et Haulley Hurell et Husee Hercy et Heroun Heryce et Harecourt Hayward et Henour Hameline et Hareville Jardin et Jay Kymarays et Kyriel Kanceis et Revelers Loveyne et Lascy Lymesey et Latymer Lungvilers et S. Ligiere Loveday et Lovel Lenias et Levecote Lascels et Lovein Longvil et Longespe Loverak et Longchaump Lifford et Osevile Loring et Loterel Lisours et Longvale La Muile et Lownay Liof et Limers Mohaut et Mooun Morley et Moundevile Moubray et Morvile Menevile et Mauley Malebuche et Malemayn Morteine et Mortimer Muse et Martine Mountburgh et Mounsorel Maleville et Malet Mounfey et Mounfichet Maleberge et Marre Mussegros et Musard Maingun et Montravers Merkingfel et Mourreis Montagu et Mountfort Mautalent et Maudict Maunys et Meulos Mortivaux et Monthensy Mallop et Marny Maihermer et Muschet Menyle et Maufe Maucovenant et Mounpinson Maoun et Mainard Malebys et Mounceus Myriet et Morley Mauliverer et Mouncy Mauclerk et Maners Musteys et Merlay Mauches et Mascy Movet et S. Martine Male Kake et Mauncel Mangysir et Mauveysin Maulovel et Maurewarde Neners et Nereville Newmarch et Newbet Neville et Newburgh Nairmere et Fitz Neel Otinel et S. Thomer Onatule et Cheyni Oysel et Olifard Pygot et Percy Power et Panel, alias Paignel Peche et Peverelle Perot et Pykarde Poynce et Pavely Paifrer et Plukenet Peverel et Fitz Payne Pikard et Pinkadoun Perpounte et Fitz Peris Pugoys et Paiteny Perrers et Pavillioun Percehay et Pereris Quincy et S. Quintine Querru et Coigners Ros et Ridel Ryvers et Ryvel Rugetius et Fitz Rohaut Ry et Rokell Rysers et Reynevil Rivers et Ripere Soucheville, Coudray et Colleville S. Cloyis et S. Clere Sainct Amande et Adryelle Someraye et Howarde Saunzaver et Saunford Sainct Tese et Sauvay Souley et Soules Sorel et Somery S. John et S. Jory S. Leo et Luscy Saunzpour et Fitz Simon Salvayn et Say Sesee et Solers Sovereng et Suylly Surdevale et Sengryn S. Barbe et Sageville Tregos et Treylly Tuchet et Trussell Takel et Talbot Tourbeville et Tipitot Thays et Tony Tuk et Tany Thorny et Thornille Tyriet et Turley Tolimer et Treville Tourys et Tay Tingez et Gruyele Tinel et Traville Tolet et Tisoun Tarteray et Chercourt Vipount et Umfraville Veer et Vinoun Vuasteneys et Waville Vescy et Verders Valence et Vaus Vavasor et Warroys Verbois et Wacelay Vallonis et Vernoun Vendour et Veroun Venables et Venour Vilain et Valeris Vernoun et Waterville Warenne et Wauncy Waville et Warley Waloys et Levele Wace et Wyvile Warde et Werlay Walangay et Fitzwarin Wemerlay et Wamervile . DIVE'S ROLL Ours d'Abbetot Roger d'Abernon Achard Ruaud l'Adoube Norman d'Adreci Engenouf de l'Aigle Aioul Bernard d'Alencon Guillaume Alis Geoffroi Alselin Hugue L'Ane Richer d'Andeli Ansgot Guillaume d'Ansleville Honfroi d'Ansleville Fouque d'Appeville Guillaume L'Archer Arnoul d'Ardre David d'Argentan D'Argouges Guillaume d'Arques Osberne d'Arques Robert d'Armentieres Roger Arundel Robert d'Auberville Roger d'Auberville Seri d'Auberville Neel d'Aubigny Guillaume d'Audrieu Goubert d'Aufay Robert d'Aumale Guillaume de l'Aune Raoul d'Aunou D'Auvrecher d'Angerville Hugue d'Avranches Rahier d'Avre Azor Renaud de Bailleul Geoffroi Bainard Raoul Baignard Guineboud de Balon Hamelin de Balon Raoul de Bans Raoul de Bapaumes Robert de Barbes Guillaume Basset Raoul Basset Robert Le Bastard Bavent Eude, eveque de Bayeux Hugue de Beauchamp Guillaume de Beaufou Richard de Beaumais Henri de Beaumont Goubert de Beauvais Geoffroi du Bec Guillaume Belet Ours de Bercheres Raoul de Bernai Hugue de Bernieres Herve Le Berrurier Guillaume Bertran Neel de Berville Dreu de La Beuvriere Richard de Bienfaite Roger Bigot Guillaume de Biville Honfroi de Biville Guimond de Blangi Gilbert Le Blond Guillaume Le Blond Gilbert de Blosseville Raoul Blouet Robert Blouet Hugue de Bois Hebert Honfroi de Bohon Roger Boissel Hugue de Bolbec Richard de Bondeville Guillaume Bonvalet Guillaume du Bosc Roger de Bosc Normand Guillaume de Bosc Roard Roger de Bosc Roard Raoul Botin Guillaume de Bourneville Hugue Bourdet Robert Bourdet Fouque Le Bourguignon Guillaume de Brai Hugue de Brebeuf Auvrai Le Breton Roger de Breteuil Gilbert de Bretteville Osberne du Breuil De Briqueville Renier de Brimou Guillaume de Briouse Robert de Brix Raoul de La Bruiere Robert de Buci Gilbert de Budi Roger de Bulli Serlon de Burci Erneis de Buron Guillaume de Bursigni Fouque de Caen Maurin de Caen Guillaume de Cahaignes Guillaume de Cailly Guillaume de Cairon Geoffroi de Cambrai De Canouville Carbonnel Guillaume de Cardon Guillaume de Carnet Honfroi de Carteret Mauger de Carteret Roger de Carteret Guillaume de Castillon Guillaume de Ceauce Eude, comte de Champagne Robert de Chandos Roger de Chandos Raoul de Chartres Anquetil de Cherbourg Guillaume La Chevre Gonfroi de Cioches Sigar de Cioches Fouque de Claville De Clinchamps Gilbert de Colleville Guillaume de Colleville Baudoin de Colombieres Raoul de Colombieres Renouf de Colombelles Raoul de Conteville Robert Corbet Roger Corbet Guillaume Corbon Hugue de Corbon Ansfroi de Cormeilles Goscelin de Cormeilles Aubri de Couci Raoul de Courbepine Robert de Courcelles Richard de Courcy Robert de Courcon Gui de Craon Mile Crespin Renaud Croc Robert Cruel Honfroi de Culai Eude Cul de Loup De Cussy Daniel Danneville Guillaume de Daumerai Guillaume Le Despensier Robert Le Despensier Beuselin de Dives Hugue de Dol Fouque de Douai Goscelin de Douai Amauri de Dreux Herman le Dreux Guillaume de Durville Hardouin d'Ecalles Ecouland Guillaume d'Ecouis Richard Engagne Auvrai d'Espagne Herve d'Espagne Guillaume Espec Raoul L'Estourmi Richard L'Estourmi Guillaume d'Eu Osberne d'Eu Robert, comte d'Eu Guillaume, comte d'Evreux Roger d'Evreux Guillaume de Falaise Guillaume de Fecamp Henri de Ferrieres Robert fils de Geroud Guillaume fils d'Osberne Turstain fils de Rou Toustain fils d'Unspac Baudoin Le Flamand Eude Le Flamand Gerboud Le Flamand Guinemard Le Flamand Hugue Le Flamand Josce Le Flamand Renouf Flambard Guillaume Folet Etienne de Fontenai Guillaume de La Foret Neel Fossard Guillaume de Fougeres Raoul de Fougeres Eude de Fourneaux Raoul Framan Richard Fresle De Fribois Robert Froment Raoul de Gael Gilbert de Gand Gilbert Gibard Berenger Giffard Fouke Giffard Osberne Giffard Girard Robert de Glanville Guillaume Goulaffre Hugue de Gournai Neel de Gournai Anquetil de Grai Aubert Greslet Gautier de Grancourt Hugue de Grentemesnil Turold de Grenteville Robert Guernon Toustain de Guernon Geoffroi de La Guierche Gautier Hachet Robert de Harcourt Raoul de Hauville Herve d'Helion D'Hericy Arnoul de Hesdin Gautier Heuse Hugue de Hodenc Hugue de Hoto D'Houdetot Gautier d'Incourt Honfroi de l'Ile Raoul de l'Ile Achard d'Ivri Hugue d'Ivri Roger d'Ivri Gautier de Laci Hugue de Laci Ibert de Laci Roger de Laci Landri Lanfranc Raoul de Languetot Guillaume de Letre Raoul de Limesi Roger de Lisieux Fouque de Lisors Bigot de Loges Robert de Lorz Guillaume de Loucelles Guillaume de Louvet Hugue de Maci Durand Malet Gilbert Malet Guillaume Malet Robert Malet Guillaume de Malleville Gilbert Maminot Hugue Maminot Geoffroi de Mandeville Hugue de Manneville Toustain Mantel Guillaume de La Mare Hugue de La Mare Geoffroi Le Marechal Geoffroi Martel Raoul de Marsi De Mathan Guillaume Maubenc Gonfroi Mauduit Guillaume Mauduit Geoffroi Maurouard Richard de Meri Du Merle Auvrai de Merleberge Robert, comte de Meulan Baudoin de Meules Roger de Meules Hugue de Mobec Guillaume de Monceaux Ansger de Montaigu Dreu de Montaigu Hubert de Mont Canisi Geoffroi de Montbrai Robert de Montbrai De Montfiquet Hugue de Montfort Robert de Montfort Hugue de Montgomeri Roger de Montgomeri Robert, comte de Mortaine Mathieu de Mortagne Raoul de Mortemer Robert des Moutiers Guillaume de Moyon Roger de Moyaux Gautier de Mucedent Neel de Munneville Robert Murdac Hascouf Musard Hugue Musard Roger de Mussegros Bernard du Neufmarche Richard de Neuville Raoul de Noron Guillaume de Noyers Roger d'Oistreham Gautier d'Omontville Roger d'Orbec D'Orglande Osmond Raoul d'Ouilli Robert d'Ouilli Raoul Painel Bernard Pancevolt Guillaume Pantoul Turould de Papelion Foucher de Paris Guillaume de Parthenay Osberne Pastforeire Guillaume Peche Arnoul de Perci Guillaume de Perci Geoffroi, comte de la Perche Guillaume Pevrel Renouf Pevrel Roger Picot Anscoul de Picquigni Guillaume de Picquigni Geoffroi de Pierrepont Renaud de Pierrepont Robert de Pierrepont Raoul Pinel Raoul Pipin Roger de Pistres Guillaume Poignant Richard Poignant Guillaume de Poillei Thierri Pointel Guernon de Pois Guillaume Le Poitevin Roger Le Poitevin Raoul de La Pommeraie Robert de Pontchardon Guillaume de Pont-de-l'Arche Hubert de Port Hugue de Port Gui de Rainecourt Enguerrand de Raimbeaucourt Gui de Raimbeaucourt Roger de Rames Ravenot Hugue de Rennes Guillaume de Reviers Richard de Reviers Robert de Rhuddlan Gautier de Risbou Goscelin de La Riviere Robert de Romenel Vauquelin de Rosai Anquetil de Ros Ansgot de Ros Geoffroi de Ros Serlo de Ros Alain Le Roux Geoffroi de Runeville Richard de Sacquenville Richard de Saint Clair Roger de Saint Germain Renaud de Sainte Helene Toustain de Sainte Helene Robert de Saint Leger Bernard de Saint Ouen De Sainte Marie d'Agneaux Hugue de Saint Quentin Raoul de Saint Sanson Gautier de Saint Valeri Renouf de Saint Valeri Sanson Osberne de Saussai Raoul de Saussai Raoul de Savigni Eude Le Seneschal Hamon Le Seneschal Simon de Senlis Ansger de Senarpont Guillaume de Sept Meules Hugue Silvestre Roger de Sommeri Richard de Sourdeval Guillaume de Taillebois Ive de Taillebois Raoul de Taillebois Geoffroi Talbot Richard Talbot Auvrai de Tanie Guimond de Tessel Robert Thaon Raoul du Theil Honfroi de Tilleul De Tilly Toustain Tinel Gilbert Tison Berenger de Toeni Guillaume de Toeni Ibert de Toeni Juhel de Toeni Raoul de Toeni Robert de Toeni Renaud de Torteval De Touchet Geoffroi de Tournai Raoul de Tourlaville De Tournebut Raoul de Tourneville Toustain Raoul Tranchard Geoffroi de Trelli Pierre de Valonges Guillaume de Vatteville Richard de Vatteville Robert de Vatteville Ansfroi de Vaubadon Osmond de Vaubadon Renouf de Vaubadon Guillaume de Vauville Aitard de Vaux Robert de Vaux Ive de Veci Robert de Veci Gilbert de Venables De Venois Guillaume de Ver Bertran de Verdun Gautier de Vernon Huard de Vernon Richard de Vernon Hugue de Vesli Robert de Vesli Le Vicomte Robert de Villon Honfroi Vis-de-Loup Raoul Vis-de-Loup Vital Robert de Vitot Hugue de Viville Wadard Osberne de Wanci Guillaume de Warenne Gilbert de Wissant NAMES ADDED TO THIS LIST BY M. DE MAGNY IN THE 'NOBILIAIRE DE NORMANDIE.' Bernard, fils de Herve, due d'Orleans De Folleville Alain Fergant, comte de Bretagne De Gace Neel, vicomte du Cotentin Gouhier Odon, eveque de Bayeux Robert Grante Herbert d'Aigneaux Robert Gruel Eustache d'Ambleville Harenc (tige de la maison de Gauville) Avenel des Biards Robert de la Haye Martel de Bacqueville De la Haye-Malherbe Guillain de Banville Herce De Barville Houel De Bay nee De Janville Eude de Beaujeu De Malherbe Toussaint du Bec De Mallebranche De Breaute De Mauvoisin De Brecey Payen du Montier Hamon de Cayeu De Roumare De Chambray De Rupierre De Courtenay Russel, alias Rozel De Coville De Tancarville De Creuilly, issu de la race des dues de Raoul Tesson Normandie Amaury de Thouars Doynel De Tillieres Etienne Erard De Tracy D' Espinay D'Unfraville D'Estouteville Guillain de Vieux-Pont I have given these exactly as M. de Magny has himself noted them, only omitting the second notice of the Viscount of the Cotentin as "Neel de St. Sauveur." But two of them are not in reality additions; for Robert Gruel is obviously the same person given in the Dives Roll, more correctly, as Robert Cruel; Toussaint de Bec and Turstain fils de Rou, the standard-bearer at Hastings, are also identical; and I may add that I do not believe any real distinction can be drawn between Herce and Hericy. THE BATTLE ABBEY ROLL. --------*--------- "Dicitur a bello, bellum locus hic, quia bello Angligenae victi, sunt hic in morte relicti; Martyris in Christi festo cecidere Calixti: Sexagemus erat sextus millesimus annus Cum pereunt Angli, stella monstrante cometa." Aumale : in Leland's list Aumarill. This name, altered by habit of speech to Albemarle, was taken from the Norman fief of Aumale, afterwards raised to the rank of a Comte by William the Conqueror. The castle stood on the river Eu (now called the Bresle) at the point where it divides Normandy from Picardy, and had been built about the year 1000 by Guernifroi, Sire d'Aumale, who also founded the neighbouring Abbey of St. Martin d'Auchi. "Cil ki ert Sire de Aubemare" is included in the Roman de Rou among, "Les Grauntz dela la Mer, Que vindrent od le Conquerour William Bastard de graunt vigour," and fought by his side at Hastings. This was Odo, the disinherited Count of Champagne, then, in right of his wife, Lord of Aumale, of whom the first clear and detailed account yet known has been recently compiled by Mr. Stapleton from the records of the church of St. Martin d'Auchi, commonly called of Aumale. (Collectanea topographica et genealogica, vol. vi. p. 265.) His father Stephen II., Count of Champagne and Brie, died, in 1047, leaving him a mere child, and "he was immediately dispossessed of by his uncle, Thibaut II.; legally, it would appear, according to the law of that period, which, if the heir of the lordship was not of sufficient age to receive investiture by the ceremony of girding witan the sword, authorized the nearest in blood of full age to claim the succession."—The Conqueror and his Companions, by J. R. Planche. He took refuge at the court of William of Normandy, who was, as William de Jumieges informs us, his kinsman; and in due time married the Duke's half-sister Adeliza. She was, though a young woman, already a widow for the second time. Her first husband was Enguerrand (Ingelram), son of Hugh II., Count of Ponthieu, and Sire d'Aumale, in right of his mother Bertha, the heiress of Guernifroi. By him she had a daughter named after herself, Adeliza, who inherited Aumale. Enguerrand was killed in an ambush at St. Aubin in 1053, and she remarried in the following year Lambert, Count of Lenz in Artois (the brother of Eustace II., Count of Boulogne), and had another daughter called Judith—the richly—dowered Countess Judith of Domesday. Lambert scarcely lived long enough to see the birth of his child, for he fell in battle at Lille, in 1055. She then bestowed her hand on Odo, and by him was the mother of Stephen, who appears to have held Aumale by joint-tenure with his elder half-sister Adeliza, and after her death became the first Comte d'Aumale or Earl of Albemarle. Odo's name is not in Domesday: but we there find the "Comitissa d'Albemarle" holding a barony in Essex, and another in Suffolk, of the King. According to Sir Henry Ellis, this was his wife; but Mr. Planche asserts that his wife was dead before 1085, and that the Countess in question was his stepdaughter. Not long after this, he obtained the great fief that had been originally granted to Drogo de Brevere, "a Fleming of approved valour, who came over to England with William, and received for his services the Isle of Holderness, on which he built the strong castle of Skipsey, and other considerable estates in various counties, amongst them Bytham, in Lincolnshire. He is said to have married a kinswoman of the King—how related to him, or how named, is not stated. Whoever she was, Drogo killed her—whether by accident, or with malice prepense, does not appear in the indictment. His subsequent conduct, however, was that of a guilty man. He hastened to the King, and pretended that he was desirous to take his wife to Flanders; but, not having sufficient money at command for the purpose, craved assistance from his royal connection. The King, not doubting his story, gave or lent to him the sum required, with which Drogo wisely made the best of his way to the coast, and took ship for the Low Countries. The King, on learning the truth, sent orders for his arrest, but too late. Drogo was beyond his reach."—Planche. But Drogo's fief, at all events, was not; it was forthwith seized and appropriated, and the vast lordship of Holderness, comprising a large tract of Yorkshire, and erroneously styled an earldom by Orderic, was bestowed upon Odo. Not content with a part, Odo coveted the whole, and, complaining that Holderness was a barren country, bearing no other grain but oats, obtained from the King, Bytham, in Lincolnshire, that he might "feed his young son with wheaten bread." On the death of the Conqueror, Odo, after some perplexity, elected to take part with his suzerain in England against his suzerain in Normandy; yet, within five years, he had thrown off his allegiance, and joined Robert de Moubray and some other disaffected nobles in an attempt to place his own son on the throne. The King received timely warning of the plot, and both he and Stephen were arrested and thrown into prison. Odo never saw the light of day again, but ended his life in the dungeon pit to which he was consigned. None knew with certainty when he died; but he is believed to have endured his captivity for thirteen miserable years. Stephen was more fortunate. The King had sentenced him to have his eyes put out (one of Rufus's favourite punishments); but by means of the piteous prayers of his wife and family, and the payment of a large sum of money, he obtained his pardon and release. It was he who first bore the title of Earl of Albemarle. He accompanied Robert Courtheuse on his crusade, and twice rose in rebellion against Henry I.; the second time in 1129, when "of those that thus adventured, some lost their lives, some were imprisoned, and some disinherited, so that what became of this our Stephen, I can give no account."—Dugdale. By his wife, Hawise de Mortimer, he was the father of three sons and four daughters. Of the two younger sons, Stephen and Ingelram, we hear nothing; but his successor, William, styled Le Gros, second Earl of Albemarle, was one of the greatest potentates of his day, and commanded in chief at the famous victory of Northallerton in 1138. On the approach of the King of Scots, Archbishop Thurstan, who had the custody of the Borders, and was himself too infirm to take the field, issued his summons far and wide, and "caused a famous standard to be erected, and thereon the banners of St. Peter, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfrid of Ripon, adding thereto the Sacred Host, to the end that all who came to it might receive the more encouragement." Around it, on the height still known as Standard Hill, was gathered the flower of the northern baronage, with some of the great names of the midland shires, William Peverel, with "the power of Nottingham," and Robert Ferrers with the men of Derby. The Bishop of Durham and Walter Espec, the black-browed Baron of Helmsley, vigorously exhorted and harangued the rest before the action. It was fiercely contested; and though it began with an advantage gained by the men of Lothian over the English vanguard, this first check was quickly retrieved, the tide of victory turned, and the Scots "began to shrink back, first by partes, and after by heapes together." The King and his brave son, Henry of Huntingdon, "did what he could to stay them"; but the day was utterly and irretrievably lost, and their rout and disaster complete. About 10,000 men fell in this battle, and for his great services on this memorable occasion, William Le Gros received from the King the Earldom of Yorkshire. But he tarnished his fame by his subsequent defection at Lincoln, in 1141, for he "is said to have fled away from that fight, exposing the King to that loss he there underwent."—Dugdale. He was the founder of several monasteries, and as a devout son of the Church, made a vow to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but, as years went by, and he "waxed very fat and gross," the prospect of so long and toilsome a journey weighed more and more heavily on his spirits. A subtle and keen-eyed monk of Fountains, named Adam, who had presided at the building of his abbey of Vaudey, as well as of Woburn in Bedfordshire, and Kirkstead in Lincolnshire, "discerning that he was in no small trouble of mind about his vow," offered to obtain his absolution from it of the Pope, if he would undertake to build and endow another house for Cistercian monks. The Earl agreed, and the monk travelled to Rome, procured the required dispensation, and came back to claim the fulfilment of the condition. It was settled that Adam should himself choose the site of the proposed monastery, and he had ample range for his choice, as the Earl was at that time, by marriage and inheritance, the owner of the greater part of Yorkshire. He fixed upon a lovely and fruitful valley—a true monk's paradise—with broad lakes and flowing streams, embosomed in hanging woods; and, climbing what was then named Our Ladies Hill, fixed his staff in the ground, crying, "This place shall be called the King's Court, the Vineyard of Heaven, and the Gate of Life. Here shall be ordained a people worshipping Christ." The poor Earl was, however, more disturbed in mind than ever; for this happened to be his favourite retreat, obtained not long before by exchange from Sir John de Meaux, a place for which he had "an extraordinary love," and had already begun to enclose for a park. But there was no going back from his word, or gainsaying the monk's prophecy. The Abbey of Meaux was built in this Naboth's vineyard, and Adam became its first abbot. Besides these two religious houses, he founded another at Thornton-upon-Humber, where he was buried. The chronicler of Meaux recounts how, "When crossing the seas, if the vessel was in danger of being wrecked, during darkness, he remained sleepless until midnight; resigning himself then to rest in the assurance that his convents at Aumarle and Thornton had risen to their devotions, and that likewise after cock-crow, when their orisons would be finished—whether sleeping or waking—he was careless of the danger, and calmly awaited the return of daylight, in reliance on the prayers which he knew were arising in the choirs of Vaudey and Meaux." Aumale had been founded by his father. His wife, Cecily, was of the blood royal of Scotland, the eldest of the three daughters of William Fitz Duncan, Earl of Murray, by Alice de Romelli, Lady of Craven, and through the death of her three brothers,[13] the heiress of the great barony of Skipton. It had come to her from her mother, and it passed from her to her daughter, for she brought the Earl no male heir. At his death in 1179, Hawise, the eldest of her two girls, succeeded to the Earldom of Albemarle and a vast inheritance, which she successively conveyed to her three husbands. Like all the great heiresses of that period, she was in the custody of the Crown, and one of its sources of revenue; for the King only granted her in marriage on payment of a heavy fine, and never suffered her to remain long a widow. She was first bestowed on William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex; then on Geoffrey de Fors or Forz (usually Latinized as De Fortibus); and lastly on Baldwin de Bethune, a favourite of Richard Coeur de Lion's. When Baldwin died in 1211, and she found herself for the fourth time at the disposal of the King, she gave the enormous sum of 5000 marks "to have possession of her dowries and inheritance, and not to be compelled to marry again."[14] She had no children by the Earl of Essex; but by Geoffrey de Fortibus she had a son named William, who inherited her Earldom and great possessions; and by Baldwin another son who died young, and a daughter named after herself, who was the first wife of William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke. Of her younger sister, Cecily, there are two different accounts. Some say that she died early, unmarried; others that she was the ancestress of John de Eston or Aston, who claimed the Earldom in the time of Edward I. William de Fortibus was the next Earl of Albemarle, and Lord of Craven and Holderness; but the former had then become an empty title, for Philip Augustus, after utterly ruining the town of Aumale in 1196, had granted the entire domain to Renaud de Dammartin. "He was one of the barons present at Runnymede, and is the second whose signature is attached to the great Charter of Liberties, his arms being Bendy of 6, Argent and Gules.[15] He soon after fell off from his party, and attached himself to the King, being with him in the same year in that career of rapine and spoil which John pursued in the North of England. De Fortibus was well rewarded by the King, who gave him all the lands of Robert de Ros."—Poulson's Holderness. Unfortunately the predatory habits thus acquired were never lost; for in the following reign, "having by this course of life acquired much plunder, he could not refrain from that ravening practice," and when opposed, "flew into open rebellion." Henry III. threw down the walls of his castle of Bytham, and Pandolf, the legate, excommunicated him; but he contrived to make his peace with both, and continued plundering and fighting—sometimes for and sometimes against the King—till his death in 1241. He had vowed to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was actually on his way thither when he died at sea while crossing the Mediterranean. He married Aveline, daughter, and at length co-heiress of Richard de Montfitchet, and their only son, William, was the last Earl of his race. He does not appear to have inherited his father's turbulence and lawlessness, but lived an uneventful life, and died at Amiens in 1259. He had two wives; the first, Christian de Sully, was the daughter and co-heir of Alan of Galloway, by Margaret of Scotland, and brought him no children; the second, Isabel, was the daughter of Baldwin de Reviers, Earl of Devon, and eventually sole heir to her brother, who died s. p. in I262. She was the mother of three sons and two daughters; John, Thomas, William, Avice, and Aveline; but all of them died young, except the last born, Aveline, who thus, at a very early age, was left the only remaining representative of the family. The whole accumulated inheritance of her father, mother, and grandmother, with the two great Earldoms of Devon and Albemarle, and the Sovereignty of the Isle of Wight, had centered on a delicate child of six years old, and were to be the appanage of her future husband. The King had at first granted her wardship (which comprehended her disposal in marriage) to Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, for "the whole term of fifteen years of her minority," but, on second thoughts, resumed it himself, and decided that so splendidly-dowered a bride should mate with none other than a Plantagenet. Aveline was accordingly married in 1269 with all due state and magnificence to his deformed second son, Edmund Crouchback, "in the presence of the King and Queen, and the greater part of the Nobility of England." She came of age in 1272, in which year her husband, "doing his fealty, had Livery of her lands." But she gave him no heirs, and in 1275, Edward I., "having a mind to all her castles and lands," came to an agreement with her to surrender them to him on certain conditions, and the payment of 20,000 marks. It is clear, however, that she could only give up the reversion of what belonged to her mother, who was still alive—in fact, Dugdale's account leaves it uncertain whether this agreement was not in reality made with the mother after her own death. Aveline was certainly dead before 1277, when John de Aston put in his claim as her "right heir," and a part of her estate went to the De Playzs by reason of their relationship with the Montfichets. The King, however, retained Holderness in his own hands, and by fair or foul means succeeded in obtaining the Isle of Wight (see Reviers). Countess Aveline was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. "Her monument stands at the head of that of Aymer de Valence; it is an altar tomb of touchstone, placed under a canopy twelve feet high, formed in imitation of those temporary structures or hearses, under which, in ancient times, the corpses of the Kings, Queens, and principal nobility were laid."—Poulson's Holderness. Aincourt : from Aincourt, a fief in the Norman Vezin, in the deaconry of Magny. Walter d'Aincourt holds nearly sixty manors in Domesday, chiefly in Lincolnshire, where Blankney was the head of his barony, and "the Deyncourts flourished in a continual succession, from the coming-in of the Normans to the time of Henry VI."—Camden. All we know of Walter's lineage is derived from a leaden tablet inscribed to the memory of his son, William, which was found in 1670 in Lincoln Cathedral. This son, who had been brought up at the court of William Rufus, died young, and was taken from Westminster to Lincoln for his burial, sewn up in leather for the long journey[16]—tedious and toilsome enough in those days. The inscription states that his father was "cousin to Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln, who built this church," and that he himself was of royal lineage. "This must have been through his mother; but who she was has not been discovered; probably a relation of the King's, which would account for his Christian name of William. In the seal of Edmund, Baron d'Eyncourt, attached to the Baron's letter to the Pope (1301) a lion passant will be found in the four corners outside the shield, as if a memorial of this descent."—A. S. Ellis. Walter was succeeded by another son, Ralph, who founded Thurgarton Priory in Nottinghamshire, and was the progenitor of a line of powerful barons, whose names are connected with all the principal events of the time. One fought for Stephen at Lincoln, where his son was taken prisoner; another (the husband of a great Lincolnshire heiress, Nichola de Haia) forfeited his barony under King John, by whom it was granted to Philip Mark, "then an eminent man in Nottinghamshire," but recovered it by the usual means of a fine; and a third served the two first Edwards in their French and Scottish wars. This was Edmund, Baron d'Eyncourt, first summoned to Parliament in 1293; who, seven years afterwards, as Edmundus de Eyncourt, Dominus de Thurgarton, subscribed the famous letter, asserting the supremacy of England over the realm of Scotland, that was sent to Pope Boniface VIII. by the barons assembled in Parliament at Lincoln. He was one of the nobles summoned to attend the coronation of Edward II. His two sons, John and William, both died before him. The date of John's death is not given; but he was, with his brother, at the siege of Carlaverock in 1300, and "mult bien fist son devoir." William was killed before Stirling Castle fourteen years later, on the eve of the battle of Bannockburn: "Back to the host the Douglas rode, And soon glad tidings are abroad, That D'Eyncourt, by stout Randolph slain, His followers fled with loosen'd rein."—Lord of the Isles. John had left three sons; Edmund, who again died in his grandfather's lifetime, William, and John. Edmund's only child, Isabel, then became heir-general, and as such, entitled to the succession of the barony; but her great-grandfather, unwilling that it should be transferred by her marriage to another family, petitioned Edward II. for license to dispose of it as he might see fit. "This Edmund, considering that his name and arms, after his death, descending to her, would be utterly extinguished; and being cordially desirous that both his name and arms should remain to posterity; did, in consideration of his own laudable services performed to King Edward I. and Edward II., obtain a special license from King Edward II. for power to enfeoff what person soever he pleased, in all his Lordships and Lands, Knights' Fees, with Advowsons of Churches and Abbies; to have and to hold, to such person and his heirs for ever, of the said King, and his Heirs, by the services antiently due and of right accustomed."—Dugdale. He thereupon settled the whole of his possessions on his eldest surviving grandson, William; and died, then a very old man, in 1327. To our minds, accustomed to the present rule of succession, there is something fantastic in the declaration of a man, who had two living grandsons, that his name must go down with him to the grave. William, Lord d'Eyncourt (by a new creation in 1335), who was called upon to represent it, worthily maintained its old martial renown. He was a stout and tried soldier, whose sword, like his master's, was but seldom in its sheath; for he followed Edward III. in his French and Scottish campaigns, fought in the great victory of Nevill's Cross, and was present at the taking of Calais. When a French invasion was threatened in 1352, he was appointed to defend the Lincolnshire coast; and with Lord Grey of Codnor, a Commissioner of array for the counties of Derby and Notts. Seven years later, he was among those commissioned to remove the captive King of France from Hertford Castle to Somerton Castle in Somersetshire. He died about 1382, and his successor was again a grandson, William, the father of Ralph and John, who each inherited the barony. Both died early; Ralph, while still under age, in 1401, and John four years afterwards. Yet, young as he was, he left a widow and three children, the eldest of them, three years old. He had married Joan, the daughter and heir of Lord Grey of Rotherfield, and their only son William bore his title in addition to his own. This William, the last of the D'Eyncourts, proved as short-lived as his predecessors. In 1421, he "was retained by indenture to serve King Henry V. in his Warrs beyond sea, with ten men at armes, himself accounted; and thirty archers, all on horseback," but died the year following, "at that time not full twenty-one years of age." His wife, Elizabeth, sister of John Viscount Beaumont, had remained childless; and his two young sisters, Alice and Margaret, became his heirs. Alice, in whom were vested the two baronies of D'Eyncourt and Grey of Rotherfield, married, first, Ralph Boteler of Sudeley, who died s. p.; and secondly Lord Lovel of Tichmarsh. Margaret married Ralph Cromwell, but had no children. The whole inheritance thence fell to the share of Alice's descendants by her second marriage; but her grandson Francis, Viscount Beaumont, forfeited her baronies with his other honours by attainder in 1487. Thus, within little more than one hundred years from the settlement made by the first Baron, the highly-prized name he had been so earnest to preserve and perpetuate, had altogether died out. "He was," writes Camden, "very solicitous to have it survive and be remembered. Yet this surname, for aught I can find, is now quite extinct, and would have been forgotten for ever, if the memory of it had not been preserved in books." It is, however, still borne by Wooburn-Deincourt, one of the Buckinghamshire manors held by Walter de Aincourt in 1086; and at least two attempts have been made to resuscitate it. Sir Francis Leke of Sutton, in Derbyshire, without any reason assigned (at least by Burke), chose as his title the ancient barony of Deincourt, and was subsequently created Earl of Scarsdale. Both titles expired with the fourth Earl in 1736. More recently in 1835, a Lincolnshire gentleman of the name of Tennyson added the name and arms of D'Eyncourt to his own, in compliance with a condition attached to the enjoyment of certain manors and estates, by a codicil to his father's will, "in order to commemorate his descent from the ancient and noble family of D'Eyncourt, Barons d'Eyncourt of Blankney, and his representation in blood, as co-heir of the Earls of Scarsdale, Barons d'Eyncourt of Sutton." His descent, through several different families, from Lady Anne Leke, daughter of the first Earl, is sufficiently clear; but for the more tortuous and involved pedigree, that derived him from Alice, the heiress of the D'Eyncourts, I must refer my readers to Sir Bernard Burke, as I avow myself unable to comprehend it. Audley : an undeniable interpolation. This name was assumed from the manor of Audley or Aldithley (Aldidelege, Domesday) in Staffordshire.—See Verdon. Adgillam : Augilliam in Duchesne's copy: Aungeloun in Leland's. According to the Recherches sur le Domesday, this family gave its name[17] to the parish of Sainte-Marie-de-la-Haie d'Aigullon, which was granted in 1213 by Philip de Vassy to Jordan, Bishop of Bayeux, on the foundation of his abbey of Mondaye. Robert d'Aigullon and his son witness a charter of Stephen, Count of Chartres, in 1100. "William de Aigullon, Sire de Trie, defended Pont Audemer against Henry I. in 1123 (Ordericus Vitalis). He was the son-in-law of Theobald Paganus de Montmorency, Seneschal of Gisors, and died in Palestine, 1147."—The Norman People. "Rogerus Aculeus," a sub-tenant in the Exon Domesday, is believed to be the ancestor of the English house, which first became of note in the reign of Coeur de Lion. Dugdale commences the pedigree with Manser or Manasser de Aguillon, who obtained from the King a confirmation of his land, and died before 1194, when Godfrey de St. Martin paid £100 for license to marry Constance, his widow, "with her inheritance." His successor, William, was among the barons who took up arms against King John. He, too, married an heiress, the daughter of Bartholomew Cheney, and in her right held the manor of Addington in Surrey by serjeanty, or service of the kitchen; that is, he was to find a cook at each coronation to dress a dish of meat for the King, and serve it up at the King's table. Addington had been granted by the Conqueror to his cook Tezelin, as a reward for a successful dainty, no doubt the above-mentioned dish, thus described by Dugdale: "A certain mess which being made with Fat, is called Maupigernon, otherwise the Mess of Gyroun." It was a pottage, and consisted of almond milk, brawn of capons, sugar and spices, chicken par-boiled and chopped, &c. Camden, in his Britannia, gives it the strange name of Dillegrout. The dish was to be cooked "in an earthen pot in the kitchen of our Lord the King, on the day of his coronation," and served up after the first course of the great banquet in Westminster Hall. This was ushered in with the full splendour of feudal state by a solemn procession, headed by the Lord High Steward, Lord High Constable, and Earl Marshal of England, in their peer's robes and coronets, all three on horseback, and preceded and followed by the serjeants-of-arms with their maces. Next came the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household, then the Sewer and Assistant-Sewer, and after them twenty-four gentlemen-at-arms bearing twenty-four dishes of meat, all walking two and two. The Lord of the manor of Addington, attended by two clerks of the kitchen in satin gowns, then appeared on the scene with his mess of maupygernon, and offered it to the King. This curious tenure still survives. When the manor passed, by the marriage of Isabel de Aguillon, to the Bardolfs, the dish was sometimes called by their name, and was evidently popular; for at the coronation of Edward III., Thomas Bardolf served up "three messes of maupygernon," one for the King, one for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the third for whoever the King might be pleased to name. But, like other things, it fell into disuse and disfavour; and when Mr. Thomas Leigh, at that time lord of the manor, offered his dish to Charles II. at his coronation-banquet, we are told by Ashmole that the King "accepted the service but did not eat the pottage." The last time it was presented was to George III. by Mr. Spencer, for no Lord of Addington was forthcoming at the coronation of George IV., and thus the ancient dainty was omitted from the last Royal banquet that has been held in Westminster Hall. The manor had then been sold to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who did not claim the service. "The privilege or duty now belongs to the Primate, or, more correctly speaking, perhaps, to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners." The son of William de Aguillon—another William—who was Sheriff of Sussex and Surrey, Governor of Guilford Castle, and for some time Castellan of Arundel, obtained license to castellate his manor-houses of Addington and Percingeres (Perching) in Sussex, and died in 1286, leaving no heir but his daughter Isabel, married to Hugh Lord Bardolf. In Morant's History of Essex I find mention of a Robert de Agillun or Aguyllion, to whom Henry II. granted the government of the Hundred of Lexden. His heirs were four daughters; Isabel, mother of Adam de Cokefend; Ela, of Luke de Poynings; Margery, of Andrew de Saukvill, or Sackville; and Joanna, of Ralph Fitz Bernard. There was a branch of this family settled in Cumberland. Walter d'Aguilon came there in the train of Earl Ranulph de Meschines, and gave his name to his dwelling-place, still called the manor of Aguilon, or Aglionby. His descendants remained till 1785, when Christopher Aglionby "died a bachelor in the flower of his age, the last of the male line of this ancient family."—Hutchinson's Cumberland. Again, I find that one of the Hampshire barons summoned to serve against Llewellyn in 1264 was Robert de Aguylon. Apparently he left only a daughter. "Robert d'Agulon," writes Woodward, "bore Gules a fleur de lis Argent. After Joan d'Agulon became wife to John de Mohun, John or his son stuck into the maunch in his coat a hand holding the Agulon fleur de lis." Argentoune : from the town and castle of Argenton, Berry, held in 1080 by Geoffroi, Sire d'Argenton, whose descendants continued there for twelve generations. David d'Argenton (perhaps his brother) held lands de capite in Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire (Domesday). He is there styled David de Argentomago or Argentomo; but the name gradually lapsed into Argentein or Argentine. His manor of Wymondley in Cambridgeshire was held by grand serjeanty, "to serve the King on his coronation day with a silver cup"; and the English Argentines consequently substituted three covered silver cups to the torteauxes that had been borne by their ancestors in France. The notices of the first generations of his posterity are very scanty. Richard de Argentine founded Wymondley Priory; Peverel de Argentine witnessed a deed of Richard de Redvers, in favour of St. Mary's Quarr, in 1147; William de Argentine another granted by his successor Baldwin. Reginald (the son of another Reginald) was Sheriff of Cambridge and Huntingdon, 5, 6, 7, & 8 Richard I., and took part with the barons against John; but "made his own composition" with Henry III. on his accession, and got back the whole of his lands. His son Richard, Constable of Hertford, Sheriff of Essex and Herts in 1223, and one of the Stewards of the King's household, "being a Noble Knight and Valiant in Arms," went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died in 1246. Contemporary with him was Reginald de Argentine, a Knight Templar, "who, in 21 Henry III., was Standard-bearer of the Christian Army in a great Battel against the Turks, near Antioch, in the Holy Land, and carried it till his Hands and Leggs being broke, he was there slain." Sir Richard's son, Giles (or Egidius), "a knight also of great valour," was with Henry III. in the Welsh wars, when he was taken prisoner in a sharp fight near Montgomery; afterwards followed him to Gascony, and was named castellan of the royal castle of Windsor. Soon after this, however, he joined the rebellious barons, and was one of the Council of Nine elected to govern the realm after the King's defeat and capture at Lewes. He married the heiress of Sir R. de Aguillon, and was the father of Reginald, a baron by writ in 1297. Reginald's wife, Lora de Vere (a daughter of the Earl of Oxford), brought him an only son, Sir John, who, at his death in 1318, left a little boy, then only six months old, that was destined to be the last heir of this gallant race. Neither of these two Sir Johns were ever summoned to parliament. The last died in I382, leaving three daughters; Maud, married to Sir Ivo Fitz Warren; Joan, married to Sir Bartholomew Naunton; and Elizabeth, married to Sir Baldwin St. George. He had in addition a son born out of wedlock, to whom he gave his name, with the manor of Wymondley, Horseheath, Argentines, and the greater part of his Cambridgeshire estates. But this son's posterity only held them for a single generation; as Elizabeth, daughter and sole heir of the next Sir John de Argentine, carried all his possessions to her husband, William Alington (son of the Sir William who was Treasurer of Normandy in the time of Henry V. and Henry VI.); and her descendant, Lord Alington, presented the first silver cup to James II. at his coronation as Lord of the manor of Wymondley. The Lords Alington in their turn became extinct in 1722. A branch of the Argentines was seated in Yorkshire, where William, the son of Robert, held one knight's fee[18] of Percy early in the reign of Henry I. Walter de Argentoun was the first husband of Aaliza de Percy; and their son Roger left three co-heiresses; Agnes, Asmota, and Elizabeth. Several others of the name are mentioned; "but the entire question of the mutual relationship of these Argentines, and of their connection with the more famous family, of which Sir Giles was so conspicuous a member, is utterly obscure." The chief glory of the house rests on this famous Sir Giles, a knight of Rhodes, who was slain on the fatal field of Bannockburn, where "Twa hundre payr of spuris redd War tane of knichtis that war deid." He was probably a younger son of the elder Sir Giles, one of the governing council in the baronial war who had received a writ of military summons in 1243. He bore a high reputation as a soldier, having served with great renown in the Holy Land, where he encountered and overthrew two Saracen foemen single-handed ("Forsooth, a small matter, quoth he, for a Christian knight to slay two Paynim dogs"); and when summoned to join the great army that invaded Scotland in 1313, had only lately come from the wars of the Emperor Henry de Luzemburgh. Throughout the calamitous day of Bruce's triumph, when the pride and power of England were trodden in the dust, he remained in attendance on the King, and did all that mortal man might do to avert or retrieve the disaster. The unhappy Edward himself showed a spirit not unworthy of his great father or greater son. When he saw the wreck and ruin of his splendid array, and the best and noblest of his realm falling around him, he threw himself among the spears with all the courage of despair, in the vain effort to arrest the rout. He would listen to no counsel, and take no thought for his safety, till the Earl of Pembroke, seizing his bridle rein, peremptorily forced him away from the field, and hurried him along the road to Stirling. De Argentine kept close by his side, till he saw him out of danger; then, with the parting words, "God be with you, Sire; it is not my wont to fly," turned his horse's head, and rode back to meet a soldier's death in the battle-field. Once more he laid his trusty lance in rest; once more, rising in his stirrups, shouted the dreaded war-cry, "An Argentine!" then, charging the advancing foe, he unhorsed his first four assailants, and bore down upon the Lord of Colonsay, who was leading the pursuit. He was already wounded; his crest had been razed by a battle-axe, and a spear had pierced one of the joints of his harness. But his arm was none the less steady, and his aim true; the lance-thrust struck straight home, and Colonsay, reeling from his saddle, lay pinned to the ground as he fell. The stricken chieftain would not, however, die unavenged. By one mighty effort he swung his broadsword round, and, with a last furious stroke, dealt De Argentine his death-blow. Then, falling back, he died laughing—like the grim Norsemen of old—having paid his debt, and laid low his great adversary beside him. The loss of De Argentine was mourned by friend and foe, and by none more heartily than by Bruce, who had been his comrade in the days gone by: "'And, O farewell!' the victor cried, 'Of chivalry the flower and pride, The arm in battle bold, The courteous mien, the noble race, The stainless faith, the manly face! Bid Ninian's convent light their shrine For late-wake of De Argentine. O'er better knight on death-bier laid, Torch never gleam'd nor Mass was said!'" —The Lord of the Isles. Canto vi. Arundell : "Rogerius Arundel" holds a Somersetshire barony of twenty-eight manors in Domesday. No one precisely knows who he was; but the generally received opinion is that he was a kinsman of Roger de Montgomeri: Collinson, in his 'Somerset,' even asserts that he was the Earl's son, and according to another authority, "probably Castellan of Arundel," from whence he is credited with having derived his name. Like the town, he bore allusive arms; arondelles (swallows or martlets), which are also the bearing of the county of Sussex. Arondelle is the older form of the modern French hirondelle. Thus Remy Belleau writes in 1585: "Ces arondelles qui vont Et qui sont Du printemps les messageres." But it seems certain that Roger de Arundel did not take his name from any place in England, for in the 'Recherches sur le Domesday,' we find that the Arundels were a family of very ancient standing in Normandy, and flourished there for nearly two centuries after the Conquest. Eight or nine of the name are found in the Chartulary of Mont St. Michel, and the church of St. Nicolas d'Arundel, in the departement of the Arne, is also mentioned. William d'Arundel was Treasurer of the diocese of Lisieux about 1202; and Emma, his daughter, in a deed of gift dated 1259, speaks of the mill of Arundel, near the mouth of the river Guines. Robert de Fontaine (probably her husband) ceded to Henry, Bishop of Bayeux, his fisheries at Arundel. Their castle is believed to have stood near the mill, on the banks of the Guines; but all trace of its site is completely lost, and it is only remembered in the ritournelle of an old ballad still chanted by the young girls of the neighbouring villages as a dance measure. It is the complainte of a peasant, whose ass has been devoured by a wolf, and who thus laments the useful back that bore his flour-sacks: "Echine, povre echine, Plus ne portras farine Au chateau d'Arundel." The tradition of this descent was preserved till Leland's time by the Cornish Arundells, for he received from one of them the following account (giving the name of another of their Norman castles): "Humfre Arundale told me that he thought that he cam of the Arundales in Base Normandy that were Lordes of Culy Castelle, that now is descendid to one Mounseir de la Fontaine, a French man by Heire General. "This Arundale gyvith no part of the Armes of great Arundale of Lanheran by S. Columbes.... and is caullid Arundale of Trerise by a difference from Arundale of Lanheran." But in later times it seems to have utterly disappeared. "Sir John Arundell, the last possessor of Lanherne, told me he could never understand there was any such local place in France as Arundell, though he lived long in that country, and made strict enquiry after it."—Gilbert's Cornwall. Roger Arundel's son Wido, or Guy, held under him Pourton, Dorset (Domesday). His grandson was another Roger, and the barony passed through a female heir to Gerbert de Percy in 1165.—Hutching's Dorset. John Arundel is mentioned, temp. Henry I., and Ralph Arundel, 15 Stephen. It must have been the latter, who, according to Sir John Gilbert, about the middle of the twelfth century, made the match with the heiress of Trembleth that first transplanted the family into Cornwall. Their principal seat was at Lanherne, acquired, in the reign of Henry III., through an heiress of the Pincernas or Butlers: Trerice, the home of a younger branch, came to them, temp. Edward III. There were also Arundels of Tolverne and of Trevithic, as well as in Devonshire, where the name is kept by Morchard-Arundel, Hempston-Arundel, and Yewton-Arundel, "the land that hath had longest continuance in that name within this county." There is also a Somersetshire manor—Samford-Arundel, named from them. But their home was in Cornwall, where, says Carew, "the country people entitle them 'the Great Arundells,' and greatest for love, living, and respect in the country heretofore they were." The last of the old Lanherne stock, Sir John, died in 1701, having settled his estates on his daughter's son, Richard Billinge, with the condition that he should take the name and arms of Arundell. Richard had an only daughter and heir, who married Henry, seventh Lord Arundell of Wardour, and brought him the whole property, most of which was sold by their son, "thus severing the very ancient connexion of his family with the county of Cornwall." Lord Arundell represented a younger branch that had been seated in Wiltshire since 1527. "The first of the Arundells who established himself in Wilts," says Sir Richard Hoare, "was Sir Thomas, second son of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, by the Lady Elizabeth Grey, daughter of Thomas, second Marquess of Dorset, to whom his father, t8 Henry VIII., granted lands in Somerset and Dorset (amongst them Osmond, one of the manors granted by the Conqueror to Roger Arundel)." In 1547 he purchased of Sir Fulke Greville the Castle of Wardour, where the family have remained seated to the present day. His wife, Margaret Howard, was the sister of Henry VIII.'s fifth Queen; and, as the co-heir of her father, Lord Edmund, third son of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, "brought an ample estate to the family." But, like most of those that owned any connection with Royal blood, on whom a curious fatality seemed to rest, he died on the scaffold, executed in 1552 with Sir Michael Stanhope, Sir Ralph Vane, and Sir Miles Partridge, for complicity in the Duke of Somerset's real or supposed plot against John Dudley Duke of Northumberland. They had been staunch adherents of the Protector, and two of them were connected with him by family ties (Sir Michael was the brother, and Sir Thomas the half-brother of his Duchess): but all died protesting their innocence with their last breath, and Vane added that "his blood would make Northumberland's pillow uneasy." Thomas, the grandson and namesake of this "famous knight," as he is styled on the monument in Tisbury Church, was the first Lord Arundell of Wardour. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, this Thomas, then quite a young man, went over to Germany, entered the Imperial army as a volunteer, and served a campaign in Hungary against the Turks, "bearing himself manfully in the field." At the assault of the Water Tower at Gran, he took one of the enemy's standards with his own hand, and for this and other services was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire by Rodolph II. in 1595. The Emperor, with whom he was high in favour, further made him several offers of employment, but young Arundell would not be detained abroad, and returned home the following year. He found his countrymen little disposed to acknowledge his new honours, and a warm dispute arose among the peers as to whether he should be allowed place and precedence, or any other privilege of rank. Queen Elizabeth on being appealed to, at once decided against him. She maintained there was a close tie of affection between the prince and subject, and that as chaste wives should have no glances but for their own spouses, so should faithful servants keep their eves at home, and not gaze upon foreign crowns: and that she, tor her part, did no care her sheep should wear a stranger's mark, nor dance after the whistle o every foreigner. She consequently wrote herself to the Emperor, announcing that she had forbidden her subjects to give either place or precedence to the new-made Count. King James, however, created him Baron of Wardour two years after his accession. The second lord was the husband of Lady Blanche Somerset daughter of the Earl of Worcester, the gallant lady who with a mere handful of followers, held Wardour Castle for the King during nine days against the rebel army under Hungerford and Ludlow.[19] She only consented to yield it at last on the promise of honourable terms, but they were not observed, and when Lord Arundell returned to find his house occupied by the enemy, he ordered a mine to be sprung under it—thus dislodging them by the destruction of his own castle, a fine building which had been decorated by his father at a great expense. But this was far from being the only sacrifice he made to the Royal cause, which indeed cost him the better part of his fortune. He commanded a regiment of horse raised at his sole charge, in the King's army: and died of a wound he received in the battle of Lansdown, where his thigh was broken by a brace of pistol bullets. Wardour Castle was never rebuilt till the middle of the last Century. One of the Arundells of Trerice[20] commanded the Royal garrison of Pendennis Castle and though then nearly fourscore years old, and besieged both by sea and land held out bravely till 1646. Four of his sons were in the Royal army two of whom lost their lives in the service: and the elder, Richard, was created Baron Arundell of Trerice after the Restoration. This barony expired with the fourth lord in 1773. Auenant : This name is not territorial, though it erroneously became D'Avenant, or Davenant, in England. It is evidently one of the familiar sobriquets or nicknames[21] in which the Normans delighted; and in this instance, at least, a highly complimentary one. The French avenant—engaging, prepossessing—was at one time adopted into our own tongue. Hengist's daughter Rowena—the maiden of the "fair face and flattering tongue" is thus described: "Of body she was right avenant, Of fair color, with sweet semblaunt." Sometimes it was given as a Christian name. "Avenant uxor Willielmi Wad." occurs in Norfolk in 1199.—(Rotuli Curiae Regis.) Contemporary with her we find Godefrid and Richard Avenant in Normandy (mentioned in the Exchequer Rolls of 1198); and the name was of even earlier date in England. Osbert Avenant witnesses a charter of Hugh, Abbot of St. Edmund's (elected in 1157) to William Fitz Leo in Suffolk. "Petrus Auenaund" held of Earl Warren's fee in Gressinghall, Norfolk. "Avenant" paid a fine in Cornwall in 1213. The pedigree of the family given by Sir Richard Hoare begins with Sir John Davenant, living in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., but neither to him, nor to nine generations of his descendants, is any place of habitation assigned. Yet, according to Collinson, Wood-Avenant (now Wood-Advent) in Somersetshire, was held by them soon after the time of Hen. III.; and they were very early settled in the parish of Sible-Hedingham in Essex, where in the fourteenth century Nicolas Davenant held part of a knight's fee of John, seventh Earl of Oxford. Their place (only sold in the last century) was named from them, Davenant's Land, and William, tenth in descent from Sir John, rebuilt the house in 1571, as appears by an inscription on the outer girder of the roof. His son John, citizen and merchant of London, was the father of, 1, Edward, of Whiddy Island, co. Cork; 2, John, Bishop of Salisbury, who died in 1641, and is buried in Salisbury Cathedral; 3, William, of Breedon-super-Mont, Leicester; 4, James, and 5, Ralph. Edward's grandson, John Davenant, was of St. Martin's in New Sarum and Landford in Wilts, where he took up his abode, and his son served as Sheriff of the county in 1686. But the next heir died childless, leaving his estate, encumbered with heavy mortgages, to his three sisters, Rebecca, Catherine, and Elizabeth, the wife of Richard Woodford. Sir William Davenant, the Poet Laureate of Charles II., was, according to another pedigree given in Hoare's 'Wiltshire,' the great-nephew of the William Davenant who re-built Davenant's Land. His father[22] kept the Crown Tavern at Oxford, and was Mayor of the town in 1621. Born in 1605, he made his first appearance at Court as the page of the Duchess of Richmond at sixteen, and subsequently lived for six or seven years in the family of Fulk Greville, Lord Brooke. The loss of his patron forced him to have recourse to the stage as a bread-winner; and his plays and masks were acted with such success and applause that, on the death of Ben Jonson, the Queen procured for him the vacant laurel. But his lucky star was soon eclipsed by the coming storms of the Civil War. He was twice apprehended as "the King's friend"; escaped to France, returned to England to serve as Lieut.-Gen. of Ordnance under one of his former patrons, Lord Newcastle; was knighted for his gallantry at the siege of Gloucester; and finally, when the royal cause was lost, went back to Paris and professed the Roman Catholic faith. It was then he commenced his principal work, 'Gondibert'; but the two first books, published in England, attracted little notice, and he sought to mend his fortunes in America. He embarked for Virginia, but the vessel was captured by an English cruiser, and he was imprisoned in Cowes Castle till, in 1650, he was transferred to the Tower, and ordered to be tried by a High Commission Court. His life was spared—some say by the intervention of Milton—but he remained in prison for two whole years. On his release the poor poet opened a theatre in Rutland House, Chester-house-yard, and received the patent of a playhouse, under the title of the Duke's Company, when his friends came back to power at the Restoration. He died eight years afterwards, and was buried with great ceremony in Westminster Abbey. He had married Frances, daughter of James Molins, and had numerous descendants. One of these. James Davenant, of Clearbrook in Herefordshire, married Ann, daughter of Sir Robert Corbet of Stoke in Shropshire, and in the end his heiress, for both her brothers died childless, and none of her sisters married. Corbet Davenant, her only child, took the name of Corbet in 1783, and received a baronetcy three years afterwards. But he left no posterity. Abell : "a name which has not a very genuine sound as a surname."—Sir Egerton Brydges. Nevertheless, N. Abel held lands from Lanfranc in Kent 1086 (Domesday); and "Joh' Abel et Consorti Sue" were among the Kentish gentry summoned by a writ of Edward I. in the first year of his reign "to be present at his and the Queen's coronation at Westminster on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Valentine the Martyr."—Hasted's Kent.—This was probably the same Sir John Abell of Hering Hill in Erith, afterwards knighted at the siege of Carlaverock, who was sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1298, 1299, 1300, and 1301; and left two sons; 1, John, one of the Barons of the Exchequer 5 Ed. II., and 2, Walter, the owner of Foot's Cray. His coat of arms, Argent, a saltire engrailed Gules, is given in the 'Parliamentary Roll'—"probably of knights eligible to be called to the council of the nation"—by Sir Francis Palgrave. "His descendant, John Abell, died possessed of Hering Hill, about the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign; but his son Samuel was the last of the family there."—Ibid. A branch remained in Buckinghamshire, where six of the Abells lie buried in East Claydon Church. One of them (who died in 1661) was High Sheriff of the county. They bore Argent a saltire engrailed Azure.—Lipscomb's Bucks. The Abells of Essex had entirely different arms, and were, according to Morant, "originally considerable clothiers. John Abell (who died in 1558) held the Manor of Cooke's Hall of the Queen as of her Honour of Clare." In 1666, one of his descendants, William Abell, was living at Fordham, in the same county.—Ibid. Auuerne : or, according to Leland's rendering, Aveneris, probably Avesnes, from a plan so named in Normandy, called in the Exchequer Rolls of 1180-98 "Avesnes in Vulcassino." Nicholas de Aveines and William Avennes are there entered; and "Bertinus de Avesnis, one feod lig." with "Galterus de Avesnis et frater eius," occur in Duchesne's list of Norman feudatories. In England Richard de Auene held two knight's fees in Hampshire of John de Port (Lib. Niger). Nigel de Havene, of the same county, is mentioned in 1202 (Rotulus Cancellarii). At the same date, Robert de Avesne held in Oxfordshire (Ibid.). A knight of this name had been with Coeur de Lion in the Holy Land. "On the Saturday evening, when the Christian soldiers were mustered after the battle" (of Arsoof) "the renowned knight, James d'Avennes, the friend and companion of King Richard, was amongst the missing warriors; and the next morning at sunrise the Templars and Hospitallers went out to search the field of battle in quest of him. They found his dead body, disfigured with blood and dirt, amid a heap of the slain, and placing it upon their lances, they brought it into the camp at Arsoof amid the tears and lamentations of their brethren. It was Sunday, the 8th of September, the day of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary, and the army halted at Arsoof the whole of that day for the purpose of burying the dead. A solemn mass was said by the priests, and Richard Coeur de Lion, and Guy, King of Jerusalem, accompanied by the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, and the other chieftains of the army, attended the funeral of the brave James d'Avennes, which was celebrated with great solemnity amid the tears of the warriors of the Cross."—Addison's Knights Templars. I am sorry, however, to add that this gallant knight was not an Englishman, but the "Jacques D'Avesnes croise en 1189," who belonged to the great Flemish house of that name. Nevertheless, it is evident that he had kinsfolk in this country; for his coat of arms, "Bande d'or et de gueules de six pieces," tallies almost exactly with that assigned by Robson to the English house of Avenes or Avesness: Bendy of six, Gules and Argent, or Argent and Gules. Unfortunately no clue to its domicile is afforded us. Perhaps John de Avennes, the third husband of Anne de Valence, eldest sister and co-heir of Aymer, last Earl of Pembroke, may have belonged to it. He was no doubt the same "John Daveines, pardoned, by consent of Parliament, for all felonies and trespasses committed up to 7 August, 1318."—Palgrave's 'Parl. Writs' The great heiress whom he had married brought him no children. In some cases the name was certainly local. William and Walter de Avene of Wilts, entered in the Hundred Rolls about 1272, must have derived it from Avene in that county, a manor "mentioned in the Saxon chartulary of Wilton Abbey, in a grant of King Eadgar."—Sir Richard Hoare. The Avenes or Avones of Avonescourt in Gloucestershire, enfeoffed by the Berkeleys as early as the reign of Coeur de Lion "in processe of time drewe that sirname of Avone to them from the water or small ryver[23] running neere unto it. Their landes were in the time of kinge Edward the thirde the landes of John Walter, by maryage of the heire of Avone."—Lives of the Berkeleys. They were sometimes called Avery, and bore Gules three chevrons Argent. Another coat of the Avenes was Gules a chevron Argent. In Dorsetshire John de Aven gave evidence at an Inquisition held at Brockhampton 32 Ed. I.—Hutchin's Dorset. Faringdon . Ward was originally the property of this family. William Faryngdon, goldsmith, in 1229, "purchased of Ralph le Feure all the aldermanrie, and the appurtenances, within the city of London and the suburbs of the same, between Ludgate and Newgate, and also within the same gates which Ankeritus de Auene held, during his life, by grant of Thomas Auerne. To have and to hold to the said Ralph and his heirs, yielding one clove, or slip of gilliflower, at the feast of Easter."—Stowe. This flower is then said to have been "of great rarity." The Norman house still existed in the last century. D'Avesnes seigneur de Familly in the bailifry of Orbec, was represented at the great Assembly of the Nobles in 1789. Aunwers : see Davers. Angers : Ansger in Domesday, where several of the name are found. The principal land-owner among them, who is supposed to have been of Breton origin, held considerable estates in Devonshire under Baldwin de Meules. "A branch of Angers flourished at Carclew, from temp. Henry II. (when one married Margery de Serischall or Seriseaux) till temp. Henry IV."—Gilbert's Cornwall. Anger's Leigh in Somersetshire was held by the family from 1360 to 1427. John de Aunger served as knight of the shire for Leicester in three of Edward I.'s parliaments, and in the first held by Edward II. Josceline D'Aunger in 1169 witnessed the foundation charter of Lanercost Abbey, and Ralph de Angers in the thirteenth century held lands in Wilts. Ralph de Aungers was Sheriff of Notts, 49 and 50 Henry III. The name, transmuted to Hanger, appears in Gloucestershire, where Sir George Hanger of Driffield was High Sheriff in 1695; and "hath a large handsome house, and pleasant gardens near the church, and a large estate."—Atkyn's Gloucestershire. Gabriel Hanger, a cadet of this house, was created Baron Coleraine of Coleraine, co. Londonderry, in 1762, and the title was successively borne by his three sons: but as none of them ever married, it expired with the last in 1824. Another Irish peerage had been granted in 1621 to Sir Francis Aungier, appointed Master of the Rolls in 1609, and descended, as Sir Bernard Burke informs us, from a Cambridgeshire family. He had settled in Ireland, having married a sister of the Earl of Kildare's, and took the title of Baron Aungier of Longford. His grandson Francis, who filled several offices of trust in the latter end of the same century, being Keeper of the Great Seal, Master of the Ordnance, and Constable of Carrickfergus, received a Viscounty in 1675, and an Earldom two years afterwards—both with remainder to his brother Ambrose, as his wife, the widowed Countess of Gowran (one of the co-heiresses of the Earl of Donegal), had proved childless. But Ambrose, the second Earl of Longford, also d. s. p. within four years—in 1704; and the title, thus early extinct, was re-granted in 1785 to the daughter and heir of his great-nephew Francis Cuff, and by her conveyed to the Pakenhams. Angenoun : or rather, as Leland gives it, Aungewyne, for Angevinus or L'Angevin. This was a Norman family, whose habitat is not ascertained. In 1202 Robert l'Angevin, with the consent of his elder brother, Henri de Burnodivilla, granted to the monks of Aunay his lands at Montortaire; and some traces of the family are to be found down to the seventeenth century. Osmond and Guy l'Angevin (probably brothers) both appear in Domesday: the former held the manor of Witham in Essex; the latter under the Count de Boulogne in Norfolk. From one or other of these descended William l'Angevin or Angevin, settled at Churchfield in Northamptonshire, who died in 1199, Another William (perhaps his son) in 1250 held, in addition, Waplode in Lincolnshire, and was father of a third William, who left an only child, Margaret, still a minor when her mother died in 1276. She married Sir Hugh de Gorham, who possessed Churchfield and Waplode in her right. In Warwickshire "William Angevin antiently enfeoffed by Robert de Tayden" (probably the Angevin of Churchfield), "father of Nigel, gave the total of what he had at Hodnell to the monks of Combe, excepting two yard land reserved for his own use afterwards bestowed upon them by Nigel his son."—Dugdale. This was in the time of Henry II. In Norfolk the descendants of Guy l'Angevin, who was Lord of Bereford under Earl Eustace, continued till 1417. His grandson Sir Robert, "wrote himself sometimes de Massingham and sometimes de Thorpe, having lordships in these towns, and held seven fees, with those in Anmere, &c, about the year 1200 of the honour of Bologne."—Blomfield's Norfolk. From that time forward, however, they were invariably styled Thorpe of Ashwell Thorpe: Sir Hugh de Thorpe, Sir Robert's son, was a benefactor to Castle Acre Priory; and in the next generation Sir John de Thorpe sealed with a cheque Or and Gules, a fesse in a bordure Argent. The last of the name, Sir Edmund, was slain, at the siege of Lovers Castle, Normandy, in 1417, and was brought home to be buried at Ashwellthorpe, where he and his lady lie "in a stately tomb of white alabaster, under a canopy of wood." He left two daughters and co-heirs; Joan, first married to Sir Robert Echingham, and then to Sir John Clifton; and Isabel, the wife of Philip Tilney. The arms of Thorpe were then entirely different; for they bore Azure three crescents Argent. Archere : "Willelmus Arcarius" held a barony in the hundred of Sunburne, in Hampshire. (Domesday.) This family took its name from the office it held under the Dukes of Normandy before the Conquest. Its derivation is rather uncertain, but a family of L'Archer, still flourishing in Brittany, bears the same three arrows that were borne by the English Archers, differenced in tincture. The latter claim as their ancestor Fulbert l'Archer, the father of Robert, to whom the Conqueror entrusted the charge of his son, afterwards Henry I. But Robert the tutor was the son of William (see Fitz William) and not of Fulbert, who is neither found in Domesday, nor in any list now extant of the Conqueror's companions. According to the habit of those times, Robert only took the name of Archer after his father's death, and was the undoubted progenitor of the Barons Archer.—Recherches sur le Domesday. On his accession to the throne, Henry I. proved his gratitude to his former tutor by considerable grants of land; and Robert l'Archer added to these by marrying an heiress. His wife Sebit, the daughter of Henry de Villiers, sewer of the Earl of Warwick, brought him Umberslade in Warwickshire, which he transmitted to nineteen generations of his descendants in the male line. It was a regular and monotonous succession, unbroken by forfeiture or attainders, and unmarked by any violent transitions of fortune. His grandson was champion to Thomas Earl of Warwick, who by special grant conferred on him and his heirs, liberty to hunt and hawk in his demesne, paying twelve broad arrows and a couple of capons yearly at Whitsuntide as an acknowledgment. Thomas Archer served under John of Gaunt in the French wars; and was taken prisoner in 1373 while on a foraging expedition at Ouchy-le-Chateau near Soissons. His successor, again, was summoned in 1419, "as one that did bear ancient arms from his ancestors," to serve the King in person for the defence of the realm. Sir Simon Archer, sheriff of Warwickshire in 1627, a man of letters well versed in antiquarian lore, aided Sir William Dugdale in compiling his history of the county. Thomas, his son, was a colonel in the service of the parliament, and raised a troop of horse at his own expense; but, on discovering the ulterior designs of his leaders, threw up his commission and left England; remaining abroad till the Restoration. His grandson was created Lord Archer of Umberslade in 1747; but this title expired in 1778 with Andrew, second lord, who left three daughters and coheiresses; 1. Sarah, first Countess of Plymouth and then Countess Amherst; 2. Elizabeth, married to Christopher Musgrave, a cadet of the house of Eden Hall; and 3. Maria, married to Henry Howard of Corby. All, except Maria, left children. Sir Bernard Burke claims a descent from this house, for an Irish family of the name, "settled at a very remote period, in Kilkenny," and now resident at Mount John, Wicklow. The Cornish Archers (one of whom represented Helston in parliament, temp. Henry VI.), bear totally different arms. Another family, the Sherburnes of Stonyhurst in Lancashire, claimed descent from "a grandson of Geoffrey L'Arbalestrier (or Galfridus Balistrarius) named Robert de Shyrburne, to whom, temp. Richard I., John Earl of Morton, gave six carucates of land in Haconsall and Preesall. Robert had the manor of Hameldon by gift of his grandfather, and survived to 45 Hen. II."—Bain's Lancashire. His grandson and namesake was Seneschal of Wiswall and Blackburnshire, having married the co-heiress of Wiswall; and his great-grandson attended Edward I. to the siege of Calais. Sir Nicholas Sherborne, who was created a baronet in 1685, was the last of the family. His son only lived to be nine years old, and his daughter, who was the wife of Thomas, eighth Duke of Norfolk, had no children[24] On her death in 1754, the estate reverted to the son of her aunt Elizabeth, Humphrey Weld of Lulworth Castle; and in 1794 Stonyhurst was leased to the Jesuit Fathers that had been expelled from Liege by the proscriptions of the French Revolution, and became a great Roman Catholic college. "The venerable house, which stands on an eminence, commanding extensive views of Calderbottom and Ribblesdale, yet screened from the north by the vast bulk of Longridge, was probably begun by Sir Richard Sherburne, who died 1594, and finished by his son, as the arms of both, with their cyphers and the date 1596, appear on the drawing-room chimney-piece. The domestic chapel was, according to the custom of our old mansions, above the gateway, till within memory, when a spacious and handsome oratory was fitted up, which, together with the size and general disposition of the apartments, rendered the whole easily convertible to the purpose to which it has been munificently devoted by the owner—a large Catholic seminary."—Whitaker. Stoke-Archer, in Gloucestershire, takes its name from a family that held it by serjeancy, and ended with Geoffrey le Archer in 1350. His daughter and eventual heiress, Joan, had two husbands; the second, who married her when she was "the elderly and wealthy widow of Sir Thomas de Berkeley," was Sir William Whittington of Pauntley, the father of the famous Dick Whittington, who became Lord Mayor of London. Anuay: either for Aunou or Alnet (De Alneto). The "Sire de Alnei" was one of the five knights who, at the battle of Hastings, "challenged Harold the King to come forth, and said to the English, 'Stay! stay! where is your King? he that perjured himself to William? He is a dead man, if we find him.'" This was, according to Wace's commentator, "Fulk d'Aunou, one of the numerous family of Baudry-le-Teuton, by a daughter of Richard de Bienfaite; and the place in question is probably Aunou-le-Faucon, arrondissement of Argentan. There was also in earlier times a Fulk de Aneio, or Aneto; who was of the Vernon family (the son of Osmond de Centumvillis, and one of Gunnor's sisters), and derived his name from Anet, a little south of Ivry. The two Fulks and their families seem to have been sometimes confounded." The confusion became all the greater because, though in France the two houses remained distinct as D'Aunou and D'Anet, in England the two names (as in the case of Cheney) were merged into one as Daunay. To add to the complication, a third family named Alno was settled in Somersetshire, derived from William d'Alno, who in 1086 held of Robert Gernon in Suffolk. He belonged to the house of Bricqueville, who possessed the castle of Aune or Alno in the Cotentin, and probably took its Latinized name for his own. Singularly enough, it is the only one of the three that is found in Domesday, though we are told that Fulk d'Aunon had furnished a contingent of forty vessels to William's fleet for the invasion of England. His posterity flourished in Normandy up to 1586; but there is little trace of it to be found in England. The other Fulk had a son named Paganus who founded a great English house. "In 1115 Berenger de Annay (son of Paganus) witnessed a charter of Stephen, Count of Albemarle (Mon. II. 999:) and Gonthier his brother had custody of Bayeux in 1106 (Ord. Vitalis.) William de Alneto, son or grandson of Berenger, held fiefs in Devon 1165 (Lib. Niger)."—The Norman People. Norton-Dauney and Slancomb Dauney still recall their name in that county, where they had very considerable possessions, but their seat was at Sheviock, or Shunock, in Cornwall. Leland speaks of it as "some time the ancient Daunye's inheritance, by whose daughter and heir the same (together with other fair possessions) descended to the Earls of Devon. In the church there lie two knights of this name, and one of their ladies by her husband's side, having their pictures embossed on their tombs on the side walls, and their arms once painted round about, but now by the malice, not of men, but of time, defaced. They are held to be father and son; and that the son was slain in our wars with France, and was thence brought home to be here interr'd. "There runneth also a tale amongst the parishioners, how one of the Daunye's ancestors undertook to build the church, and his wife the barn adjoining; and that, casting up their accounts upon finishing of their works, the barn was found to have cost three half-pence more than the church; and so it might well fall out, for it is a great barn and a little church." Nicholas Dawney, "a person of great note and considerable estate" in the Western counties, in 1327 "was one of those great men who had summons to be at Newcastle-on-Tyne with horse and arms, to march against Robert de Brus; but this summons does not purport to have been a call to parliament ad tractandum. After this period he is represented to have peregrinated to the Holy Land, where he greatly distinguished himself against the infidels, and on his return brought with him a very rich and curious medal, which for a long time was, if it is not at this day, in the possession of the family."—Banks. This token (a ring, not a medal), is said to be of much earlier date, and the gift of Coeur de Lion to one of the Dawneys that had distinguished himself in the Crusade. "It is a somewhat massive silver ring, containing a talismanic gem, denominated a toad-stone, which is still used as a charm in the East."—Gills Easingwold. On the same occasion they received a grant of their crest, a demi-Saracen in armour, with a ring in the dexter hand, and a lion's paw in the left. "Were we to rely on village authority, the lion's paw is nothing but a miller's-pick;" for, according to Yorkshire tradition, it records one of those "wonderful exploits which," says Camden, "are very proper entertainment for tattling gossips in a winter night." Once upon a time, Sessay Wood was the haunt of a cannibal giant, who fed upon babies and ravaged all the district round. No one was ever found bold enough to tackle him, till one fortunate morning Dawney espied him lying asleep in the precincts of the Old Mill, and seizing a miller's pick that lay at hand, drove it into his skull. "For this the King then reigning decreed that the giant-slayer should always keep hold of the Miller's Pick, by which token all men might know that to him and his heirs had been given the royalty of Sessay, to have, and to hold, thenceforward and forever."—Ibid. It is hardly necessary to point out that the Dawneys only acquired Sessay by marriage in the reign of Henry VII., when the age of giants and giant-slayers had long passed away. The tradition may refer to their predecessors the Darells. Sir Nicholas Dawney died about 1331, leaving several sons. John, the eldest, inherited his lands, and passed them to an only daughter Emmeline, who was the wife of Sir Edmund Courtenay, and the mother of Edward, third Earl of Devon. Her uncle Thomas was, it is believed, the ancestor of the Viscounts Downe. This Sir Thomas had married a Yorkshire heiress, and was seated at Estrick, in that county, in 1387. From him descended Sir Guy Dawnay of Cowick, who first obtained Sessay by his wife Joan, sister of the last Sir Thomas Darell, who died in 1505. Five of his descendants have served as High Sheriffs of Yorkshire; and in 1642, Sir Christopher Dawnay, a zealous loyalist, received a baronetcy from Charles I. He died without an heir; and was succeeded by his brother Sir John, created in 1680 Viscount Downe of Ireland, who sat in King James's Irish parliament of 1689. The fifth Viscount, in 1796, obtained an English peerage as Lord Dawnay of Cowick. Asperuile : Baudoin and Hugues de Espervill are mentioned in Duchesne's Feoda Normanniae as holding under the bailiwick of St. Audemer. In England, Oliver de Asprevile witnesses Richard Earl of Cornwall's charter to the monks of Lammana in Cornwall (a cell of Glastonbury Abbey). This was in the time of Henry III. He is mentioned in the Rotuli Hundredorum as holding land at Dodington in Northamptonshire. "In the thirtieth year of Henry III., a grant was made to Oliver de Asprevile of thirty-five acres and a half of land in Dodington and Morehay, to be held of the Crown by the payment of sixpence yearly at Michaelmas, for all services. He was succeeded in them at his death, in the forty-sixth year of the same reign, by John de Asprevile, his son."—Bridge's Northamptonshire. Margerie de Aspreville held "one yardland of our Lord the King in capite in Aylesbury in the county of Bucks, by the serjeanty of keeping all the distresses made for the King's debt by the summons of the Exchequer."—Pla. Cor. in Com. Bucks, 14 Ed. I. Abbeuile : This name has been commonly accepted as standing for Appeville, taken from one of the three communes that bear it in Normandy. Walter d'Appeville in 1086 held the manor of Folkestone under William de Arcis. "There was," says Mr. Planche, "more than one Norman family of note in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries" so named. On the other hand, we find "Wiestace de Abevile" mentioned in the Roman du Rou, and classed among the greatest Norman nobles at the battle of Hastings. "There is," says Wace's commentator, "a commune so named in the arrondissement of Lisieux, but M. Le Prevost thinks it more probable that Abbeville in Ponthieu is intended. Is it clear that Wace did not mean—however incorrect the geography—Eustace of Boulogne? It would be singular that he should not at all mention so important a person; yet he does not, unless he is intended here." Mr. Planche admits "the fact that both the Counts of Ponthieu and the Counts of Boulogne were occasionally called 'de Abbeville.'" No such name is entered in Domesday, where the Count's great possessions are recorded under the head of Eustachius Comes. "Eustacy," on Leland's Roll, may possibly stand for Eustace de Boulogne, though it is only in very exceptional cases that the Christian, rather than the surname, is given. I prefer to adopt Taylor's reading of "Wiestace de Abevile." It would be impossible to give an account of the battle of Hastings that did not include the name of this powerful French noble. His figure stands out in bold relief through all the vicissitudes of the fateful seven hours' struggle that decided the future destiny of England. It was he who rode by William's side in the thickest of the melee, and when the Duke's second horse was killed under him, re-mounted him upon his own. It was he who, with Walter Giffard and the Lords of Ponthieu and Montfort, cut down the wounded King, as, faithful to his post, he stood by his standard, "in grievous pain, defending himself to the last." One struck him on the front of the helmet; another stabbed him in the breast, piercing his shield; a third ran him through the body till his bowels gushed out; and the fourth aimed at his leg, "striking him on the thick of the thigh," as shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. His death sealed the doom of his army. The jealously-guarded Dragon Standard, at whose foot he and his two brothers had shed their life-blood, was captured and carried off; and the news, spreading over the battle-field in the fast-gathering twilight, sounded the death-knell of their last hope. The Saxons broke their ranks and took to flight, plunging into the trackless thickets and fens of the surrounding forest, and the Norman horsemen spurred after them in furious pursuit. But their headlong course was suddenly arrested by the treacherous gully of the Malfosse, and men and horses together rolled down its precipitous banks, to flounder helplessly in the swamp below. "At no time during the day's battle," says Wace, "did so many Normans die as perished in that fosse. So said they who saw the dead." The fugitives made a stand on the opposite side, hurling down stones and javelins at the Normans struggling in the fosse, and "rolling one over the other with their faces to the earth, unable to rise." So severe was the check, that "Count Eustace, deeming that a new English force had come to the rescue, turned with fifty knights and counselled William to sound a retreat. He whispered in the ear of the Duke that if he pressed on, it would be to certain death. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when a blow, dealt in the darkness, struck the Count between the shoulder blades, and he was borne off with blood flowing from his mouth and nostrils. But William pressed on."—Freeman. Count Eustace was the eldest son of Eustace "with the Eye," Count of Boulogne, by his wife Mahaut, daughter of Lambert the Bearded, Count of Louvain, and was a sovereign prince in his own county, owing no superior save his lord the King of France. His house had been founded by Angilbert, a Frank noble, who married Bertha, daughter of the Emperor Charlemagne, and before 790 was created Duke of the maritime territory, afterwards styled Ponthieu. (Art. de Verifier les Dates, xii., 318). In 1050 he had married Godgifu or Goda, the sister of Edward the Confessor; and the following year came over with a great train to visit his brother-in-law. As he was passing through Dover on his way home, one of his followers quarrelled with a townsman about his quarters, and killed him on the spot. The whole town flew to arms, and the Count and his retainers had to fight for their lives against desperate odds, only escaping at last with the loss of upwards of twenty men. The King took their part, and called upon the Earl of Kent to punish the men of Dover, but Godwin, jealous of the favour shown to the foreigners, refused to interfere unless both parties were brought to trial, demanding that Eustace and his men-at-arms should be delivered up to him. This dispute, prolonged and embittered by much exasperating altercation, lead to the banishment of Earl Godwin and his family. By a strange irony of fate, when the men of Kent rose against the stern rule of Bishop Odo in 1067, it was their ancient foeman Count Eustace that they summoned to their aid; and he brought over a French force that made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Dover Castle. For this he was, according to ancient form, arraigned for high treason before the King and his Witan; but contrived to make his peace, and continued high in William's favour till his death. His English wife, who had given him no children, died about 1054; and two years later, in passing through Lower Lorraine, on his return from escorting Pope Victor II. to Rome, he was entertained by Duke Godfrey at Bouillon, and fell in love with his daughter Ida. She became his second wife,[25] with the Castle of Bouillon for her dowry, and bore him three sons, Eustace, Godfrey, and Baldwin. Godfrey, who took his name from his mother's inheritance, and earned for it an imperishable renown, was the first Christian King of Jerusalem; but neither he nor his brother Baldwin, who succeeded to his throne, left an heir. The eldest son, Eustace III., Count of Boulogne, inherited his father's possessions about 1081 (in a charter quoted by Sir Henry Ellis, Countess Ida is spoken of as a widow in 1082), and held them at the date of Domesday; but two years after was implicated in the rebellion against William Rufus. His wife was a Scottish princess. Mary, the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and the sainted Margaret, and their only child, Maud, was married to King Stephen. Though the direct line ended with him, it is certain that the lineage continued in England. William of Poictiers mentions a nephew of Eustace II. who was taken prisoner at Dover in 1067, and is conjectured by Freeman to have been the son of his brother Lambert, described as Lord of Sens. Another brother, Gosfrid, was Bishop of Paris; and a charter of Pharamus de Boulogne (Mon. Ang. I. 583) speaks of a fourth, also Godfrid or Geoffrey, whose son William was the father of Pharamus. Eustace and Simon de Boulogne, brothers of Pharamus, are mentioned in the same deed, by which we learn that Pharamus held lands in England of the Honour of Boulogne, which then consisted of 112 knight's fees. In the Liber Niger we find Herebert de Buliun holding half a knight's fee of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk; and William de Bolein holding one fee in York and one in Lincoln. The learned authors of the Recherches sur le Domesday, while admitting that a younger branch of the house of the Counts of Boulogne existed in England, where the name became Bouleyn or Boleyn, suggest that it may possibly have been an illegitimate one. It seems more than likely that Anne Boleyn may be traced back to this stock. "Queen Anne Boleyn was the great granddaughter of Sir Geffrey Boleyn, Lord Mayor of London, temp. Henry VI., who accumulated a large fortune. The family had formerly been of great consequence. Sir Thomas Boleyn, of Blickling, in Norfolk, grandfather to Sir Geffrey, lived circa 1400, and was lineally descended from John de Bologne of Sail, living 1283, whose father Simon purchased lands in Norfolk by fine in 1252. The father of the latter married the sister and heir of Robert Malet (Blomfield), and possessed estates at Walpole, etc."—The Norman People. One of this house married, about the end of the thirteenth century, the heiress of the great house of Hardres or Ardres. Her ancestor, Ernulph de Ardres, was one of the knights banneret of Eustace de Boulogne, and probably his kinsman, holding large estates under him in 1086, both in Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. The sudden rise of the Boleyns, consequent upon Anne's advancement, preceded their collapse and disgrace. Her reign was a very short one. On the last day of May, 1533, she had been brought from the Tower in solemn procession, escorted by all the dignitaries of the realm in their robes of state to be crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey. The streets through which she passed were "radiant with masses of colour," every house draped in scarlet and crimson, or hung with arras, velvet, tissue, or cloth of gold. "Every fountain and conduit within the walls ran all day with wine, the bells of every steeple were ringing, children lay in wait with songs, and ladies with posies."—Froude. She came, "borne along upon the waves of this sea of glory, the observed of all observers, in a white chariot, drawn by two palfreys in white damask housings that swept the ground, a golden canopy held above her, making music with its silver bells." She was "dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose upon her shoulders, her temples circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds," and thus, supreme in loveliness as in all else, she had passed on "in a blazing trail of splendour" to the goal of her ambition. She had won all she sought for in this world. But remark the reverse of this flattering picture. In less than three years from that time, at the beginning of another month of May, 1536, she was led back to the Tower to die; and as if to complete the bitter misery of the change, she was taken "to her own lodgings in which she lay at her coronation."[26]—Ibid. Within two days of her own execution the head of her only brother, Lord Rochford, had fallen upon the block; and the ambitious old father, who had striven and plotted to place his daughter on the throne, lived to lament the utter downfall and extinction of his house. One daughter only remained; Mary, married to William Carey, whose son was created Lord Hunsdon in 1559, and one infant grandchild, destined to a long and glorious reign as Queen Elizabeth. He had been created Viscount Rochford in 1525, and Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde in 1529, but both titles expired at his death in 1538. Andeuile : or Ansleville. This, according to the Recherches sur le Domesday, was a noble and puissant Norman family, that either gave its name, or received it, from a parish in the Val-de-Saire, that has been at different times called Ansleville, Ansneville, Asneville, Aundevyle (in England), and is now Anneville. It is, or was, still represented by M. Paul d'Anneville at Valogues. The first mentioned of this house, Samson d'Asneville, was sent (before 1050) by Duke William to free the people of Guernsey from some Biscayan pirates, of whom they had made complaint. Samson destroyed the pirates' forts, and drove them from the island, and for this service received a grant of the fourth part of Guernsey, to be held by the service of squire of the body to the Duke and his successors. At the time of the Conquest another Sire d'Asneville (probably his brother) was governor of Val-de-Saire. William and Humphrey d'Asneville are both subtenants in Domesday; William held under Earl Roger in Hampshire; Humphrey of Eudo Dapifer at Hertford. They are supposed to have been both the sons of Samson; and in that case the extreme parsimony of the King towards them is difficult to explain, unless, indeed, we accept the conjecture that their father came to England with them, and was the Equarius quidam regis (Bedfordshire, f. 218) or the "Samson" (Staffordshire, f. 247b), inscribed as holding directly of the King. The Annevilles may be traced in Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Somersetshire, &c, to the end of the reign of Henry II. At that time Alured d'Anneville was assassinated in the latter county. In the reign of King John, we find Jordan d'Anneville, whose wife, Beatrice de Lacy, granted ten acres of land at Elmedon to the Knights Templars. A branch remained in Guernsey, pronounced to be one of the oldest families in the island by some commissioners that Queen Elizabeth had appointed to enquire into the nature of the feudal tenures there.—Recherches sur le Domesday. In the parish of Waltham, Kent, "is the hamlet and green of Hanville, so called after the family of Handville or Handfield, whose habitation was close to it. Several of them lie buried in this church; they afterwards removed to Ullcombe, Ashford, and Canterbury; at the former place, a descendant of them still remains" (in 1800). "They bore for their arms Argent, a lion rampant within an orb of nine crosses formee Sable. There is a pedigree of them in Vistn. co. Kent, anno 1619."—Hasted. The arms of the French D'Annevilles were entirely different. D'Anneville, Sieur de Chifrevast, Tamerville, and Le Vast, had D'hermine a la fasce de gueules; and the Sieur de Merville D'hermine au sautoir de gueules. Amoudreuile : (so spelt in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of 1198): for Amondeville, derived from Amondeville, near Caen. In Lincolnshire, for some unaccountable reason, the head of the family always bore the mysterious alias of Humfines. The first who came to England, Roger de Amondeville, "called also Humfines," was Seneschal to Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln (one of the compilers of Domesday), and by him endowed with four Lincolnshire manors, Kingerby, the principal seat of his successors, Auresby, Ellesham, and Croxton. He married a daughter of Sir Gerard Salvin, of Thorpe-Salvin in Yorkshire, and left, besides Jolland, his heir, John, and Robert. Jolland's wife, Beatrix Paynell, brought him six sons; 1. Walter, with whom at some time before 1166, she founded a Priory at Ellesham; 2. William; 3. Ralph; 4. Adam; 5. Elias: and 6. Jordan. William and Adam both received grants, the former of the manor of Soredington, the latter of Scodelthorpe, from Gilbert de Gant, Earl of Lincoln; while Ralph obtained from the Earl of Albemarle the Yorkshire manor of Carlton. The Amondevilles had already an estate in that county; for Whitaker tells us that they "were probably the first grantees of Preston-in-Craven under Robert de Poitou." All the four elder brothers died s. p., leaving the inheritance to Elias, who, as Helias de Mundeville, witnesses a deed of William le Gros about 1154, and also appears as a benefactor of Salley Abbey. His son Jolland married a niece of his suzerain the Earl of Albemarle, and was the father of the last heir, Peter, who left two daughters and co-heiresses. Ermentrude, the eldest, married William Dive, who had with her Kingerby, &c.; and Amabel married John Hawton, and brought him Soredington. But it is quite evident that the name had not died out, either in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire; though the objectionable form of Humfines occurs no more; for Walter de Amundeville was for seven years Viscount of Lincoln in the early part of Henry III.'s reign; and Whitaker speaks of a Nigel de Amundeville who succeeded Elias in Craven, and was most likely his younger son. "Ralph de Amundeville, before 1340, was one of the principal benefactors of Swine Priory, on condition the convent would receive his daughter as a nun."—Poulson's Holderness. In the county Durham, John de Amundeville, who may have been Roger's son, was seated at Coatham-Amundeville, now a village on the banks of the river Skerne, towards the latter end of the eleventh century. He was its earliest recorded lord, and among the first Norman settlers in the North of England. His name appears on several deeds in the time of Bishop William de Carilepho (1080-99): and Robert, probably his son, witnesses a charter of Bishop Galfrid Rufus (1133-40). Hugh de Hamonda-Villa was one of guardians of the Bishopric during the vacancy of the See on the death of that prelate. Thomas de Amundeville, about 1189-1209, witnesses a charter of Matthew de Lumley to Finchale Priory, and founded a chauntry at Coatham-Amundeville for the soul's rest of his parents, Richard and Clarice. His son John, who succeeded, sold the property; and we next meet with the family in Weardale. "Robert de Amondeville demorant a Wotton in Werdale," stands fifth on the list of the "Chivallers demorantes en le Franchise de Duresme demy Tyne et Teys, q. furent a Baner a la Bataille de Lewes" in 1264.—Hutchinson's Durham. There is now no such place as Wotton in the county; but it was the ancient name of Witton-le-Wear, which about eighty years afterwards became the stronghold of the Lords Eure. How it passed into their possession does not appear; nor can I find any further mention of the Amundevilles in the North. Another branch existed in Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. Henry de Newburgh, the first Norman Earl of Warwick, enfeoffed Ralph de Amundeville at Lighthorne and Berkeswell, where he was seated in the time of Henry I. In 1122 he witnessed his suzerain's foundation charter of the collegiate church of Warwick. Nigel his son confirmed to the canons of St. Sepulchre, t. Henry II., some land he had bequeathed to them, and likewise "had his seat at Berkeswell, as I guess; for it appears that he had then a Park at this place, and that Oliva his wife had the whole Lordship in dower."—Dugdale. His son and successor, Richard, "had many publique and eminent employments in this Countie;" and the next heir, a second Richard, was of no less account. In 1256 he attended the Earl of Cornwall to Germany; and in 1262, was in the Welsh expedition under Prince Edward. "Whether he did cordially adhere to the rebellious Barons shortly after, I will not take upon me to say; though plain it is that he was in Kenilworth Castle when the Royal army besieged it, and being reputed one of the Baron's partie, had safe conduct with Henry de Hastings and others, to march out upon the render thereof: yet so far he had favour by the Jurie, upon the seizure of his lands, as that they said upon their oaths, that he was there with young Simon de Montfort per districtionem et contra voluntatem suam: so that I do not find that he compounded for his estate. But I suppose that this Richard had no issue; for in 6 Ed. I. he past unto William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, the inheritance of Berkeswell and Lighthorne, reserving only an estate for life to himself and Maud his wife, and the longer liver of them."—Ibid. His will bears date 27 Ed. I. Way-Amundeville retains his name in Dorset, where his father had received from Ralph Basset the manor of Up-Melcumbe. Thorp-Mundeville was their seat in Northamptonshire, where the last Sir Richard had a grant of free warren in 1253. Hutchins, in his History of Dorset, speaks of younger branches seated at Oakenhill, Stornefield, and Cransford in Suffolk. Lord Byron, in one of his ballads, introduces an Amundeville as the Lord of his haunted Abbey, over which the vengeful Black Friar held ghostly sway; "And whether for good, or whether for ill, It is not mine to say; But still with the house of Amundeville He abideth night and day; By the marriage bed of their lords 'tis said, He flits on the bridal eve, And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death He comes—but not to grieve." The Lincolnshire Amundevilles certainly had property in Nottinghamshire, where they owned Winthorpe; but Newstead as certainly never belonged to them, and Byron simply adopted an harmonious and "mouth-filling" name that he had met with on his own pedigree. His ancestor, "Little Sir John with the great Beard," to whom the Abbey was first granted, was the son of Jane Bussy of Hougham in Lincolnshire, descended from one of the heiresses of Amundeville. Arcy : from Arci or Areci, Normandy. Norman de Areci held thirty-three lordships in the county of Lincoln by the immediate gift of the Conqueror, (Domesday) and chose Nocton, one of them, as the head of his barony. His posterity retained it as their seat for "divers after ages," and his son Robert founded an Augustine priory there. In the fifth year of King John, Thomas D'Arcy "was retained to serve the king with three knights for one whole year, in consideration of which King John remitted to him a debt of 225 marks, which he then owed the Jews:" and his grandson Philip, though he had married the co-heiress of Roger Bertram of Mitford, was so deeply in debt that in 1255 he was obliged to obtain "certain letters hortatory" to all his tenants by military Service, promising them the especial thanks of the Crown if they would "yield Unto him such reasonable aid" as might extricate him from his pecuniary difficulties. There were several successive confiscations of the estates for different rebellions, but in every case they were restored after the lapse of a very few years. Norman D'Arcy, who fought with the defeated barons at Evesham, and obtained pardon and restitution by the memorable Dictum de Kenilworth, was the father of two sons who were both summoned to parliament as barons; Philip, the firstborn, in 1299, and John, the second, in 1322. Philip's line failed with his grandson, the third lord, and his barony fell into abeyance between his two daughters; but the younger brother, John Lord D'Arcy, was the founder of all the existing families that bear his name. He was a man of considerable ability, actively engaged in the service of the three Edwards, who entrusted him with some of the highest offices of the State, and prominent in their French and Scottish wars. He was sheriff of the counties of Nottingham, Derby, Lancaster, and York: for some time governor of Norham Castle: then of York Castle: accredited Ambassador to France and Spain by Edward III.: Constable of the Tower: and governed Ireland as Lord Justice for the greater part of his life. His second wife, Joan de Burgh, was an Irishwoman, and his son by her was the ancestor of the various branches of the D'Arcys still settled in the counties of Meath, Westmeath, and Galway.[27] By his first marriage to a Northumbrian heiress, Emmeline de Heron, he had three other sons, from the second of whom the Darcys of Essex, Barons Darcy of Chiche, are supposed to have derived. The elder, who maintained his father's fame at the battle of Cressy, succeeded him as second Lord D'Arcy, and was followed by four other barons, till this second title again fell into abeyance on the death of Philip, sixth Lord, in 1418. Though he died a minor, he left two daughters behind him, and it was by right of descent from the younger, Marjory, the wife of Sir John Conyers, of Hornby, that the seventh Duke of Leeds took the name of D'Arcy. This last Lord D'Arcy had, however, a younger brother named John, who, though he did not inherit his barony, of course took his place as the male representative of the house, and was seated in Yorkshire. His great grandson, Sir Thomas D'Arcy, was distinguished both as a soldier and as a politician. He first won his spurs in the French wars against Louis XII.: and during the reign of Henry VII. had at different times the custody of nearly all the strong places in the North of England, and was entrusted with the defence of the Border as Warden of the East and North Marches towards Scotland, and Captain of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Henry VIII., on his accession, summoned him to parliament as Baron D'Arcy of D'Arcy, made him a member of his Privy Council, a Knight of the Garter; and twice sent him with a contingent of English archers, to fight the Moors in aid of Ferdinand of Arragon. But as years went on, and Lord D'Arcy had grown to be an old man, he found his master entering upon courses in which, as a dutiful son of the Church, he found it more and more difficult to follow him. He consented, indeed, to be among the lords who exhibited the articles against Cardinal Wolsey, and signed the famous letter to Clement VII.; but five years later he obtained a license to absent himself from parliament "in regard of his age and debility of body," and thus avoided voting on the impending question of the dissolution of the monasteries. When the measure had passed, and the lesser houses were destroyed, the whole North was aflame for the old religion, and there was "one loud storm of bells and blaze of beacons from the Trent to the Cheviot Hills." The Yorkshiremen trooped in thousands to join the rising under Robert Aske, bearing as their badge the Five Wounds of Our Lord, and for colours, the crosses of the churches carried by the priests. The King at once wrote to D'Arcy who, "from his credit with the crown, his rank and his position, was at this moment the feudal sovereign of the East Riding."—Froude. But he faltered in his allegiance, for his heart was with the cause of the insurgents. Though he would not at first join the movement, yet he did not take the field nor order any muster of men to oppose it; and he ended by shutting himself up in Pomfret Castle, with about a dozen of his servants, but neither stores nor provisions. It was evident that he had no intention of holding the place; and when Aske appeared before the gates, and threatened to take it by storm, Lord D'Arcy, after a brief parley, surrendered on the following day, and was sworn to the common oath: "To enter into the Pilgrimage of Grace, for the love of God, the preservation of the King's Person, and Issue; the purifying of the nobility, expulsing all villain-blood, and evil-counsellors; for no particular profit to themselves, nor to do displeasure to any, nor to slay nor murther any for envy; but to put away all fears, and to take afore them the Cross of Christ, His Faith, the restitution of the Church, and the suppression of Hereticks, and their Opinions." For this he was arraigned for high treason, and executed on Tower Hill in June 1537. He must then have been nearly eighty years of age, but his spirit and energy remained unbroken. While he was under examination of the Privy Council, and pressed with questions, "he turned, with the prophetic insight of dying men, to the Lord Privy Seal:—'Cromwell,' he said, 'it is thou that art the very special and chief causer of all this rebellion and mischief, and dost daily earnestly travel to bring us to our ends, and to strike off our heads. I trust that ere thou die, though thou wouldest procure all the noblemen's heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet shall there one head remain that shall strike off thy head.'"—Fronde. His son George was restored in blood, with the dignity of Baron D'Arcy of Aston, soon after the accession of Edward VI.; but this fresh title was borne only by his son and great-grandson. The latter, though four times married, had only one son who died young: and again a junior branch (derived from the second son of the attainted Lord D'Arcy) became the head of the family. One of these D'Arcys, named Thomas, who died in 1605, was the husband of Elizabeth Conyers, the heiress of Hornby; and their son, Sir Conyers D'Arcy, set forth in a petition to Charles I., dated 1640, "that being the principal male branch then remaining of this ancient and noble family, and likewise son and heir of Elizabeth, da. and coheir of John Lord Conyers, lineal heir to Margery da. and coheir to Philip Lord D'Arcy, one of the barons of this realm in the time of King Henry IV., he prayed that His Majesty should be pleased to declare, restore, and confirm the dignity of Lord D'Arcy to him and his heirs male." The King granted him accordingly a patent of peerage in 1641. His son was further advanced to an earldom in 1682, and took the title of Earl of Holderness. There were four earls of this creation; of whom the last died in 1778, leaving his daughter Lady Amelia D'Arcy his sole heir. She thus became, in her own right, Baroness Conyers (the only one of his titles that, passing through females, did not become extinct), and married first Francis Godolphin Marquess of Carmarthen, afterwards the fifth Duke of Leeds, by whom she had a son, George, sixth duke, who inherited her barony. (See Conyers.) She was divorced from Lord Carmarthen in 1779, and had for her second husband John Byron, the father of the poet. The descent of the Darcys of Chiche in Essex has never been clearly traced, for we hear nothing of them till the time of the wars of York and Lancaster, when Robert Darcy, a lawyer's clerk, achieved his fortune by marrying a rich widow. His grandson was esquire of the body to Henry VI. and Edward IV.:—impartially serving both the Red and White Rose; his great grandson filled the same office to Henry VII., and in the next generation we find Sir Thomas Darcy vice-chamberlain of the household, Captain of the Guard, one of the principal knights of the Privy Chamber, and at last Baron Darcy of Chiche by letters patent in 1551. Edward VI. also gave him the Garter. His grandson, Thomas was created Viscount Colchester in 1621, and Earl of Rivers five years later, with remainder in both cases to Sir Thomas Savage of Rocksavage, who had married his eldest daughter Elizabeth. There were three other daughters, and there had been a son, but he died without issue during his father's lifetime. Lord Rivers himself survived till 1639. A younger line of these Essex Darcys, seated at Tolleshunt and Tiptree, in that county, obtained a baronetcy in 1660, and considerably outlasted the elder one, for it only became extinct with the fourth baronet, Sir George Darcy, who died a minor, leaving three sisters to divide the property. Akeny : De Acquigny, from Acquigny, near Louviers, Normandy. "Le Seigneur d'Acquigny appears in Tailleur's Chronicles of Normandy." Herveius de Acquigny occurs 1058 (Morice, Histoire Bret. Preuves, i. 439). Roger de Akeny, thirteenth century, held fiefs from the Honour of Peveril of London (Testa de Nevill). This family was numerous, and of great importance in England, as the records show."—The Norman People. In the time of Henry III. Ralph de Akeny gave some lands in Norfolk to the "P' or de Petra": and about 1272 Roger Dakeney held a fourth part of Northwold, in the same county, of Earl Warren; and Domina Johanna de Dakeneye was of Suffolk. Baldwin de Akeny, Lord of Holkham, and his son Thomas, also appear in Kent, where Dom. John de Akeny was a land, owner in Wittlesford Hundred.—Rot. Hundredorum. "Several generations of Dakeny, from Edward I. to 1390, were lords of a sixth part of the barony of Cainho, in Bedfordshire."—Glover's Derby. Robert Dakeny, one of the Lords of Clophill and Kannho, also held Lathbury and Little Filgrave in Buckinghamshire. He was knight of the shire for Bedford in 1316; and one of the Commissioners for raising foot-soldiers. Roger Dakeny, of Bucks, is also mentioned.—Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs. Chancy records a family of Dakins, that lasted for some generations, in Hertfordshire, that is believed to have been the same. The name is said to survive under various disguises, more or less uncouth, such as Dakins, Dakeyne, Ducking, Dawkin, Dakyn, Deakinne, &c. "A family of Dakeyne was settled at Biggin Grange, in Derbyshire; and one of its members married Katherine, daughter of Patric Schange or Strange of Edinburgh, a favourite Maid of Honour to Mary Queen of Scots, and reputed to have attended her to the scaffold. This may be queried, since she was married before that event, in fact her son John was born in the same year. Her luckless mistress left her four hundred francs by her draft will made at Sheffield, but as this sum does not appear in her last testament it was probably given to Katherine on her marriage. The descendants of her eldest son John are the families of Deakin, or Dakeyne, late of Bagthorp Hall, co. Notts. The motto "Strike, Dakyns, the Devil's in the Hempe," was granted to General Arthur Dakyns of Linton (East Riding) in 1563, and if generals then commanded on the water as well as on the land, it may allude to some most gallant hacking at the enemy's hempen cords. It certainly is a maritime motto, for the crest Presents an arm brandishing a battle-axe out of a naval crown."—Longstaffe's Darlington. It is a pity that the heralds who gave the motto failed to explain its meaning, or, at all events, that the explanation is lost. It is difficult for the most ardent imagination to conceive a cable possessed by the devil, though perhaps a rope's end vigorously administered might suggest the idea to the sufferer. There is an allusion to the Dakeynes of Ashover and Darley Dale in Derbyshire, "people of much note," in a curious "Elegy upon the Death of all the greatest Gentry in Darley-Dalle, who loved Hunting and Hawking, and several other games." "None of my ancient friends I could espy; In Asher parish I could find not one, Old Crich, and Dakin, and ould Hobskinson, They are departed and gone hence away." "In 1547 the Earl Marshal issued a warrant for the apprehension of one William Dakyns, a notable dealer in arms and maker of pedigrees' for which fault about twenty years past he lost one of his ears.'"—Sir Bernard Burke. He had compiled spurious pedigrees for nearly one hundred families in Essex, Hertford, and Cambridge. Albeny : from Aubigny, near Periers, in the Cotentin; now divided into the two parishes of St. Martin and St. Christophe d'Aubigny. Nigel de Aubigny or de Albini—destined to be the founder of one of the most illustrious houses in England—is the only one of this name entered in Domesday. He held a great barony in the counties of Buckingham, Leicester, Bedford, and Warwick; and belonged to a family that had been attached to the household of the Conqueror's father, Duke Robert. He was the grandson of William d'Aubigny, who had married a sister of the traitor Grimault du Plessis; and the son of Roger Pincerna, by his wife, Amicia de Moubrai. Nigel was the youngest of their children; and early involved in the rebellion of the Norman barons against their Duke, through his brother William, who was actively engaged in it. Both were forced to take refuge in Brittany, and William never obtained his pardon; but Nigel's brilliant valour in the Angevin war regained him the Duke's favour, and he rose high in his good graces. Wace speaks of him as "Boteiller d'Aubigny," but in reality this title never belonged to him. He was Bow-bearer to William Rufus, and unshaken in his allegiance to him and his successor. It was Henry I. who first "girt him with the sword of knighthood; and he spared not to adventure his life in his quarrel in the most perilous encounters." No better or braver soldier was to be found in the kingdom: none more renowned for his feats of arms. At the battle of Tinchebrai he encountered Robert Curthose, hand to hand, slew his horse, and brought him prisoner to the King. For this service he received the forfeited estates of Robert Front-de-Boeuf: and it is computed that he then held one hundred and twenty manors in England, and as many more in Normandy,[28] including the great domain—once Earl Mowbray's—that had come to him with his wife. Her hand, according to Dugdale, was the guerdon he received for taking by assault a castle that Henry was then besieging in Normandy, and which he was the first to enter, and deliver into the King's hand. Sir Francis Palgrave thus gives the history of this strange marriage. "Robert de Mowbray, having rebelled against William Rufus, was let down into the pit of Windsor Castle, in which his robust constitution increased his punishment, by giving him strength to linger during thirty-four wretched years. Matilda de Aquila did not sorrow very long for her husband. According to a principle of jurisprudence still prevailing in France, and adopted from the Roman law, perpetual imprisonment is equivalent to civil death: the Pope therefore declared the marriage dissolved. Another husband soon appeared, Nigel de Albini, the King's Bow-bearer, who, obtaining Earl Mowbray's wife and Earl Mowbray's lands, transmitted Earl Mowbray's name to his posterity. Nigel lived with Matilda as long as she could promote his interest: but when her brother, Gilbert de Aquila, died, even as she had divorced her first husband, so did the second divorce her. As she had done, so was she done by. Nigel kept the lands, but repudiated the lady. Matilda died in disgrace and poverty; and Nigel, by Henry Beauclerk's special intervention, married the great heiress, Gundreda the Fair, daughter of Gerard de Gournay; and his son Roger, assuming the name of Mowbray, though without a drop of Mowbray blood in his veins, became the founder of the new Mowbray family." Sir Francis altogether ignores the fact that Nigel's mother was Amicia de Moubrai (v. Recherches sur le Domesday), and that he must have obtained his divorce on the ground of consanguinity. No doubt one reason for discarding the childless Matilda, was his desire to have an heir, and this was fulfilled by Gundreda the Fair, who was the mother of two sons: 1. Roger, and 2. Henry. By the King's express command, Roger took the name of Mowbray, and was the founder of that princely house (see Mowbray). Henry had the barony of Cainho, and his descendants, who bore the name of De Albini Cainho, continued till 1223, when Robert de Albini died, leaving no heirs but his sisters. One of them conveyed Cainho to the St. Amands. Nigel de Albini reached a very great age, and died in 1138, having lived under four different Kings of England. In his last days he became a monk of Bec, the Abbey where his ancestors had been buried, and he himself was laid to rest. His elder brother William had, as I have already said, never found favour in the Conqueror's eyes, nor been pardoned for his early rebellion. During his reign, De Albini never durst venture into his dominions; and it is even doubtful whether he came to England as early as the time of Rufus. But he assuredly stood high in the good graces of Henry Beauclerk, who granted him forty-two knight's fees in Norfolk; and among them the barony of Buckenham, "to hold in grand serjeantry by the butlery," whence he obtained his father's title of Pincerna, and is styled Pincerna Henrici Regis Anglorum. This feudal dignity has descended to his representatives, the Dukes of Norfolk, who officiate as Butlers of England at every coronation, receiving for their service a cup of pure gold. He was the founder of Wymondham Abbey; and at the funeral of his wife, Maud Bigot, "with great lamentations gave to the monks," with other rich gifts, "part of the wood of the Cross whereon our Lord was Crucified: part of the Manger whereon He was laid at His birth; and part of the Sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin;" his three sons, William, Nigel, and Oliver, witnessing his donation. He himself was buried in front of the high altar, where the monks continued, for many generations, to pray for the soul of "William the King's Butler." The eldest son, William of the Strong Hand, seemed, like the happy prince in a fairy tale, destined from his cradle to wear Fortune's favours, and revel in every good gift she has to bestow. Success waited on his steps, as a bondwoman; and no feat seemed beyond the reach of his romantic valour. Two Queens were in love with him; and the one he married brought him a principality in one of the fairest parts of England; with the famous castle that, alone in the kingdom, is privileged to confer an Earldom on its possessor. I will leave Dugdale to narrate the picturesque legend associated with his name. "It hapned that the Queen of France, being then a Widow, and a very beautiful woman, became much in love with a Knight of that Countray, who was a comely person, and in the flower of his youth: and because she thought that no man excelled him in valor, she caused a Tournament to be proclaimed throughout her Dominions; promising to reward those who should exercise themselves therein, according to their respective demerits: and concluding that if the person whom she so well affected, should act his part better than others in those Military Exercises, she might marry him without any dishonour to herself. "Hereupon divers gallant men, from forrain parts hasting to Paris; amongst others, came this our William de Albini bravely accoutred: and in the Tournament excelled all others; overcoming many, and wounding one mortally with his Lance: which, being observed by the Queen, shee became exceedingly enamoured of him, and forthwith invited him to a costly Banquet, and afterwards bestowing certain Jewels upon him, offered him Marriage. But having plighted his troth to the Queen of England, then a Widow, refused her. Whereat she grew so much discontented, that she consulted with her Maids, how she might take away his life: and in pursuance of that designe, inticed him into a Garden where there was a secret Cave, and in it a fierce Lion, unto which she descended by divers steps, under colour of shewing him the Beast. And when she told him of his fierceness, he answered that it was a womanish and not manly quality to be affraid thereof. But having him there, by the advantage of a folding dore, thrust him into the Lion. Being therefore in this danger, he rolled his Mantle about his Arm; and putting his hand into the mouth of the beast, pulled out his Tongue by the root; which done he followed the Queen to her Palace, and gave it to one of her Maids to present to her. "Returning thereupon to England, with the fame of this glorious exploit, he was forthwith advanced to the Earldome of Arundel, and for his arms the Lion given him." It would, however, appear that the great honour of Arundel—comprising ninety-seven knight's fees—was the dowry of Adeliza de Louvain, the widow of Henry I.; and that he acquired it only when, "not long after that, the Queen of England accepted him for her husband." He became Earl of Arundel by tenure—the only Earldom so held in England; and was also styled Earl of Chichester; "yet it was," says Dugdale, "of the county of Sussex that he was really Earl, by the Tertium Denarium of the pleas of Sussex, granted to him: which was the usual way of investing such great men (in ancient times) with the possession of an Earldom." Nor was the lion granted to him alone, for Nigel de Albini transmitted it to his descendants, the Mowbrays: the elder brother bearing a golden, and the younger a silver lion. The arms of their kinsmen in the Cotentin were totally different; for a seal of Bertrand d'Aubigny (who lived about the end of the twelfth century) shows the homelier bearing of three pots, two and one. The new Earl was "a stout and expert soldier," and having been one of those who solicited the Empress Maud to come to England, he received her on her landing at his port of Arundel, and nearly lost his life in her quarrel, "being unhorsed in the midst of the water," during a sharp skirmish, and almost drowned. His timely interference, however, it was that checked further bloodshed in 1172, when, at the siege of Wallingford Castle, he declared, "If it be considered that there are in each army, not only kinsmen and nephews; but brothers against one another: If we joyn battle, it cannot be avoided, but many will be guilty of little less than parricide: Let therefore this pernicious fury of a Civil Warr he set aside; and fit persons chosen to compose all differences." This led to a truce and eventual agreement. He was afterwards constantly employed by Henry II. He died in 1176, leaving by his wife, Queen Adeliza, four sons and three daughters; but the line failed with his two great grandsons. Both died without posterity; Hugh, the fifth and last Earl, "in the prime of his youth" in 1243; and his four sisters divided his great inheritance. Mabel de Tateshall, the eldest, had Buckenham Castle; Isabel FitzAlan, the second, the castle and honour of Arundel (thus conveying the Earldom to her descendants[29]), Nichola de Someri, the third, had Barwe in Leicestershire; and Cecily de Montalt, the fourth, the Castle of Rising in Norfolk. The widow of the young Earl Hugh was also richly dowered. She was the daughter of Earl Warrenne: a lady of haughty spirit and ready tongue, who "not speeding in a suit" she had made to the King, plainly told him, "That he was by God Almighty constituted to govern: but that he did neither govern himself nor his subjects as he ought to do." The King was at first amused, and asked, "What is that you say? Have the Peers framed a Charter, and made you their Advocate to speak for them, by reason of your Eloquence?" But when she burst forth—"What are become of those Liberties of England, so often solemnly recorded, so often confirmed, nay so often purchased? I, though a Woman, and all the free-born people, do appeal to the Tribunal of God against you! and Heaven and earth shall bear witness how injuriously you have dealt with us!" and rated him soundly, "the King," says Dugdale, was "much astonished, knowing his own guilt." It was obviously the last favour she ever asked of Henry III. Aybeuare. Here, I believe, r should be l, giving us Aybevale or Aubevel (Brompton) from Auberville, near Caen. Four of this name are found in Domesday, disguised under the various spellings of Otburvilla, Oburvilla, Odburvile, Otburgvile, and Odburcuilla. Roger de Auberville held a barony in Essex and Suffolk: William de Auberville, Lord of Berlai, one in Herts: Robert de Auberville another in Somerset, where he held the office of Chief Forester; and Seri or Seric de Auberville was a mesne-lord in Cambridgeshire. Dugdale ignores all but the two first-named Barons, who are said (though not by him) to have been brothers; and gives his attention to Roger's descendants only. Of these there were in all five generations. His son and successor Hugh—the "Hugh de Albertivilla" of Kent, entered in the Pipe Roll of 1130, was the father of Sir William de Auberville, whom he left a minor at his death in 1139, and for whose wardships Turgis de Abrincis paid "one hundred marks of silver, one mark in gold, and a Courser." Sir William was seated at Westenhanger in East Kent, where he founded the Premonstratensian Priory of East Langdon in 1192; and he was likewise a benefactor of Christ Church. His wife Maud was the eldest of the three daughters among whom the great Justiciary, Ralph de Glanville, divided his estate before departing with Coeur de Lion for the Holy Land; and she had for her share the manor and advowson of Balham. The next heir, Hugh, died in 1212, again leaving a son under age, whose guardianship was a far more costly prize than his grandfather's had been; for it was first purchased by William de Ainesford for one thousand two hundred marks; and the following year transferred to William Briwer for one thousand more. With this last William de Auberville the line expired. He left as his heiress his daughter Joan, married first (in 1247) to Sir Henry de Sandwich of Dent-de-Lion in the Isle of Thanet; and secondly, to Nicholas de Criol, Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Sheriff of Kent. There is no mention of any children by her first husband; but by the second she had a son who bore his father's name. Banks gives the coat of the Aubervilles as Argent, three bars, in chief an Escutcheon Gules; but it was certainly not that of the Sir William who founded Langdon; for, "as appears by his seal appendant to a deed in the Surrenden library, he bore Parted per dancettee, two annulets in chief, and one in base."—Hasted's Kent. It is obvious that the other Aubervilles must have left some descendants, for "Radulfo de Ouvervilla" witnesses a deed of Ralph Gernon, Earl of Chester (1121-53); and Richard de Haubervyle occurs about 1272 (Rot Hundred). But I have met with no account of them. "William de Obervill, Lord of Pittencrieff, granted in 1291 to the Abbot and convent of Dunfermline a charter enabling them to work some coal pits and quarries on his estate. This is one of the earliest notices of coal in Scotland."—Chalmers' Dunfermline. John de Obervill—perhaps William's father—is mentioned in 1231.—Ibid. Amay : Amatus, or Ame. This name is found 1180-90 in the Magn. Rotul. Scaccarii Normanniae. In the thirteenth century Richard Amy held from Henry de la Pomeray in Cornwall (Testa di Nevill). His descendants were to be found there till the middle of last century. Mr. Amy, Sheriff of the county in 1714, inherited Botreaux Castle from his uncle Sir John Cotton, and was the father of Cotton Amy, the last heir male, who left only two daughters.—Gilbert's Cornwall. One of them was insane; the other, Grace, married Jonathan Phillipps, of Camelford, a Captain in the Cornish Militia, and had several children, who all died early. Simon and John Ame occur in Essex in the time of Edward I. (Rotul. Hundred.) Aspermound : from the Castle and county of Aspramont. "The Spearmans of Preston, in the parish of Tynemouth, claim to be a branch from those of Dunnington, near Newport, in Shropshire, who themselves assert their descent—not from the Peers of Charlemagne, who 'jousted in Aspramont or Montalban'—but from the ancient Lords or Counts of Aspramont, a certain Castle and County betwixt the Maes and the Moselle, on the confines of Lorrain and Bar. The reader may, perhaps, be reminded of Don Raphael's principality, 'des certaines Vallees qui sont entre les Suisses, le Milanois, et la Savoye.' Aspramont, however, is no imaginary Castle: it was sacked by the French, and the Count wounded, in 1551 (De Thou.). In 1740 the Castle was besieged and taken by the Marquis de Minas. A Count of Aspramont, in the service of the Imperialists, was made prisoner, and died of his wounds in Italy, in 1743; and the name appears in the last Army List of Royal France. But, whatever may become of this descent from Aspramont, which as it is not easy to prove, it is also impossible to refute: the Spearmans, whencesoever they sprang, came into Northumberland, as gentlemen, in the time of Henry VII.; and have ever since maintained their rank as such, together with considerable landed property in various branches of the family in both Countries. "Au reste, il y a longtemps que nous sommes nes bons gentilshommes—ainsi tenons-nous en la."—Surtees' Durham. "Dominus de Asperomonte," is among the Barons of Champagne entered in Duchesne's Nomina militum ferentium bannerias: and it is quite possible that "Le Sire d'Asperemont, son of the Count d'Asperemont" may, as the family tradition avers, have come over to England with the Conqueror. "The corruption of the name," says Hutchinson, "has been attributed by some of the family to an atchievement in the holy wars under Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward I.:" but the transition is no greater than from Espec to Speke, which is an unquestioned derivation. The Spearmans do not, however, bear the silver cross of the House of Aspramont (Argent on a field Gules), but a chevron between three broken spears, of course alluding to the adventure or feat of arms in the Crusade. Nor is the name to be found in any of the public records that I have searched; such as the Hundred Rolls, the Pipe Rolls, the Parliamentary Writs, the Monasticon Anglicanum, &c.; and though Eyton, in his History of Shropshire, mentions a Stephen de Spearman and his wife Emma in 1267, he furnishes us with no clue to their descent. I opine, with Surtees, that it can neither be proved nor disproved. A cadet of the Shropshire family came into the North with the army that suppressed the Pilgrimage of Grace, and was at the battle of Solway Moss in 1542. He settled at Preston, near Tynemouth, and his descendants are also to be found at Hetton-le-Hole, Thornley, and Bishop-Middleton in the co. of Durham. One of them acquired Eachwick in Northumberland by marriage in 1748; but his line ended in the following generation. This last Spearman of Eachwick was a somewhat celebrated local antiquary, said to be the original of "Monkbarns" in Scott's Antiquary. He died in 1823, leaving his estate to an old unmarried sister for her life, and then to his steward, John Hunter, an old and faithful servant, determining, as he had no children of his own, "to follow the example of Abraham, and to consider his Eleazar heir to all his house." Amerenges : for Averenges or Avranches. This house can be distinctly traced back to the father of the first Duke of Normandy, Rognavald, Earl of More. Besides his two legitimate sons, he had, by a favourite slave whom he espoused more danico, a third, named Hrollager, who settled with them in Neustria. Hrollager's three grandsons each became the founder of an illustrious Norman stock. From the eldest, Anslac de Bastembourg, came the Bertrams, Sires de Briquebec, and the younger house of Montfort-sur-Rille; from the second William, the barons of Bec-Crespin; and from the third, Ansfrid the Dane who was Viscount of Exmes, or Hiesmes, before 978, the house of Avranches. He was the first Viscount of Hiesmes that is on record, and his descendants inherited this dignity, as well as his surname of Le Gotz or Gois. Toustain Le Gois, his grandson, was Chamberlain to Duke Robert the Magnificent, Stood high in his favour, and went with him to the Holy Land; but having rebelled against his successor, forfeited the whole of his possessions, which were granted to the new Duke's mother, Arletta. Toustain's son Richard, however, who had never swerved from his allegiance, obtained his pardon, and set matters straight by a judicious alliance. He married Emma, or Emmeline, de Conteville, Arletta's daughter, who brought him back all the lands that his father had lost; and acquired numerous other estates, notably in the Avranchin, from whence he took his name. In Duke William's charter to the Abbey of St. Evroult (about 1064), he signs himself Richard d'Avranches, being at that time Seigneur or Viscount of the Avranchin. Wace mentions him at the battle of Hastings: "D'Avrancin i fu Richarz:" but most commentators agree that this was a mistake, and that (though he was certainly still living sixteen years after the battle), it was his son Hugh Lupus, and not himself, that came over with the Conqueror. The French authorities, however (Recherches sur le Domesday), are of a different opinion, because, according to the invariable custom of the time in Normandy, Hugh could not have borne the territorial name of Avranches till after his father's death. There is also a passage quoted by Dugdale from the cartulary of Whitby, which declares that Hugh Earl of Chester, and his brother-in-arms, William de Percy, came into England with King William the year after the Conquest, 1067. Hugh Lupus or Le Loup, so styled from the wolf's head that he bore on his banner, D'azur a la teste de loup arrachee d'argent,[30] was a skilful and daring leader, and whether he served at Hastings or not, at all events greatly aided his uncle in his subsequent campaigns against the Welsh. The first guerdon he received was the lordship of Whitby in Yorkshire (of which he afterwards disposed in favour of his friend William de Percy;) but a far more splendid recompense awaited him. When Gherbod the Fleming, on whom the Conqueror had conferred the Earldom of Chester, obtained leave to re-visit his own country 111 1071, and there, falling into his enemies' hands, was "cut off from all the blessings of life" in a dungeon, King William made his nephew Hugh Earl Palatine in his stead, "to hold the county as freely by the sword, as the King himself held England by the crown."[31] He had royal jurisdiction, with the state and court of a sovereign prince, and a parliament of eight barons, nominated by himself. His special mission was to check the incursions of the Welsh, and in 1096 he joined Hugh de Montgomerie, Earl of Shrewsbury, in invading and ravaging the Isle of Anglesey. He stood loyally by William Rufus during the rebellion that shook his throne, and is charged with having mutilated and blinded his own brother-in-law, William Count d'Eu, one of the insurgents whom he had taken prisoner. His possessions were simply enormous. Beside the entire county of Chester ("excepting what then belonged to the Bishop, which was not much"), he held one hundred and twenty-four manors in different parts of the country, and the magnificence of his household is vaunted by Gaimar: "Quiens homs estoit li quens Huons! L'empereur de Lumbardie Ne menoit pas tiele compagnie Come il fesoit de gent privee." "He was," says Ordericus, "not abundantly liberal but profusely prodigal, and carried not so much a family as an army still along with him; he took no account either of his receipts or his disbursements, and daily wasted his estate." Dugdale speaks of him more kindly. "In his youth and flourishing age," he tells us, "he was a great lover of worldly pleasures and secular pomp; profuse in giving, and much delighted with enterludes, jesters, horses, dogs, and other like vanities; having a large attendance of such persons of all sorts, as were disposed to those sports. But he had also in his family, both clerks and soldiers who were men of great honor, the venerable Anselme (Abbot of Bec, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) being his Confessor; nay, so devout he grew before his death, that, sickness hanging long upon him, he caused himself to be shorn a monk in the Abbey of St. Werburge, where, within three days after, he died;" in July, 1101. This was the Abbey he had himself founded at Chester, and in which he lies buried. He had governed Cheshire for exactly thirty years "with great honour and renown." His wife was Ermyntrude, daughter of Hugh, Count of Clermont, by whom he had three sons; Philip (probably the eldest), who died before him; Robert, a monk of St. Evroult, and afterwards Abbot of St. Edmund's-bury; and Richard, a boy of only seven years old at the time of his death, who succeeded as Earl of Chester. There were also several illegitimate children (amongst whom Dugdale includes Abbot Robert), one, named Ottiwell, who was tutor to the sons of Henry the First, and another, Geva, the wife of Geoffrey Ridel. The young Earl grew up, and was married to a kinswoman of Royal blood, Maud, second daughter of the Count de Blois or Champagne, who afterwards reigned as King Stephen, and of Maud, Countess of Boulogne. But in the first promise and springtime of their life, he and his youthful Countess perished in the famous wreck of the "Blanche Nef," when the King's two sons and the flower of the English nobility were lost at sea; and with him were drowned his bastard brother Ottiwell, his sister Geva, and her husband. Though barely twenty-five when he met his early doom, the young Earl had already done good service to Henry I., to whom he loyally adhered from the time he was of age to bear arms. He died childless, the last of the illustrious house of Avranches, and his cousin Ranulph de Meschines became the next Earl of Chester. A family that bore the same name, but different arms, had, however, been settled in Kent, from the time of the Conquest, and are derived by the author of the 'Norman People,' from a younger brother of Hugh Lupus. But the Norman genealogists declare this family (which existed in France as well as in England) to be entirely distinct; and are positive that the great Earl had only four sisters: 1. Judith, married to Richer de L'Aigle (Aquila.): 2. Elisende, Countess of Eu: 3. Isabella, married to a son of Gilbert, Earl of Corbeil; and 4. Matilda, married to Randolf de Briquessart, Viscount of Bayeux, who was the mother of his eventual heir, Ranulph de Meschines. Had there been a younger brother, he or his children would naturally have succeeded to the Earldom, rather than his sister's son. This Kentish family held the great barony of Folkestone, brought in dower by the grand-daughter of William de Arques, its first Norman Lord, Maud de Monneville, who was given in marriage to Riwallon or Ruallon d'Avranches, by Henry I. Their son William is said to have founded the church upon its present site, about 1138. The line had ended with another William, fourth of the name, before 1235. His sister Maud, styled "the great heiress of Folkestone," conveyed the barony to Hamon de Crevecoeur, another puissant Kentish lord. An offset of this family, under the name of Evering (a corruption of Avranches), probably lingered in the county to the end of the seventeenth century. They held of the Honour of Folkestone the manor of Evering, sometimes called Avranches, to which they had given their name; and bore the three chevrons of their Seigneurs on a different field. "Sir William de Avranches was one of the knights who held each a portion of land for the defence of Dover Castle, being bound by their tenure to provide men-at-arms to keep watch and ward within it, at certain appointed times, and to defend each of them a certain tower in the castle; that defended by Sir William, being styled Avranches Tower."—Hasted's Kent. Bertram : "Robert Bertram ki estoit tort" (crooked), Lord of Briquebec, near Valognes, is mentioned by Wace: his younger brother William is also generally considered to have been present at Hastings, and appears on the Dives Roll. The Norman barony of Briquebec, consisting of forty knights' fees, is said to have taken its name from Brico, a Norwegian Viking, who was the ancestor of this family. "Aslac or Anslac, his son, filled a great part in Norman history. His brother Amfrid, the Dane, was ancestor of the Earls of Chester, and the barons of Bec-Crespin."—The Norman People. "A younger branch, from whom came the Mitfords, formed establishments, though not of much account, in England: it probably descended from the above-mentioned William, or from another William de Bertram, who stands in Domesday as a small holder in Hampshire."—Taylor. One of these Williams became Baron of Mitford and Bothall, in Northumberland, probably after the forfeiture of Robert Mowbray. He either founded or gave lands to the Augustinian priory of Brinkbourne, and married a daughter of Guy de Baliol, by whom he had two sons: Roger Bertram, baron of Mitford; and Richard Bertram, ancestor of the barons of Bothall. The elder line, seated in its picturesque Border fortress on the Wansbeck, survived till 1311. A lineal descendant and namesake of the first Roger joined the rising of the Barons against King John, and, in retaliation, had his castle seized, and his town of Mitford destroyed with fire and sword by the savage Flemish hordes who then devastated Northumberland as the auxiliaries of the King. While still in. the custody of the Crown, the castle was besieged by Alexander of Scotland; it was afterwards granted to Philip de Ulcotes, and in the following reign restored to its rightful owner. The next Roger Bertram was one of the Northern barons summoned to march into Scotland to the rescue of the young King of Scots, Henry III.'s son-in-law, in 1258. Six years afterwards, unwarned by the sad experiences of his father, he was arrayed among the insurgents in the Baron's War, taken prisoner at Northampton, and his castle and barony again forfeited—this time for ever. He seems, indeed, to have speedily made his peace with the King, for in 1264 he was summoned to parliament as Baron Bertram—but Mitford knew him no more. He was succeeded by his son, who had no child except a daughter who died early, and on whose death the barony fell into abeyance between the Fitzwilliams, Darcys, and Penulburys, as the representatives of his three sisters. Mitford Castle passed through various hands. In 1316 it harboured a freebooter "who," says Leland, "robby'd a Cardinal cominge out of Scotland," and was himself there captured by Ralph Lord Greystock, and carried to London for execution. Two years later, when it was taken and destroyed by the King of Scots, who left it in ruins, it was, with the entire barony of Mitford, the property of Adomar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. It eventually came by different co-heiresses to Lord Brough, who, in 1557, granted it to a descendant of the original owners, Cuthbert Mitford. His ancestor, Richard, was a younger brother of the first Lord Bertram, and bore the name of De Mitford as that of the paternal barony. "The manor of Molesden was purchased by this branch 1369,[32] and in allusion to it, they adopted three moles in their arms, the descent from the Bertrams being probably then forgotten through lapse of time, and so entirely has this been the case, that this, the legitimate male representative of one of the most illustrious Norman families, is now traced to imaginary Anglo-Saxon ancestors."—The Norman People. The castle and manor of Mitford came afterwards to the Crown, and were re-granted by Charles II. to Robert Mitford. From him are derived the present family; one of whom, a younger brother, was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland and created Baron Redesdale in 1802. The junior line of Bertrams held their barony of Bothall from the King in capite by the service of three knight's fees. Their castle also stood on the brink of a rock washed by the brawling stream of the Wansbeck, surrounded by beautiful woods sloping down the banks, and in many places overhanging the water. Most of what yet remains of it is of a much later date than their time. Robert Bertram, Sheriff of Northumberland and Governor of Newcastle-on-Tyne in the reign of Edward III, who first obtained licence to castellate his manor-house of Bothall, proved the last of the family; and his daughter Helen carried the barony to the Ogles, and was the grandmother of the first Lord Ogle. One of these Lords of Bothall was the Hermit of Warkworth, whose pathetic story, long handed down by tradition, has been preserved and elaborated in Bishop Percy's ballad. He loved his neighbour, Isabel de Widdrington, and was loved in return: but, like a true daughter of "These northern counties here, Whose word is snaffle, spur and spear," she chose to put his mettle to the test before giving him her hand. She sent him a helmet as her love-token, with a message desiring him to try its temper "wherever blows fell sharpest;" and Bertram, obedient to her behest, rode with his brother-in-arms Lord Percy on a raid into Scotland, where he was wounded nearly to the death in a desperate fray. The tidings were brought to Isabel, who, struck with horror and remorse, at once set out to go to him; but on her way was seized by some prowling moss-troopers, and carried off to one of their secret fastnesses beyond the Border. Thus, when, "at the dewfall of the night," her rescued knight was carried home on the shields of his followers, he found his lady gone, and all traces of her lost. He made a vow never to rest till he had found her, and his brother promised to help him in the quest. As soon as his strength permitted, they went forth together in a "humble disguise:" and the better to conduct their search, agreed to separate, the brother going Northwards, and Bertram himself to the West. For many weary days and weeks he wandered "over moss and moor" in vain; till at length, when he had well-nigh lost heart, a compassionate pilgrim directed him to a distant peel-tower, in which a lady's voice had been heard lamenting. Bertram found the place, and recognised the voice; but watched the tower for two successive nights without obtaining a glimpse of his Isabel. On the third night, however, that he lay crouched in his hiding place, he saw her descend a ladder of ropes thrown from an upper window, assisted by a man muffled up in a cloak, who bore her across the little stream, and led her away, clinging fondly to his arm. Bertram, maddened at the sight, rushed after them with his naked sword, and attacked his rival, who defended himself manfully; but after a stubborn conflict Bertram succeeded in bringing him to the ground, and stabbed him to the heart with the words, "Die, traitor!" Then, when she heard his voice, the wretched Isabel for the first time knew who he was, and sprang forward to arrest the blow, shrieking "It is thy brother!" She was too late, for the deed was done, and in the struggle to throw herself between them, she slipped against Bertram's sword, and fell pierced by his brother's side. For that night's bloody tragedy, the unhappy Bertram did penance to the end of his days. He renounced every tie that bound him to the world. His sword and spear were hung up in his hall; his inheritance passed on to others, and his goods given to the poor; while he himself, clad in monastic garb, took refuge in the rocky recesses of Coquetdale, near Warkworth Castle. No more ideal retreat could be devised for an anchorite than this lovely sequestered glen, where the hurrying Coquet stays its "troubled current" beneath precipitous cliffs, clothed with trees that spring from every chink and crevice of the stone; and from an overhanging grove of stately oaks above, a runlet of the purest water comes rippling down. Here his dwelling-place, scooped out of the living rock, remains almost as perfect as when he left it. It can only be reached from the river, by a long flight of steps. Over the entrance linger the traces of the original inscription, Sunt mihi lachrymae meae cibo inlerdiu et noctu. The first cell is a miniature chapel, complete in all its details, with a raised altar at the East end; and on a recessed altar tomb beside it the effigy of a woman, "very delicately designed," but now broken and time-worn, lying with her head towards the East, and her arms slightly raised, showing that her hands have been folded in prayer. At her feet, in a niche cut in the stone, the figure of the Hermit kneels in eternal penitence, his head resting on his hand. Beyond this, reached through a doorway, bearing on a shield the Crucifixion and the emblems of the Passion, is a still smaller oratory, used by the Hermit as a sleeping place; with a similar altar at the farther end, and near it, a narrow ledge hewn out of the rock for his couch. Neither by night nor by day3 did he ever lose sight of the beloved effigy in the adjoining chapel; for at the altar a window is contrived through which he could see it as he knelt at his devotions; and when lying on his bed, a niche cut slant wise through the partition wall still enabled him to rest his faithful eyes upon it. No one knows for how many sorrowful years he lived here "in penance and contrition," nor when Death came to his release.[33] His early friend Lord Percy honoured his memory by maintaining a chantry priest to sing mass in the chapel, and inhabit the Hermitage, whose allowance was continued down to the suppression of the monasteries. "The patent is extant which was granted to the last hermit in 1532 by the sixth Earl of Northumberland."—Hutchinson. Buttecourt, for Botetourt. John de Botetourt is first mentioned in 1281, when he was made Governor of the Castle of St. Briavel in Gloucestershire, and Warden of the Forest of Dean by Edward I.; and two years later, when he had summons to serve in Gascony, he was Admiral of the King's fleet. He was in most of the Scottish wars, and appears on the Roll of Carlaverock. "Cil ke a tout bien faire a cuer lie, Au sautoir noir engreelie Jaune baniere ot e penon, Johans Boutetourte ot a noun." The year after Edward II.'s accession he was summoned to parliament as a baron: and "being with the King at Bolein," says Dugdale "(that being the time when he married Queen Isabel) he joyned with the rest of the Nobles, then there, in signing an Instrument dated ult. Jan. under their Hands and Seals; whereby they mutually obliged themselves, to serve him faithfully, and to support his Honour." It was in accordance with the true spirit of this obligation, that four years afterwards, he was among the first to declare himself against Edward's unworthy favourites, and a confederate of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in taking prisoner Piers Gaveston. At that time he was Constable of Framlingham Castle in Suffolk, and in 1315 is again spoken of as Admiral of the Fleet. He died in 1324. By his wife Maude, who, as the daughter of one of the co-heiresses of William de Beauchamp, Baron of Bedford, had brought him a great estate, he had four sons. The elder followed his father's example by marrying another wealthy heiress, Joane de Someri, sister of the last Baron of Dudley, but died before him, and a grandson succeeded. This second Lord Botetourt 16 Ed. III. attended the King to France in the train of the Earl of Warwick, and was constantly engaged in the subsequent French wars. He was twice married, and had, besides six daughters, an only son and heir; but he survived both this son and a grandson, and his granddaughter, Joyce Burnell, inherited the barony. She left no children, and at her death it fell into abeyance between her aunts. Singularly enough, it was the youngest of all, Katherine, married to Maurice de Berkeley, in favour of whose descendants it was revived after the lapse of three centuries and a half. Norborne Berkeley was summoned as Lord Botetourt in 1764, but died s. p. in 1776. His only sister Elizabeth married Charles, fourth Duke of Beaufort, and their son, the fifth Duke, obtained a fresh patent of the barony in 1803. A knight of this family was honoured by a special interposition of Our Lady of Walsingham on his behalf. Every monastery was then an inviolable sanctuary: no criminal, who had found refuge within its precincts, could be touched under pain of sacrilege; and crosses were even set up at a certain distance on the roads leading to an abbey or priory, to mark the boundaries within which no capture could be effected, except by payment of a fine to the monks. The shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was in such high esteem as a place of pilgrimage, that in those days, when it was generally believed that the Milky Way "was appointed by Providence to point out the particular place and residence of the Virgin, beyond all other places," it came to be called in the country the Walsingham Way, and was so known in Norfolk up to the latter end of the last century. On the north side of the close of the priory was a very low and narrow wicket door, through which it was difficult for any one to pass even on foot, being "not past an elne high, and three-quarters in breadth. And a certain Norfolk knight, Sir Raaf Boutetourt, armed cap-a-pee and on horseback, being in days of old, 1314, pursued by a cruel enemy, and in the utmost danger of being taken, made full speed for this gate; and invoking this Lady for his deliverance, he immediately found himself and his horse within the close and sanctuary of this priory, in a safe asylum, and so fool'd his enemy." A memorial of this miracle, engraved on a plate of copper, was seen by Erasmus, nailed to the gate of the Priory.—See Bloomfield's Norfolk. These Norfolk Botetourts had settled on some lands granted by Hugh de Gourney in the time of Henry III.; and 3 Ed. I. Sir Guy de Botetourt "held Uphall manor of Lord Bardolf as part of the honour of Gournay." Sir John de Botetourt was Admiral of the Norfolk coast in the same reign, and in "high favour" with the King. The line failed 40 Ed. III. with another John. Brebus : more correctly given by Duchesne as Broehus: one of the numerous forms of Braose. This great family, which originated at Braose (now Brieuze), near Falaise, has had its name spelt in so many different ways—Bryus, Briouse, Brewhouse, Brewis, &c, that it is scarcely wonderful it should often have been confounded with that of Bruis or Bruce. Lower, for one, believed the names to be identical. "The men of Brius" are mentioned by Wace, and it is a disputed point among his commentators whether he alludes to Brix, or to Brieuze. William de Braose was one of the most powerful barons in the Conqueror's following, and received proportionally splendid grants; chiefly in Sussex, where he held as his barony the whole Rape of Bramber, and built Bramber Castle. It is not known when he died, but his only son Philip had succeeded in the reign of William Rufus. Philip's son married a great heiress, Berta, second daughter of Milo, Earl of Hereford, who brought him the three Welsh baronies of Brecknock, Ower Went, and Gower; and in 1157 he gave to Henry II. one thousand marks of silver for his share of the Honour of Barnstaple in Devonshire, which he inherited from his maternal grandfather, Juhel de Toteines. The other part belonged to Oliver de Tracy, from whom he soon after obtained the reversion by purchase. Thus, in the next generation, William ¦de Braose "succeeding to all that great estate of his father and mother," ranked with the mightiest nobles of the kingdom, and was foremost among the fierce Marcher lords in the revolting cruelty of his jurisdiction.[34] "Of this William," says Dugdale, "it is reported that, harboring some evil purposes towards the Welch, under colour of friendship, he did, about this time invite Sitsylt ap Dysnwald and Geffrey his Son, with a great number of the most Worshipful men of Gwent-land, to a feast at the Castle of Bergavenny, which Castle he had received of them by composition, and that, they doubting no harm, being come thither, he brought in a Company of Armed men upon them, and murthered them all; and having so done, went forthwith to Sitsylt's House (not far from thence), slew Cadwaladar, his Son, before his Mother's face, and destroyed the House." In 1204, he bought of King John, for 5000 marks, the "Honour of Limerick," or the entire province of Munster in Ireland, with the sole exception of the city and the church lands. According to one account, the purchase money was never paid, and it was for this debt that the King proceeded against him, when, five years later, a sudden and violent breach took place between them. Others impute the fault of the quarrel to his wife. When the kingdom was interdicted by the Pope, the King, "fearing more mischief, sent Souldiers to all the great men of England, especially to those of whom he stood in any doubt, requiring Hostages from them, to the end he might the better reduce them to his Obedience, in case they should be absolved from their due Allegiance by his Holiness." But when the messengers came to the castle of De Braose "they found a Rub," for this undaunted lady, Maud de St. Valery by name, boldly told them that no son of hers should ever be trusted in the hands of a King who had basely murdered his own nephew. Her husband rebuked her for speaking so rashly, and—though he, too, refused to grant a hostage—offered to give full satisfaction if he had "in aught offended the King." But Maud's passionate words bore bitter fruit. The King's bailiff for Wales was sent with an armed force to seize De Braose, and take possession of his lands and castles; and finding resistance hopeless, he fled with his family to his Irish kingdom of Limerick. Even then he was not long in safety; for the King raised an army to go to Ireland; and Maud, with her eldest son, again crossed the sea, and sought an asylum in Scotland. Unfortunately, they entrusted themselves to the hospitality of the Lord of Galloway. He delivered up his guests into their enemy's hand, and they were forthwith consigned to a dreadful doom—the slow torture of the oubliette. "This year, viz. An. 1210," writes Matthew of Westminster, "the Noble Lady Maud, Wife of William de Braose, with William, their Son and Heir, were miserably famished at Windsore, by the command of King John; and William, her Husband, escaping from Scorham (Shoreham), put himself into the habit of a Beggar, and privately getting beyond Sea, died soon after at Paris; where he had burial in the Abby of S. Victor, on the Eve of S. Lawrence." Matthew Paris puts his death two years later. All his possessions were forfeited to the Crown; but the greater part were given back to the family; for his two younger sons successively held them "by fine and agreement." One of these, Giles, Bishop of Hereford, was a priest: the other, Reginald, left an only son, William de Braose, who was treacherously seized by Llewellyn Prince of Wales at an Easter feast, and put to death in 1230. Some say he was hanged on the same gallows as the wife of Llewellyn, "with whom he was suspected of undue familiarity." His four daughters were great heiresses. The miserable elder brother, who was starved to death in Windsor Castle, had left behind him a son John, surnamed Tadody, who had been secretly nursed by a faithful Welshwoman in Gowerland, and was apparently reinstated in his grandfather's Baronies of Bramber, Knepp, and Gower, on the death of his cousin William. He was himself killed two years afterwards by a fall from his horse. The direct line ended with his grandson, another William de Braose, one of the companions in arms of Edward I.—a gallant and well-tried soldier, who had summons to parliament as Baron Braose of Gower in 1299. "He was," says Thomas of Walsingham, "a person who had a large patrimony, but a great unthrift;" and in 14 Ed. II. found it in his heart to put up for sale his noble territory of Gower—the great feudal principality where his family had borne rule for more than a century and a half. Two neighbouring land-holders, the Earl of Hereford, and the Mortimers (uncle and nephew) were eager to purchase; and the former contracted with him for it, and obtained the Royal license, while his son-in-law, John de Mowbray, who had "accounted himself secure enough thereon" as the husband of his heir apparent Aliva, vehemently protested against the whole transaction.[35] But a third person (then all powerful with the King) Hugh Le Despencer the Chamberlain, stepped in and took forcible possession on his own account, having "fixed his eye upon it in regard to his estates in these parts," and found it "lay convenient to them also." The discontent caused by these arbitrary proceedings brought on a revolt; for the noblemen who had dealt for Gowerland "addressed themselves unto Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, with no small complaints of the injury: which, in short," adds Dugdale, "occasioned that unhappy Insurrection, that at length terminated in the loss of the Lives and Estates of many brave Men; and in particular of that Noble Earl of Lancaster." Mowbray himself laid down his life in the cause, for, after having followed the confederates in all their varied fortunes, he was at length taken prisoner with the Earl, while attempting to force the passage of the river at Borough-bridge, and executed for high treason at York on the same day in 1322. Lord Braose died in the same year, leaving no son to succeed him, and his barony fell into abeyance between his two daughters, Aliva de Mowbray and Joan de Bohun. Ten years afterwards, his nephew Sir Thomas had summons to Parliament, having served long and honourably in the wars of Edward III., first in the retinue of John de Warren, Earl of Surrey, and then with Richard, Earl of Arundel. His wife was Beatrix de Mortimer, widow of Edward Plantagenet, eldest son of Thomas de Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk; and by her he had two sons, who were successively Barons Braose. The last lost both his children in their minority, and his cousin Elizabeth, the wife of Sir William Heron, came to be his heir. Another cousin, Sir John de Braose, died s. p. Byseg : Here the last letter is clearly an error.[36] It should be t, which gives us Byset or Bisset, a baronial name well known both in England and Normandy, and though not written in Domesday, to be met with as early as the reign of Henry I. William Biset, in 1130, held lands in Notts and Derby (Rot. Pip.). Manser or Manasser Bisset, Lord of Kidderminster in Worcestershire, was Sewer to King Stephen, and in 1165 held a fee at Chaucy in the bailifry of Coutances (Duchesne, Feod. Norm.). He was "one of the Witnesses to the Accord made betwixt that King and Henry Duke of Normandy, touching the Succession of the said Henry to the Crown of this Realm." He was, says Camden, "a most noble personage in his time," and founded a priory for secular priests at Bradley in Wiltshire, which he amply endowed; his son Henry confirming his grants. Henry had no heir, and was succeeded by another Henry, his nephew, and then by John Biset, Chief Forester of England under Henry III., mentioned "at the great Tournament held at Northampton in 1241, occasioned by Peter de Savoy, Earl of Richmond, against Earl Roger Bigod." He died not long after, leaving three daughters and co-heiresses; Margaret married to Richard de Rivers, Ela, and Isabel. One of the latter was the ill-fated "maiden infected with the leprosie, who founded a house for maidens that were lepers, and endowed the same with her own Patrimonie and Livetide, like as her father before time had thereabout erected a Priorie."—Camden. From her the place acquired its present name of Maiden Bradley. "She gave," says Leland, "her part here in pios usus, and the Personage of Kidderminster remains impropriate to Maiden Bradley. The other two Partis came to the Lorde Arbergavenny, and in that family it yet remainith." Combe-Biset, in Wiltshire, and the parish of Preston-Bisset in Berkshire, preserve the name of their most ancient lords. If the history of the Bisets in England is brief and colourless, in Scotland and Ireland, on the other hand, it is full of incident and adventure. They had very early crossed the Border; for a William Byset appears at the court of William the Lion King, "a man of great courage and activity, who was settled in Lovat with commission from the King, and was known in 1170 as Lord of Lovat."—Wardlaw. His son Sir John, in 1230, founded the castle and priory of Beauly in Inverness-shire: the latter for monks of the Order of Vallis Caulium; and left three daughters; Mary, from whom the Frasers of Lovat are derived; Cecily, married to a Fenton; and Elizabeth, the wife of Sir Andrew de Bosco. The family had, however, still representatives in the male line, descended from a younger brother, and seated in the south of Scotland. Of these was Sir Walter Byset, who at a great tournament held in 1242 at Haddington, was worsted and unhorsed by his antagonist, the gallant young Earl of Atholl. There had been a smouldering feud of old standing between the families, which blazed out aflame after this unhappy encounter; and Atholl was found murdered in his own house, that had been set on fire by the assassins to conceal the deed. There could be little doubt as to their identity. "Suspicion at once fell upon Walter, who was an officer in the Queen's household, especially as he had prevailed upon the Queen to spend four days at his castle, on her journey south from Moray, at the very time when the murder was perpetrated." He was banished the realm, and compelled to take a vow that he would join the Crusade, and never set foot again in his native land. On this condition he was permitted to dispose of his lands and goods. But instead of going to the Holy Land, he and his nephew John landed on the coast of Antrim, where they obtained grants of land from the Earl of Ulster. In 1279, the son and heir of John held the seven lordships of the Glynnes in capite from Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster; and Robert Byset, in 1365, founded a monastery at their principal seat, Glenarm. The family became very numerous in the North of Ireland (where the name was sometimes spelt "Misset"), and kept up a close connection with Scotland. "It was in Sir Hugh Bisset's Island of Rathlin that the heroic Bruce took refuge in 1305, and where he formed the resolution of reconquering Scotland; and it was at Glendun, in Sir Hugh's manor of Glenarm, that Edward Bruce landed with the victors of Bannockburn. Upon the news of that invasion, Parliamentary summonses were issued to no less than five magnates named De Byset, John, Herbert, William, and two Hughs. One of these latter was the traitor baron, who, like Hugh de Lacy, Walter de Say, and Michael of Kylkcoran, also summoned as peers on the same occasion, adhered to the Scots. His hereditaments in Rathlin and Glenarm were forfeited 13 Ed. II., and given away by the King. Hugh, son of Walter Byset, obtained a general pardon from Edward III. excepting any share in the murder of the Earl of Ulster (Rot. Pat. p. 53). Sir Hugh Byset was regularly summoned to parliament by Ed. III. and Richard II.; and in 1400 Richard Savage, as Seneschal of Ulster, and guardian of the Cross lands there, obtained the wardship and marriages of Elizabeth and Marjorie, heiresses of Sir Hugh (Ibid, p. 146). Marjorie married John Mor MacDonnell, second son of John, Lord of the Isles. This marriage gave the Macdonnells that feudal title to Irish lands which they afterwards fought manfully to maintain, and which was at last fully recognised in the Patent of the Earldom of Antrim."—Ulster Archaeologia, vol. ii. p. 155. In Scotland, the Bissets seem to have recovered their position within little more than a generation. "William de Byset, Constable of Stirling Castle, and Sheriff of Stirling, was one of the barons, convened at Berwick in 1291, who were chosen to act as arbitrators between the competitors for the Crown of Scotland—Bruce and Baliol. His grandson, Sir Thomas Biset, married Isobel MacDuff, heiress of Malcolm Earl of Fife, and widow of Walter Stewart, second son of Robert II.; and in consequence received from David II., in 1362, a grant of the Earldom of Fife to him and his heirs male by her; failing which it was to revert to the Crown, which accordingly it did on his death, in 1366, without male issue by her."—Notes and Queries, 5th S. vi. A collateral branch, derived from Patrick Bisset of Lessendrum (who lived about 1490) survived in the male line till the present century, and the name is still found in Scotland. Bardolfe : "Hue Bardoue" is mentioned by Wace at the siege of Arques; "a great name," adds Taylor, "both in Norman and English history." "The exact nature and measure of Hugh's greatness does not appear; but his capture is spoken of as one of the most important events of the fight at St. Aubin. I know of no record of his earlier exploits or his later fate; but the name of Bardulf occurs repeatedly in the later records both of the Norman and English Exchequer, and one at least of his descendants seems to have been as little amenable to lawful authority as his ancestor."[37]—Freeman. He was at that time "one of the Norman traitors who were in arms with the King of France against their lawful Duke."—Ibid. Yet, in the sole account I have been able to find of "Hugues surnomme Bardoul" (contained in Anselme's History of the French Nobility) he is described as the vassal of the King of France, and no allusion is made either to a Norman fief, or to descendants resident in England. He was the grandson of Renart, Seigneur of Broyes, near Sesanne, in the Pays de Brie, of Beaufort in the county of Ronay in Champagne, and of Periviers in the diocese of Orleans, who lived in the reign of Hugh Capet, and, dying at Rome, was buried at the gates of St. Peter's. Hugh's name first appears as a witness to one of King Robert's charters in 1028. He fortified his castle of Periviers against Henry I. of France; but, after a two years' leaguer, was compelled by famine to surrender, deprived of all his honours, and banished the realm. His disgrace was, however, short lived; for not long after he was reinstated, and accompanied the King in an expedition against the Duke of Normandy, in which he was taken prisoner. He founded a priory at his castle of Beaufort as a cell to the Abbey of Moustier-en-Der: and was succeeded by his son Bartholomew "chevalier tres fameux," and the father of another Hugh Bardoul, who went with Stephen Count of Blois to the Holy Land in 1102. Trie-le-Bardoul took his name; but it appears never to have been borne by his descendants. They were simply styled Sires de Broyes, and bore three broies (hemp-brakes) as their coat of arms. There existed none the less a Bardol fee in the Norman Pays de Caux, identified by Mr. Stapleton with the church of Bernonville near Gisors, which Thomas Bardol, with Rose Alselyn his wife, bestowed on the Abbey of Bec-Herlouin. He was the son of William Bardol, Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk for five consecutive years under Henry II., with whom Dugdale's pedigree begins. No doubt William must have been a landowner in either or both of these counties; but it is upon Thomas's brilliant marriage that the first foundation of their future importance rests. Rose had brought him twenty-five knight's fees, which had descended to her from Goisfrid d'Alselin, one of the Barons of Domesday, whose name became in English speech Hauselyn; having been "disfigured by English genealogists, who converted its first syllable, Al, into Hau."—Recherches sur le Domesday. In like manner, Bardol or Bardul, grew into Bardolf or Bardolph. Thomas and Rose had two sons: 1. Dodo, or Doon; 2. Thomas, castellan of Verneuil in 1179 and 1180; "and perhaps two others, for Dodo witnesses Richard de la Haie's grant to Blanchelande Abbey with Hugh Bardolf and Hamelinus Bardolf. In 1168 Hugh held two knight's fees, and Doon I. of Richard de la Haie's fief in Lincoln."—A. S. Ellis. Dugdale, however, who gives a long account of this Sir Hugh, believes him to have been Thomas's younger brother rather than his son. He was, in either case, of far greater account than his elder brother. No man in the country was better trusted or oftener employed. He was one of the Lieutenants left in charge of the Kingdom in 1186 during Henry II.'s absence in Normandy; three years later appointed a Justiciar of the realm when Coeur de Lion departed for the Holy Land: and among the sureties of the treaty made at Messina in 1190 between the King and Tancred of Sicily. So great was Richard's esteem for him "that in the third year of his Reign, when he was in the Holy Land, and suspected his Chancellor here, to whom he had chiefly committed the Charge of Governing in his absence, he wrote his letter to this Hugh Bardolf and three others, requiring them, in case the Chancellor did not do as he ought, that they should take upon them the rule of all things."—Dugdale. During the contest between the Chancellor and the Earl of Mortaine, when the Earl's castle of Windsor "was besieged by all the Nobility of England, this Hugh, being then the King's Justice and Sheriff of Yorkshire, joyn'd with the Archbishop of York and William de Stuteville, who having raised a great Power, fortified Doncaster, but would not take part in the siege of Tickhill Castle, belonging to the Earl of Moreton, in regard of his special Obligations to him."—Ibid. It is this Sir Hugh who is traditionally named as the champion that slew the great Dragon of Walmsley; but, setting aside this more dubious feat, his services as Sheriff are sufficiently note-worthy. The list of his shrievalties is a curiosity. He was Viscount of Cornwall in 1185 and 1186, of Wilts for half the latter year, and the whole of 1187; of Dorset and Somerset in 1189; of Warwick and Leicester in 1190 and 1191; of York in 1192 and 1193; of Northumberland, Westmoreland, and York in 1194; of no less than six counties, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Lancaster, York, Warwick and Leicester in 1195; of Westmoreland in 1196, 1198, and 1199; part of 1199 also of Derby, Notts, Devon, and Cornwall; and again of Notts and Derby in 1203—the year of his death. He had received from Henry II. Fulk Paynell's forfeited Honour of Baenton, which he exchanged for the manor and hundred of Hoo in Kent about 1196, but left no children to inherit it. It passed to his brother Robert; but Robert, too, died s. p.: and the inheritance was divided among his nieces, one of whom, Isold, was the ancestress of the Lords Grey of Codnor. Dugdale does not give their father's name. But to revert to the elder line. Doon Bardolfe, the son and heir of Thomas Bardolfe and his wealthy wife, himself married an even greater heiress, Beatrice de Warrenne, dowered with the Barony of Wermegay, which, "with other great manors, made up twenty-nine knight's fees belonging to his court at Shelford." This was the head of his Honour, and some of his descendants lie buried in Shelford Priory; but they had also Folkingham Castle in Lincolnshire;[38] and a seat at Pudel-Bardolf, Piddle Bardolf, Piddle Barlyfeston, or Bardolf's Weston—all different names for the same manor—in Dorsetshire. Doon had died before 1205, and his widow, after paying the great sum of three thousand one hundred marks for livery of his lands and license to remain unmarried, in 1209 "became the wife of the King's favourite, Hubert de Burgh; but, before 1214 she had, after the birth of male issue that did not survive, sunk into the grave. Upon this pretext, as tenant by the courtesy of England, Hubert de Burgh obtained from King John a grant for life of the Honour of Wermegay."—T. Stapleton. It was therefore only after the great Earl's death in 1243 that it came to her son William. William, who remained the staunch liegeman of Henry III. during the Baronial War, and was taken prisoner with him at Lewes, was the grandfather of the first Lord Bardolf, Hugh, summoned to parliament in 1299. He had served Edward I. gallantly for three years in Gascony, and then for as many more in Scotland, dying after his last campaign in 1303, when he had followed the King's own banner across the Tweed. He was among the leaders of the first squadron at Carlaverock. "Hue Bardoul, de grant maniere, Riches horns e preus e cortois, En asur quint-fullez trois Portoit de fin or esmere." He had married Isabel, the heiress of Robert Aguillon, and left a son and heir of twenty-two, through whom the title was transmitted to three more generations of stalwart soldiers. The third Lord, a Knight Banneret, who served Edward III. in the field all his life, was, with Robert Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, and John Lord Morley, selected for the defence of the Norfolk coast when a French invasion was expected in 1352. His wife Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Roger d'Amorie, by "that great Woman" (as Dugdale terms her) Elizabeth de Burgh, the foundress of Clare Hall, Cambridge, brought him a fair inheritance in Dorsetshire. Their son, again, fought in France; and in 1373 was in the train of John of Gaunt "with XL Men-at-Armes and XL Archers, all on Horsebacke." The last of the line, William, is the wary "Lord Bardolf" of Shakespeare's Henry IV. that depreciates the rash and headstrong tactics of Hotspur— Who liv'd himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply, Flattering himself with project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: And so, with great imagination, Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, And, winking, leap'd into destruction. He was then, as Hotspur had been, in arms against the Crown: for he had joined the Yorkist rising of 1405 under the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl Marshal Nottingham, and Archbishop Scrope; but, driven from the field by the King's superior force, retreated across the Border with Northumberland, while Scrope and Nottingham, betrayed by the Earl of Westmoreland, were left to perish on the scaffold at York. Three years later, having meanwhile collected aid in Scotland, Wales, France, and Flanders, Northumberland and Bardolf "in a dismal hour," re-appeared in the North with a great following, recovered the Earl's forfeited castles and seignories, and, marching into Yorkshire, raised the standard of revolt at Thirsk. Many Yorkshiremen flocked in to join it, ready to give their blood for the old cause of the White Rose, that had struck such deep roots in the North. But the loyal Sheriff, Sir Ralph Rokeby, gathered together all the men-at-arms he could muster in the county, and encountered them at Bramham Moor, near Hazelwood, "where," says Holinshed, "they chose their ground meet to fight upon. The Sheriff was as ready to give battle as the Earl to receive it, and so with a standard of St. George spread, set fiercely upon the Earl, who, under a standard of his own arms, encountered his adversaries with great manhood. There was a sore encounter and cruel conflict betwixt the parties, but in the end the victory fell to the Sheriff. The Earl of Northumberland was slain in the field, and the Lord Bardolf was taken, but sore wounded, so that he shortly after died of the hurts." The dread sentence of a traitor was executed upon him even after death; for his lifeless body was quartered, and the quarters set up on the gates of London, York, Lenne, and Shrewsbury, his head being exposed on one of the gates of Lincoln, till his widow Avicia could obtain the King's leave to take down the ghastly trophies, and bury them. By this Avicia (the daughter of Lord Cromwell) he left two young daughters, Anne and Joan, the one then nineteen, the other eighteen years of age, who under other circumstances would have been his heirs. But by his attainder all that he possessed had escheated to the Crown and been disposed of by the King; and the husbands of the despoiled sisters, Sir William Clifford and Sir William Phelip, could only succeed in securing the reversion of a small part of his great estate. Sir William, an excellent soldier, who was Treasurer of the Household to Henry V. and created Lord Bardolf by Henry VI., left an only daughter married to John Viscount Beaumont. The name, as far as I know, only survives in the town of Stow-Bardolph, in Norfolk, and Stoke-Bardolph, in Nottinghamshire. Basset : "from its ancestor Bathet or Baset, Duke of the Normans of the Loire, 895, 905 (Bouquet, vii. 360; viii. 317). He acquired Ouilly Basset, and Normanville in 912, and had issue Norman, father of Osmond, Viscount of Vernon, whose elder son, Hugh Basset, was Baron of Chateau Basset, which barony passed by his widow to the house of Montmorency, circa 990. His brother, Fulco de Alneto, was the father of Osmond Basset, who accompanied the Conqueror."—The Norman People. The names given on the Dives Roll, are, however, "Raoul et Guillaume Basset:" and the former, afterwards the celebrated Justiciary, was the reputed son of Thurstin, a Norman who held five hides of land at Drayton in Staffordshire, 1086. (Domesday.) Ordericus says of him, that Henry I., at the very beginning of his reign, "De ignobili stirpe illustravit ac de pulvere (ut ita dicam), extulit; dataque multiplici facilitate super consules et illustres oppidanos exaltavit." "He had the high office of Justice of England under Henry I., with a power so great, that he sat in what court he pleased, and wherever else he thought fit, for the administration of justice. And to his wisdom, it is asserted, we owe the first design and institution of the law of frank-pledge, besides other excellent laws. From this it seems evident, that he shared largely in his sovereign's favour, and that he had great abilities, which, with so wise a prince, were the likeliest means to procure it. "Yet it may probably admit of some doubt, whether Ordericus be not a little mistaken, when he represents him of an ignoble race; the more especially so, when it is related of Richard his son, that abounding in wealth, he built a strong castle upon his inheritance in Normandy; which makes it the more likely, that Ralph, his father, was descended from some ancient house in that country; for if he were raised from a low estate to the high rank he enjoyed, it does not appear very feasible that he should have any inheritance worth erecting a castle upon."—Banks. This great Justiciary, who, like most of his contemporaries, was very liberal to the Church, called for a monk's habit when lying on his death bed at Northampton in 1120; and on being asked of what Order, replied that he had always held the monks of Abingdon in special veneration, and desired that his body might be buried in their Abbey. He left five sons; Richard; Thurstin, of Colston-Basset, Notts, by some called the eldest; Thomas, ancestor of the Bassets of Haddington; Nicholas, who in 1147 founded Bruern Abbey in Oxfordshire; and Gilbert. Richard succeeded his father as Justiciary, and continued in office through the whole of Stephen's reign His wife Maud was the sole heiress of Geoffrey Ridel, by Geva, daughter of Hugh Lupus, and brought him so great an estate, that her eldest son Richard, and Richard's son Geoffrey, both of them bore her name in lieu of their own. She had two other sons, Ralph, of Drayton-Basset in Staffordshire, ancestor of the Lords Basset of Drayton; and William, of Sapcote in Leicestershire, ancestor of the Lords Basset of Sapcote. Geoffrey's heir was a son named Richard; but he had another son of his own name, who was the first-born, and obtained the principality of Blaye in France—the celebrated Geoffroi Le Troubadour, styled the Pilgrim of Love, whose story reads like a fairy tale. "Il alla chercher la mort," says St. Palaye, quoting Petrarch, "a force de voiles et de rames." It appears that he entertained many pilgrims and knights returning from the East in his castle of Blaye, and all alike sang the praises of the fair Melisande, Countess of Tripoli. She was, they averred, a pearl among women, Queen of Beauty and mistress of all hearts, peerless in grace as in wit; and the poet listened to their descriptions till his imagination was fired, and he conceived a romantic passion for this unknown princess. As the snow-laden fir-tree of Heine's idyll pined in the bleak North for the Eastern palm, brooding in its burning wilderness of sand, so the Norman knight languished for his remote Southern ideal. Her name was ever on his lips, and he celebrated it in verse and song, proclaiming her far and wide as the lady of his dreams, till at length he resolved to undertake a pilgrimage to her shrine. He embarked at Cette, and sailed for Tripoli: but while on board ship was seized with a mortal malady, and landed at his destination a dying man. The fair Melisande, on her part, had dreamt of a lover who was to seek her from beyond sea, till she daily expected and watched for his coming; and when Geoffrey was brought on shore, she recognized him at a glance as her promised knight. He, too, knew her at once, though their eyes then met for the first and last time, and pouring out his whole soul in a rapture of love and grief, died, as he had prayed to die, at her feet. The Countess was deeply moved. She caused him to be laid "in a rich and honourable tomb of porphyry inscribed with some verses in the Arabic tongue," and mourned him to her dying day. Nostradamus says that she was never seen to smile again; others again assert that she took the veil, and buried her sorrows in the cloister.[39] It is, however, with his brother Richard, who resumed his paternal name of Basset, and was seated at Welden in Northamptonshire, that we have here to do. Fifth in descent from him was another Richard, who was summoned to parliament in 1299, and served two campaigns in the wars of Scotland,[40] first in the retinue of Adomar de Valence in 1305, and again in 1314, when he fell at the battle of Stirling. Little or nothing is recorded of the four Barons Basset that succeeded him; the last died s. p. in 1408. We now turn to the junior branches. "Touching the Bassets of Drayton," says Dugdale "(who, for so long as they continued, had successively the Christian name of Ralph), there is nothing very memorable until King Henry the Third's time, that Ralph Basset had summons to attend the King at Chester;, to oppose the incursions of the Welch." He was one of the chief supporters of Simon de Montfort in the baronial war, was summoned to his parliament in 1264, and died fighting by his side at Evesham. It is said that Montfort, when he saw the great army, led by Prince Edward, that was drawn up against him, "concluded that he should miscarry in that battle, and therefore advised this Ralph Basset, and Hugh de Spenser, to get away, and reserve themselves for better times, but they answered, 'If he perished they should not desire to live.'" His three successors were all noted soldiers. The next heir recovered his lands through his mother, Margaret de Someri, who, on account of the "laudable services" of her father, had been allowed to retain them for life, but gave them up to him on taking the veil. This second Lord Basset served in France under the Earl of Lancaster, and was also with him in the Scottish war, but never attained the military renown of his son and great grandson. The former went six times to Scotland on the King's service in the reigns of the three Edwards; was Constable of Stafford in 1317; Constable of Northampton in 1320; sent with John de Someri, on the forfeiture of the Earl of Lancaster in 1321, to seize Kenilworth Castle, receiving as his guerdon one of the Earl's Northamptonshire manors; and in the same year was appointed Seneschal of Aquitaine. He was an uncompromising ruler. When the inhabitants of a French town within his province exasperated him by their lawlessness and insolence, he forthwith "raised a power, pulled down all the Houses, and slew those who refused to submit." The King of France vainly called him to account, and demanded his surrender. Edward II. declared "that he would not endure that, for so just an act, so brave a Souldier should have any molestation." On his return home he was appointed Constable of Dover and Warden of the Cinque Ports; then Governor of the Channel Islands; and in 1334 was Justice of North Wales. He died in 1343, having survived his son; and was succeeded by a grandson whose services were even more conspicuous than his own. No soldier even of Edward III.'s soldier court was more indefatigable in the field than the last Lord Basset. For twenty-two years—from 29 Ed. III. to I Ric. II.—he was almost continuously engaged in the French wars (chiefly in the retinue of the Black Prince), with the one short interval of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1360. When returning home in 1378, he "underwent great peril at Sea by Tempest"; yet the next year he once more crossed the Channel with Thomas of Woodstock, on an expedition to succour the Duke of Brittany (whose sister he had married); and in 1380 "he was again in France, and in the retinue of that Earl. Wherein he served with 200 men at Armes and 200 Archers, himself with nine Knights being part of the number; where he rode with his Banner displaid." Lastly, in 1385, he went with John of Gaunt and "a great power" into Spain. The year after this, when the growing discontent of the Duke of Gloucester and other great nobles at the favour shown to the Duke of Ireland was threatening to become dangerous, the King sent for the Lord Mayor "to try whether the citizens would stick to him against his uncle and those of that party." The Lord Mayor gave him no encouragement; and "this Lord Basset, standing by, then told the King that his life and estate had been ever ready at his service, and if he should be now drawn into the field, they should be so still;" but added, "that he would not adventure a broken head for the Duke of Ireland." He died in 1390, the last of his house; for his wife, Joan of Brittany, had proved childless. His only sister Isabel, who was married to Sir Thomas Shirley, was illegitimate; and his cousin Thomas, Earl of Stafford, was found to be his next heir. But another cousin, Alice, the wife of Sir William Chaworth, then came to the front, and Colston-Basset was hotly contested between them. William, the youngest of the three grandsons of Henry I.'s Justiciary, and the ancestor of the Bassets of Sapcote, served as Sheriff of Warwick and Leicestershire for eight consecutive years in the reign of Henry II., and was afterwards one of the Justices Itinerant of Yorkshire. His son Simon married an Avenal, one of the co-heiresses of Haddon; and his grandson Ralph, who with his kinsman and namesake, fell at Evesham with Simon de Montfort, was summoned to the Baron's parliament in 1264. This summons was never repeated to the next heir, Simon; but Simon's son Ralph was a baron by writ in 1370. This Ralph had previously received a writ of military summons, and had spent the best part of his life in the wars of France and Gascony. His services extended over a period of thirty-three years of Edward III.'s reign, but in 1382 he fell under the King's displeasure for having, at the defeat near Douches, left the field before his commander, the Duke of Lancaster. He was "much reproved" and never employed again. Three years before, he had been pronounced heir to Robert Colville (through his grandmother Elizabeth Colville), and thus acquired Castle Bytham, Beningfield in Northamptonshire, &c. He died in 1778, and his barony fell into abeyance between his two daughters, Alice, the wife of Sir Laurence Dutton, and Elizabeth, Lady Guy of Codnor, who were his sole heirs. The family of this name still existing in Cornwall cannot be traced back to any of the five sons of the first Justiciary; and Prince conjectures them to be derived from a brother of his named Osmund. They do not bear the arms of the Bassets of Welden and Drayton; but their coat, Or three bars wavy Gules, though differing in tinctures, bears a close resemblance to that of the Bassets of Sapcote, Argent, two bars undee Sable. Their immediate ancestor was William Basset, through whose marriage with Cecily, the only child of Alan de Dunstanville (see Dunstanville), their ancient manor of Tehidy first came into the family. In the time of Henry VIII. Sir John Basset married the heiress of Beaumont, who brought him Umberleigh and Heanton Court, "a sweet and pleasant seat," says Prince, "furnished with all variety of entertainment which the earth and sea and air can afford"; but now dismantled and disparked. Second in descent from him was another John, whose wife, Frances Plantagenet, was the daughter and co-heir of Arthur, Viscount Lisle, a natural son of Edward IV. and Lady Elizabeth Lucy; and whose grandson Sir Robert, on the strength of this left-handed alliance with the House of York, actually laid claim to the Crown of England. This was in the beginning of the reign of James I. He had to fly to France to save his head, and was only permitted to return home on payment of a heavy fine, that mulcted him of thirty of his manors. His last male descendant died in 1802, and with him ended the elder line, seated at Heanton Court; but a younger branch remains, traced from George Basset, to whom his nephew Sir Arthur granted Tehidy in 1558, "with the castelet or pile of Bassets on Carnbray Hill." Of him came Sir Francis,[41] created a baronet in 1779, Lord de Dunstanville in 1796, and in the following year, by special favour, Lord Basset, With remainder to his only child, Elizabeth. She succeeded to the title, but died unmarried in 1855; and his great nephew, John Basset, then inherited the estates, and became the head of the family. Besides those already mentioned, many manors in different counties are still called by this name. I find Houghton-Basset and Langwith-Basset in Derbyshire (they had two parks at Langwith in 1330); Winterborne-Basset and Berwick-Basset, Wilts; Thorp-Basset, Yorkshire; Charney-Basset and Letcombe-Basset in Berkshire; Burton-Basset, Warwickshire; Dunton-Basset, Leicestershire; Stoke-Basset, Oxon, &c. Bigot : "The Bigots[42] or Wygots appear, from various circumstances too long to be detailed, to be descended from Wigot de St. Denis, one of the greatest nobles of Normandy, who made grants to Cerisy Abbey in 1042, and in 1050 subscribed a charter of Duke William at the head of the Norman barons. He was married to a sister of Turstin Goz, father of Richard d'Avranches (whose son was Hugh Lupus), and had a younger son, Robert Wigot, Fitz Wigot, or Bigot, who was introduced by Richard d'Avranches to the favour of Duke William."—The Norman People. The story is differently told by the monk of Jurmieges, who says that Robert was a knight in the service of William Warlenc, Count de Mortaine, and so needy that he asked leave of his liege lord to seek his fortune abroad, and follow Robert Guiscard to Apulia. The Count desired him not to go, promising that within eighty days he should have no need to better his position, as he might then help himself to whatever best pleased him in Normandy. From this intimation Robert concluded that his lord was planning an insurrection that should place the crown of Normandy on his own head, and asked his cousin Richard d'Avranches to obtain for him an audience of the Duke, to whom he at once communicated his suspicion of the plot. William acted upon it with such vigour that "his justice, if justice it was, fell so sharply and speedily as to look very like interested oppression."—Freeman. He at once accused the Count of treason, banished him, and gave the Comte' of Mortaine to his own half-brother Robert. Bigot himself must have been rewarded with several grants; for Wace (who mentions him at Hastings) speaks of him as a land-owner:— "L'Ancestre Hue le Bigot Ki avoit terre a Maletot Etais Loges[43] et a Chanon:" adding that "he served the Duke in his house as one of his seneschals, which office he held in fee. He had with him a large troop, and was a noble vassal. He was small of body, but very brave and bold, and assaulted the English with his mace gallantly." There is some doubt whether it is Robert, or his son Roger that is here described; for both may have been in the battle; but it was at all events the latter who is recorded in Domesday as holding a great barony of one hundred and seventeen manors in Suffolk, besides other lands in Norfolk and Essex. He sided with Robert Court-heuse, and fortified his castle of Norwich against William Rufus, laying waste all the country round; yet he seems to have suffered no penalty for his revolt, and on the accession of Henry I. received a grant of Framlingham in Suffolk, with his father's office of Lord Steward of the Household. He married Adeliza, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Hugh de Grentemesnil, Seneschal of England, with whom he founded Thetford Abbey in 1107, and left seven children. His eldest son, William, styled Dapifer regis Anglorum, perished in the Blanche Nef; and it was the second Hugh le Bigot, who became the founder of this splendid house, and "the principal instrument for advancing Stephen, Earl of Boloigne, to the Crown of England. For being Steward of the Household to King Henry (an Office that gave him great repute) he hasted into England; and in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, averred upon his Oath, that King Henry on his death-bed, upon some dislike towards his Daughter Maud, the Empress, did disherite her, and appoint Stephen to be his Heir; whereupon the Archbishop (being credulous) solemnly anointed him King. For which great service, as some say, it was, that King Stephen, soon after, advanced him to the Earldom of the East Angles, commonly called Norfolk."—Dugdale. Henry II. was no sooner seated on the throne, than he espoused his mother's quarrel by seizing Bigot's castles and declaring his honours forfeit. All were restored to him in 1163: yet, eleven years later, he made a secret treaty with the King's rebellious sons, and took up arms in their behalf. He and his Flemish levies were defeated by Robert de Lacy at Bury St. Edmund's; and the King, entering Suffolk with a strong force to deal out to him the full measure of his wrath, razed his castle of Walton to the ground, and captured Framlingham. But Bigot owned another stronghold that he deemed impregnable, and of which, according to tradition, he was wont to boast— "Were I in my Castle of Bungay, Upon the River of Waveney, I would not set a button by the King of Cockeney."[44] An old ballad recites how "Bigot bold," when summoned to appear before the King,—laughed in the herald's face, "And rode away on his berry brown steed," setting all pursuit at defiance; "The Baily he rode and the Baily he ran To catch the gallant Lord Hugh; But for every mile the Baily rode The Earl he rode more than two. "When the Baily had ridden to Bramfield oak,[45] Sir Hugh was at Ilksall bower: When the Baily had ridden to Halesworth Cross, He was singing in Bungay tower: "Now that I'm in my castle of Bungay, Upon the river of Waveney, I will ne care for the King of Cockeney.' Yet this flourish of trumpets proved mere idle bravado; for when the King's troops beleaguered the place, Bigot's little garrison of five hundred men lost heart and deserted, leaving him to make what terms he could with his angry master. They were, as might have been foreseen, sufficiently humiliating. He had not merely to pay a fine of one thousand marks, but to see his cherished fortress levelled to the ground; and in his discomfiture he left the country, journeyed to Palestine with the Earl of Flanders, and only returned home to die in 1177. He was succeeded by his son Roger, whom Coeur de Lion, on his accession, re-constituted Earl of Norfolk and Lord Steward; but for this charter, and the confirmation and restoration of his lands, he had to give a further sum of one thousand marks to the King. He was one of the confederate barons who confronted King John at Runnymede, and, with his son Hugh, numbered among the twenty-five illustrious "conservators" of Magna Charta. This Hugh, third Earl, married Maud, the eldest of the three great Pembroke co-heiresses; and their son Roger obtained from Henry III., in her right, the great hereditary office of Earl Marshal of England. In 1247, "the King solemnly gave the Marshal's Rod into her" (the Countess Maud's) "hands, in regard of her seniority in the inheritance of Walter Marischal, sometime Earl of Pembroke; which she thereupon delivered unto this Earl Roger, her son and heir." Earl Roger, "noted for his singular skill in all warlike exercises," was one of the most accomplished knights of his day; and had few equals either in the tilt-yard[46] or the field. His domain contained one hundred and sixty-two knight's fees: and he stands forth in history as the true type of the great feudal Seigneur, haughty in bearing and fearless of tongue, whose power in the realm might challenge—if it did not threaten—the authority of the King himself. His name is brought prominently before us in all the transactions of Henry III.'s reign; and Dugdale has preserved two characteristic anecdotes of him. In 1248, "having advertisement that the Earl of Gisnes was arrived in England, this Earl caused him to be taken; by reason whereof, a great complaint was made. Whereupon, being sent for to give answer thereunto, he told the King, That when he himself went as Ambassador to the Council at Lions, riding through the territories of that Earl, instead of kind usage, for the many favours he had received from the King, he was shamefully dealt with, having his Horses and Servants detained, until he had satisfied their unreasonable demands for his passage: which incivility, he had now only retaliated to him, passing through his Lands, saying to the King, 'Sir, I do hold my Land as freely of you, as he holds his of the King of France, and am an Earl as well as he. How happens it then, that he hath power to make merchandise of the Ways and Air unto Passengers?'" Some years afterwards, he had an altercation with the King himself. When "making a just apology for Robert de Ros, then charged with some crime that endangered his life, he had very harsh language given him by the King, being openly called Traytor. Whereupon, with a stern countenance, he told the King 'That he lied'; and, 'that he never was, nor would be a Traytor'; adding, 'If you do nothing but what the Law warranteth, you can do me no harm.' 'Yes,' quoth the King, 'I can thrash your Corn, and sell it, and so humble you.' To which he replied, 'If you do so, I will send you the Heads of your Thrashers.' But by the interposing of the Lords then present, this heat soon passed over." Towards the close of his career, he joined the Baronial standard, and was appointed Constable of Oxford. He died s. p. in 1269, having married the Scottish princess Isabel, daughter of William the Lion, to whose brother, Alexander II. of Scotland, he had been in ward. The Earldom then passed to his nephew Roger, fifth Earl of Norfolk and second Earl Marshal, the son of Hugh Bigod, appointed Justiciary of England by the Barons in 1257; "a famous Knight, and Skillfull in the Laws of the Land, who stoutly executing the Office of Justitiar, suffered not the rights of the Kingdom at all to waver." "This great and last Earl of his Family," as Dugdale terms him, was no whit behind his predecessors in spirit and daring. He and another "stout Earl," Humphrey de Bohun, resisted Edward I.'s oppressive and vexatious war taxes, invited the Londoners to stand up for their liberties, and resolutely refused to follow the King to Flanders until he had ratified the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest. He attended his sovereign in the Welsh and Scottish campaigns; but when summoned to go to the war of Gascony without him, he and the Earl of Hereford, then Lord High Constable, claimed the privileges of their tenure. "I will go," quoth Bigod, "if you, Sir King, go in person, and attend you in the fore-front of the army, as I am bound to do by hereditary right; but otherwise I will not go." "But you shall go with others," cried the angry King, "and that without me!" "I am not so bound," replied Bigod, "neither will I go without you." Then the King swore a great oath—"By God! Sir Earl, you shall either go or hang!" "Sir King," retorted Bigod, "I will neither go nor hang"; and "so departed without leave." Yet this notable passage of arms, and perchance others of like quality, led to no ultimate breach between them; for the Earl, some five years before his death, settled the whole of his possessions on the King. Various motives have been suggested for his so doing: but there were at least three sufficiently cogent ones. He was in want of money; he had no children; and he had quarrelled irretrievably with his heir. "His younger brother. John, a rich dignified churchman, having lent him great sums of money which he exacted again in haste, the Earl constituted King Edward I. heir to all his estates, and delivered also to him the Marshal's Rod, upon condition of having it rendered back to him in case he should have any children; as likewise to have £1000 pension for his life, and £1000 in present from the King to pay his debts.[47] This instrument was dated from St. John's, Colchester, in 1302."—Morant's Essex. The more completely to exclude this unlucky John from the succession, he at the same time surrendered his Earldom into the King's hands; which was then re-granted to him with limitation to the heirs male of his body. The settlement signed at Colchester included all his castles, towns, lands, and tenements in England and Wales, with the famous castle of Bungay, which he had received license to rebuild; but reserved Settrington and three other Yorkshire manors, as well as two more in Norfolk. Settrington was, it appears, the residence of his uncle Ralph (the Justiciary's younger son), who married Berta Furnivall, and had a daughter named Isabel, married first to Gilbert de Lacy, and secondly to John Fitz Geoffrey. There is no mention of a son; yet the name existed in Yorkshire at least three hundred years after this; for we find Sir Francis Bigod of Mogreve Castle, in Blakemore, taking an active part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He sent out a circular through Richmondshire and the county of Durham, inviting the people to a muster at Settrington, raised an enthusiastic force, and captured Beverley. He was executed with the other leaders in 1537. The family must have been extinct in 1666, as the name does not occur in Dugdale's Visitation of the county. A branch of the Bigots settled in Somersetshire, where they owned the parish of Marston-Bigot. "Walter de Bigot was Lord 43 Hen. III., and was succeeded by Richard de Bigot, his son, who, incurring the displeasure of Edward II. by fortifying his mansion here without licence, and disrespecting the King's messenger, forfeited his land here to the Crown."—Collinson's Somerset. Bohun : in Leland's list, Boown. Two leagues south of Carentan, in a low and isolated situation, adjoining the Marshes of the Taute, are the two villages called the Bohons—the parishes of St. Georges and St. Andre-de-Bohon—that gave their name to this illustrious house. They belong to the arrondissement of St. Lo, in the Cotentin. The site of the castle, with its moat, are plainly visible near St. Andre. Humphrey de Bohon founded a Benedictine Priory at St. Georges in 1092.—M. de Gerville. "De Bohun le Vieil Onfrei," who held the fief at the time of the Conquest, and was known as Humphrey with the Beard,[48] though said to have been near of kin to Duke William, was but slenderly rewarded for his prowess at Hastings. Wace speaks of him as among the foremost in the battle; yet all he received was the Norfolk manor of Talesford. It was the extraordinary succession of great alliances made by his descendants that gave the name its lustre, and wealth of accumulated dignities. His son, Humphrey Magnus, founded the fortunes of his family by his marriage with a great Wiltshire heiress, the daughter of Edward of Salisbury; and his grandson, Humphrey III., married the eldest of the three daughters of Milo of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, Constable of England, and eventually the co-heir of her brother Mahel. She brought him as her dower, with twenty knight's fees, the office of Lord High Constable, which "went with inheritance, and by the tenure of the manors of Haslefield, Newman, and Whitenhurst,[49] in Gloucestershire, by grand serjeancy."—Duncumb's Herefordshire. He was Seneschal to Henry I., and Sewer both in Normandy and England to the Empress Maud, in whose cause he fought and was taken prisoner at the battle of Winchester. His only son, Humphrey IV., whose wife was a Scottish princess named Margaret, sister of William the Lion, and widow of Conan le Petit, Earl of Brittany and Richmond, was Constable of England in his mother's right, and according to the chartulary of Llanthony Abbey (their burial-place), succeeded to her Earldom: but in truth this was first granted to the next in succession, Henry de Bohun, by King John's charter of 1199. This Earl of Hereford was one of the twenty-five great barons appointed at Runnimede to be the guardians of Magna Charta; and "the next ensuing year, the Barons raising fresh troubles, was by the procurement of the King, excommunicated by the Pope."—Dugdale. He was one of the leaders of the rebellion against Henry III., and fell into the King's hands at Lincoln. He died in 1220, on his voyage to the Holy Land, having married Maud, only daughter of Geoffrey Fitz Piers, Earl of Essex, who inherited from her brother, William de Mandeville, the great honour of Essex, and all its manifold possessions. With her, too, came their famous badge of the white swan,[50] betokening her descent from the mystic Knight of the Swan (see Toesni), and ever after borne by her posterity. It thus became the cognizance of Thomas of Woodstock, the husband of the eldest co-heiress of the Bohuns (hence called by Gower Vox clementis cygni), whose seal is diapered with ostrich feathers and swans. His Duchess Eleanor bequeaths to her son Humphrey "un psaultier, bien et richement enlumine, ove les claspes d'or enamailes ove cignes blank": and when this good Duke, Lord Protector of Henry VI., was murdered in 1447. a poem of the time announces that "The Swanne is goon." Henry IV., who married the other co-heiress, bore her silver swan, ducally gorged and chained Or, on his banner; and it is one of the badges, used by Henry V., that are carved on the cornice of his chantry in Westminster Abbey. Humphrey V., Earl both of Hereford and Essex as the son of this illustrious heiress, officiated as Marshal of the King's house at Henry III.'s marriage in 1236, and three years later was one of the nine godfathers of his eldest son. "The custody of the Marches of Wales was committed to him, and he acquired the truly honourable distinction of the Good Earl of Hereford from his zealous opposition to the arbitrary measures proposed by the King."—Duncumb. Twice already he had protested against them; once in 1227, when he "demanded the restoration of the Charter of Liberties;" and again in 1253, "when that formal curse was denounced in Westminster Hall against the Violaters of Magna Charta, with Bell, Book, and Candle."—Dugdale. When the Barons' War broke out, he and his two sons were foremost in taking up arms against the King; and the eldest of them, Humphrey VI., was one of the chief commanders at Lewes, and again at the disastrous rout of Evesham, where, "it is said by some, that when he came near the place of fight, he withdrew himself." Be this as it may, both he and his father were taken prisoners; and while the Earl was pardoned and restored within the year, the son died soon after in captivity at Beeston Castle in Cheshire, whither he had been carried. Faithful to the family tradition, he had taken to wife an heiress of the best blood in England, Eleanor de Braose, the daughter of the Lord of Brecknock, by Eva, one of the five co-heirs of William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke; and their son, Humphrey VII., inherited the Earldom at his grandfather's death in 1275. He and Roger Bigod were the two bold Earls who, in 1296, when ordered out to take the command of the army in Gascony, declared they would go if the King went, but not else; for, as Lord High Constable and Earl Marshal of England, they were bound only to attend upon the Sovereign himself in war. To assert their privilege, "the two Earls put themselves in Arms; which being discerned, that business was prosecuted no further."—Dugdale. The next heir, Humphrey VIII, achieved the crowning triumph in this long category of splendid alliances by marrying the King's daughter, Elizabeth Plantagenet, widow of John, Earl of Holland. He followed his father-in-law to Scotland on five several occasions, and is "li Conestables Joefnes homes, riches et metables, Ki Ouens estoit de Herefort;" of the Roll of Carlaverock; justly described as "the most distinguished nobleman in the kingdom." Five years afterwards, he received from Edward I. a grant of the whole territory of Annandale, that had been wrested from Robert Bruce. During the next reign he was the determined antagonist of the King's worthless favourites, actively opposed Piers Gaveston, and was present when he was beheaded near Warwick in 1314; then engaging with equal zeal against the younger Despencer, he joined the Earl of Lancaster in his unsuccessful revolt. He lost his life after the defeat at Boroughbridge, where, while endeavouring to cross the bridge, he was run through the body with a lance by a soldier that lurked underneath. He left five surviving sons; John, Humphrey, Edward, William, and AEneas; of whom the two elder each inherited the Earldoms. John held them only four years; Humphrey IX., who succeeded at twenty-four, died unmarried in 1361; Edward was already dead, leaving no issue; and the honours and heritage descended on William's son, Humphrey X. William de Bohun, "a right valiant and expert commander," who had died the year preceding, was created Earl of Northampton when the Black Prince was created Duke of Cornwall in 1337, and received splendid grants from the Crown, including the castle and town of Stamford with the lordship of Grantham in Lincolnshire, Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire, and Oakham in Rutlandshire. No man had more fairly earned the King's favour. He served him well and faithfully through life, following step by step in the wake of his fortunes, and commended as an excellent soldier in an age when, all alike competed for glory in the field. He was one of the Marshals of the army in Flanders in 1338; in the great sea-fight at Sluys in 1340; at "that famous Feast and Jousting, which the King made for love of the Countess of Salisbury" in the same year; his Lieutenant and Captain-General in Brittany in 1342; among the chief leaders of the heroes of Cressy; twice commissioned to treat with the Scots, and Lord Warden of the Marches towards Scotland. His wife, Elizabeth, one of the co-heiresses of Giles, last Lord Badlesmere, was a great benefactress of the Church; and among numerous other gifts, bestowed on the house of the Black Friars in Ludgate (where she was buried) "a Cross made of the Wood of the very Cross of Our Saviour, which she usually carried about her, wherein was contained one of the Thorns of his Crown." Humphrey X. united the three Earldoms of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton, "but these great honours were not long by him enjoyed"; for he died in his thirty-second year, the last survivor of his princely race. He had married the daughter of his guardian the Earl of Arundel, and left only two little girls to represent all the power, wealth and grandeur of the Bohuns. Both of them were matched with the kindred blood of Plantagenet. Eleanor, the eldest, married Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the sixth son of Edward III., to whom she brought the office of Lord High Constable, and the Lordships of Essex and Northampton. The second, Mary, became Queen of England. Her husband, Henry Earl of Derby, the son of John of Gaunt, was created Duke of Hereford in her honour two years before he ascended the throne as the first King of the House of Lancaster. The Barons Bohun of Midhurst represented, in the female line, a younger son of "le viel Onfroy" of the Conquest, Richard de Meri, Sieur de Bohun, 1070-1113, whose daughter and heir carried his Norman barony to one Engelger, supposed to have been by birth an Angevin. Engelger's daughter must have been the wife of Savaric Fitz Cana, for their eldest surviving son, Savaric Fitz Savaric, inherited the barony in 1180. Savaric Fitz Cana was the son of Cana, daughter of Gelduin II., Lord of Chaumont-sur-Loire, by her second husband, Ralph de Beaumont, Vicomte du Mans, whom she married about 1055. When the Honour of Arundel was forfeited to the Crown in 1102 by the outlawry of Robert de Belesme, some "rich manors lying on either bank of the Arun between Arundel and the sea," were bestowed upon Savaric, to which Henry I., by a subsequent grant, added Easebourn, Midhurst, and Lynchmere. His eldest son died s. p., and the second, Savaric Fitz Savaric, became Baron of Bohun on the death of his uncle, Engelger II.;[51] but he again left no posterity, and the son of the third brother, Franco Fitz Gelduin, became the heir. He is best known as Franco de Bohun, the name which he adopted and transmitted to his descendants. His grandson and namesake, who obtained a share in the great Pembroke inheritance through his marriage with Sibyl, one of the seven daughters of William de Ferrars Earl of Derby, by his first wife, Sibyl de Mareschal, was summoned to Parliament in 1295 as one of the barons of realm. This writ of summons, was, however, never repeated either to his son or grandson, and it was not till 1354 that one was received by his great-grandson John, Lord Bohun of Midhurst. But neither his son John nor his descendants were ranked, as Dugdale relates, among the barons of the realm, thus showing, in Dugdale's opinion, that a writ of summons was not then conceived to create an hereditary dignity. The said John de Bohun had a son Humphrey, whose son, another John, had issue two daughters his co-heirs, whereof Mary married David Owen, a natural son of Owen Tudor; and Ursula married Robert Southwell, but had not any issue. "Sir David Owen, by Mary his wife, had Henry his. eldest son, who was a great spendthrift, and sold the reversion of the manor of Cowdrey, co. Sussex, &c, after his father's death, to Sir William Fitz William, for two thousand one hundred and ninety-three pounds, six shillings, and eight-pence."—Banks. Bailif : "from the Norman office of Le Bailli, a species of Viscount or Sheriff. The name occurs as Bailof in Battle Abbey Roll" (this is in Leland's copy). "The office, being of importance, was usually held by Normans of rank."—The Norman People. My own conviction is, that Bailif here stands for Baliol—one of the great names hitherto supposed to be missing on the Roll. In an old list, preserved in the Durham Bolden-Buke, of the "Chivaliers demorantes en le Franchise de Duresme demy Tyne et Teys, q. furent a Baner en le temps le Roy Henry, fitz, le Roy John, a le Bataille de Lewes," the three first names we find are the following:— "John de Baillof demorants a Chastell Bernard: Hugh de Baillof son fitz a Seleby: Eustace de Baillof dem'ant a Querundon." In another similar MS. list, said to have been found in Lord Conyers' study, the name is spelt Bailiffe; but in both cases it stands for Baliol.—Hutchinson's Durham, vol. i., p. 220. It is the name of a small Norman town, Bailleul, two miles from Argenton, "d'ou e'taient originaires les Bailleuls, Rois d'Ecosse."—Vosgier, 1799. The above-mentioned John was fifth in descent from Guy, the patriarch of the race, who received from William Rufus the barony of Bywell in Northumberland, and the forests of Teesdale and Marwood, the lordship of Middleton-in-Teesdale, and Gainford, "with all their royalties, franchises, and immunities," in the co. of Durham. His son, Barnard I., who "shared in the honour of the signal defeat which the Scots sustained at the battle of the Standard" in 1138, built the famous stronghold that gives its name to the town of Barnard Castle on Tees. He chose a noble site for the head of his Honour. "Barnard Castle," as Leland says, "standith statelie upon Tese," crowning the precipitous rock that here stems the wild current of the river, and guarding its passes from this overhanging brow. It once covered seven acres of ground, and was reputed the strongest fortress in the North of England; and though its fair battlements have been long since defaced and ruined, it still towers aloft in its pride of place, looking down upon the grey roofs clustering at its fee:.:he beautiful Tees rushing past in its wooded glen, and far over Marwood Chase to the moorland hills beyond. There is a fine description of "proud Barnard's bannered towers" in Rokeby— "High crowned he sits, in dawning pale, The sovereign of the lovely vale." But the view, magnificent as it is, fills short of the compass ascribed to it by Scott:— "Nor Tees alone, in dawning bright, Shall rush upon the ravish'd sight: But many a tributary stream Each from its own dirk dell shall gleam: Staindrop, who from her sylvan bowers Salutes proud Raby's battled towers: The rural brook of Egliston; And Balder, named from Odin's son: And Greta, to whose banks ere long We lead the lovers of the song: And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild. And fairy, Thorsgill's murmuring child: And last and least, but loveliest still, Romantic Deepdale's slender rill." When Alexander of Scotland invade i the Northern counties in 1216, he reconnoitred Castle Barnard (as it was first called), but left it unmolested; for, while surveying its formidable defences, a cross-bow shaft from the battlements laid his brother-in-law, Eustace de Vesci. dead at his feet. "Barnard II. succeeded his father before 1167. In 1174 he joined Robert de Stuteville and other Northern barons in relieving Alnwick Castle, then besieged by William King of Scotland. Towards morning, when they had proceeded about twenty-five miles from Newcastle, so thick a fog arose as to render the march dubious or dangerous; but sensible of the advantages of speed and decision: 'Stay or turn who will,' said Baliol, 'if I go alone, yet will I onward.' Fortune favoured the enterprise; the mist suddenly dispersed, and the towers of Alnwick glittered before them in the morning sun. William of Scotland was observed in the distance in the open field, with no stronger escort than a party of sixty horse, whilst most of his troops, fearless of any surprise, were plundering the country in scattered parties. After a short but gallant resistance the Lion of Scotland was led away prisoner, and delivered to King Henry at Northampton."—Surtees. Barnard II.'s grandson, Hugh, one of the great Northern barons, answered for thirty knight's fees in 1215, and throughout the Baron's war stoutly maintained his allegiance to the King, being accounted one of his "fautors and evil counsellors." He was lavishly rewarded with confiscated estates; and "Certain it is," says Dugdale, "that Hugh Baliol benefited himself not a little in those troublesome times of King John; for when all was at quiet at the entrance of Henry III., he could not forbear his wonted course of plundering." His son and heir, John, who was taken prisoner with Henry III. at Lewes, married the great heiress that transformed the fortunes of the family, Devorguill, the daughter of Alan of Galloway and the Scottish princess Margaret, and eventually eldest co-heir of the blood royal of Scotland. This "brought him into close connection with the Scottish kingdom. On the marriage of Margaret of England to the young King of Scotland, the tuition of the Royal infants and of their kingdom was committed to him, and to another powerful baron still nearer to the Border, Robert Ros, of Wark. Within two years they were both accused of abusing their authority as Regents. The rich and powerful Baliol made his peace partly by payment of a heavy fine, and partly by calling to Henry's recollection the services which his father had often rendered to his father John at his greatest need."—Surtees. He died in 1268, and the Lady Devorguill had his heart embalmed and encased in a coffin of enamelled ebony, "Lockit and bounden with silver bright," which she carried with her wherever she went. At dinner and supper, she caused it to be laid on her husband's vacant seat, and never took her own place at the table till she had paid it due reverence—the same accustomed reverence as if her lord had been actually in presence. When she died she directed that it should be laid on her breast in her coffin, and buried with her in the Cistercian house she had founded for its reception—Dolce Cor, or Sweet Heart Abbey, near Dumfries. Her husband had given "annual exhibitions to certain poor scholars of Oxford," requesting her on his death-bed to continue this charity; and she dutifully undertook the completion of his design, and founded Baliol College in 1284. She was the mother of four sons and four daughters. Alan, the eldest son, had not survived his father; Hugh, the 2nd, died s. p. in 1271; as did Alexander, the 3rd, in 1279; and John, the youngest, then succeeded to a vast inheritance. "Besides Barnard and its dependencies, he held the barony of Bywell in Northumberland, and large estates in Herts, Northampton, and several southern counties. In Scotland he inherited from his mother the lordship of Galloway, the castle of Botel in Kenmare, and Kirk-Andrews; whilst in France he still held the ancient Norman estates of his house, Bailleul, Dampierre, Harcourt, and Verney. From Devorguill he derived the very dubious blessing of the nearest claim in blood to the crown of Scotland, after the decease of the Maid of Norway; and under the decision of Edward I. of England, to whom, as lord paramount, the competitors submitted their pretensions, his title, as representing the eldest daughter of David Earl of Huntingdon, was pronounced superior to those of Bruce and Hastings, who derived from younger daughters, and he was crowned King of Scotland at Scone on St. Andrew's Day, 1292."—Ibid. But this ill-starred greatness led only to the downfall of his house. His reign proved as brief as it was disastrous, and was remembered with such bitterness, that "his very name was accounted unfortunate, and no King of Scotland was ever after allowed to bear it." In little more than three years and a half he was kneeling a suppliant, stripped of every ornament of royalty, at Edward's feet, confessing, "for very fear of his life, his several offences against his liege lord; and then, by delivery of his wand and star, making full resignation of all his right to the crown and realm of Scotland into the hands of the King of England."—Ibid. Not only was he bereft of his kingdom, but of almost all his splendid inheritance, and "passed, without a blow, from a throne to an English prison." He did not, however, remain long in the Tower, and was not banished the kingdom; but eventually retired to Normandy, where he still retained his ancestral estates, and died at Chateau Gaillard, a blind and neglected old man, in 1314. His son, Edward Baliol, on the death of King Robert Bruce, by a bold stroke seated himself on the vacant throne: and having acknowledged Edward as his suzerain, was for some years upheld there by the power of England; but in 1339 even this phantom sovereignty came to an end, and he died an obscure pensioner of the English crown. He left no children by the French princess he had married; and as his only brother Henry had been slain on his part at Annan in 1332, the chief male line of Baliol terminated with him. Collateral branches were, however, no: wanting: besides "many sprinklings of this great house that can scarcely with any certainty be applied to the parent stock," Surtees thus enumerates them:— Barnard, son of Eustace, and brother of Hugh de Baliol (one of King John's evil counsellors) was still living, and a baron by tenure in 1245. His descendants are not mentioned. Ingelram, a younger son of Barnard II., acquired Inverkeillour, in Forfar, through the heiress of Walter de Berkeley. Chamberlain of Scotland, and built Red Castle near the mouth of Lunan Water. He was the grandfather of a second Ingelram, one of the Magnates of Scotland. 1280-84, who died childless; and in 1308 Red Castle had passed to the son of Constance de Baliol, Henry de Fishburn. Eustace, supposed to be a brother of the elder John de Baliol, was a baron by tenure and Sheriff of Cumberland in 1260. having married a great Cumberland heiress, Hawyse de Levinton. Nothing is said of his posterity. Alexander, Lord of Cavers in Roxburghshire, whom Dugdale calls King John's brother, and others have declared to be his uncle. He was assuredly neither the one nor the other, for in one of his charters (dated 6 Hen. III., and preserved in the register of Binham Abbey. Norfolk), he gives the names of his father, Henry de Baliol, and his mother Lora. Henry de Baliol's parentage has not been ascertained: but Lora "was the daughter of Peter de Valoines, and, as the co-heir of Christian, Countess of Essex, brought her husband lands in Norfolk, Essex, and Herts. Alexander himself obtained the Kentish Honour of Chilham through his wife Isabel de Dover, the widowed Countess of Atholl, and was Chamberlain of Scotland 1290-1307. He witnessed John de Baliol's homage to Edward for the crown of Scotland in 1292, as one of the Scottish Magnates; but afterwards zealously espoused the English interests, and was repeatedly summoned for service in the Scottish wars. He was a baron by writ in 1299, and the next year followed the King to the siege of Carlaverock:— "Mes Alissandres de Bailloel, Ke a tout bien fere metoit le oel, Jaune baniere avoit el champ Al rouge escu voidie du champ." He is believed to have died about the year 1309, and left a son of his own name, who was the father of Thomas, presumed to have been "the last male heir of Baliol." His sister and heiress, Isabel, was given in marriage by David II. to Ranald More. "The Lords of Cavers," says Surtees, "still existed in 1368, but every trace of the name was extinguished before the close of the fourteenth century." There is an old Kentish house that claims to descend from the royal Devorguill, though it bears neither the name nor the arms of Baliol. Its pedigree assigns to her two more younger sons, Alexander of Chilham (who was, as we have seen, only a kinsman), and William, unnoticed, as far as I am aware, in any other record. He was, it goes on to say, styled Le Scot, and, dying about 1313, lies buried in the Whitefriars Church at Canterbury. His descendants, who all bore the name of Scott, were seated at Brabourne and Scott's Hall in Kent, and eminent among the gentlemen of the county. Many of them appear as Sheriffs and knights of the shire; one was Chief Justice of the King's Bench and Knight Marshal of England; another was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and sent by Edward IV. on an embassy to France; while a third, appointed to command the Kentish levies at the approach of the Armada, was so popular and powerful in his neighbourhood, that he was able to despatch 4000 men to Dover the very day after he had received his commission from the Council. Seventeen generations of Scotts lie buried in Brabourne Church, where several stately monuments—among them a very singular one in the shape of a reredos or altar—have been raised to their memory. There is a curious heart-shrine that belonged to the family in the same church, which Mr. Scott conjectures once contained the heart of John de Baliol, brought thither when "their troubles with England came on, and the Baliols became unpopular in Scotland;" a mild form of expression for the downfall of a dynasty. But is it credible that the coffin of the royal Devorguill should have been opened in a religious house of her own foundation, in order to remove the treasured relic from which that house took its name? Nor do I believe that a brother of King John of Scotland—a prince of the blood of Malcolm Canmore—lived and died utterly ignored by every contemporary chronicler, and content to abdicate both his name and his coat of arms.[52] But William Le Scot might possibly be identified with a Sir William de Baliol, who died in 1313 (though there is no record of this latter having discarded his patronymic), and "seems to have belonged in some shape to the line of Cavers, but his exact position has not been ascertained."—Ibid. Was he the same William de Baliol who held lands in Notts and Derby by knight-service, and was ordered to attend muster at Nottingham, 25 Ed. I.? Bondeuile : from the castle of Bondeville or Bonneville in Normandy. There is a Richard de Bondeville entered on the Dives Roll; and in 1165 the son of Robert de Bonavilla held lands in York.—Liber Niger. "In 35 Hen. III., William the son of Nicholas de Bonvile, having all accoutrements prepared at the King's charge, solemnly received the honour of Knighthood, on the Festival of our Saviour's Nativity, the same year: and, upon his Father's death in 49 Hen. III. had livery of his lands, lying in Com. Somers."—Dugdale. To him succeeded a second Nicholas, who died in 1294: but after his another hiatus occurs in the pedigree; and we only take up the broken thread again in 1378, when we find Sir William de Bonvile, Sheriff of Dorset and Somerset, and some years later, of Devonshire. He had considerable possessions in the West country, and a residence at Exeter, where he founded a Hospital for twelve poor men and women. He was followed in 1408 by his grandson and namesake, a soldier of renown in the French wars, who inherited another Somersetshire estate from his cousin John de Bonvile of Meryat. He first took the field in the retinue of Thomas Duke of Clarence, under the victorious banner of Henry V.: then, as Seneschal of Acquitaine, was retained to serve his successor with twenty men-at-arms and six hundred archers, and "merited so well for his services "that he was summoned to parliament as Lord Bonvile of Chuton in 1469. A few years afterwards he was constituted Constable of Exeter for life, and Lieutenant of Acquitaine. But he and his house perished, like so many others, in the havoc of the ensuing Civil War. He was a zealous partisan of the House of York: and none among all the fortunes that "withered with the White Rose," underwent so cruel and instantaneous a collapse. Within a space of less than two months, three generations of Bonviles—the last heirs male of their lineage—had been swept away, and the name which he had made glorious existed no more. His eldest son William had married the heiress of Lord Harrington, and was the father of another William, who inherited his mother's barony, and took to wife a daughter of the Earl of Salisbury, Lady Catherine Nevill. Both son and grandson were slain before his eyes at the battle of Wakefield, on the last day of the year 1460, and in the month of February following, his own grey head fell on the scaffold. He had been one of the Yorkist barons in whose custody Henry VI. had been placed when he was taken prisoner at Northampton, thus incurring the bitter hostility of the Queen: and at the second battle of St. Albans, "when the rest of the Lords (who then also being there, were entrusted with the like custody of that King), fled away to their party, he would have withdrawn himself, had not the King assured him that he should receive no bodily hurt." But though he had surrendered on the faith of this Royal promise that his life should be spared, it was not kept: for "Such," continues Dugdale, "was the indignation of the Queen towards him, that they rested not till they had taken off his Head." One little great-grand-daughter was thus, by "a very singular and almost unparalleled course of descent," left to inherit his great possessions, Cecily, in her own right Baroness Bonvile and Harrington, then a child of ten years old. She was given in marriage by Edward IV. to the eldest son of his Queen, Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and was the great-grandmother of Lady Jane Grey. Her second husband was Lord Henry Stafford, a younger son of the second Duke of Buckingham, who was created Earl of Wiltshire in 1509, but by him she left no children. Brabason : a Brabant family, that appears to have settled in Normandy. "In 1198 Thomas Brabancon paid a fine of £50 in Normandy, and Roger lent £15 to the King (Magn. Rotul. Scaccar. Norm.). The family continued in Normandy (La Roque, Maison d'Harcourt, i. 604)."—The Norman People. Jacques le Brabancon followed the Conqueror to England. His descendants, first seated at Betchworth in Surrey, were transplanted into Leicestershire about the time of Henry III. through the heiress of Sir John de Moseley. "Eastwell was for many hundred years the inheritance and chief seat in this county of the antient Family of Brabason; of which house was Sir Roger Brabason, who in 1290 was one of the Judges of the Common Pleas, and had £23 6s. 8d. allowed him as his salary, and was afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. In 1307 he was appointed Constable of the Tower, and in 1316, for that he had served the office of Lord Chief Justice till he was very antient, was honourably released from the place, and made one of the King's Privy Council."—Nichol's Leicestershire. As one of the King's Judges, he had been summoned to Parliament from 1294 to 1314; "but in the latter year had summons among the barons of the realm; for it seems that in those days the parliament was (not unfrequently) called together by a consimilar writ, directed as well to the nobles as to the King's Justices, which latter were not, on these occasions, distinguished from the barons as caeteris de consilio nostro."—Banks. According to the peerages, he died childless, and the line was carried on by his brother Matthew, the ancestor of the Earl of Meath. "However, if Burton" (History of Leicester, p. 250,) "is to be credited, he had issue a son, William Brabazon, who married Janet, daughter of William Trussel. and had a son John, whose sole daughter and heir Joan, carried the manor of Sproxton in marriage to William Woodford."—Ibid. Either the above-mentioned William, or his cousin of the same name (for Matthew, too, had a son William) was knight of the shire for Leicester in 1313, and summoned for service in Gascony in 1325. Another Brabazon was slain at Bosworth Field. Sir William, who d:ed in 1552, "seised in fee of the manor of Eastwell, held of the King as of his Duchy of Lancaster," had been appointed in 1534 Vice-Treasurer and General-Receiver of Ireland, and was "one of the most faithful men to the English interest that had appeared in the country from the Conquest to that day." The year after his arrival, Lord Chief Justice Aylmer writes to Lord Cromwell, that he "is extolled as having saved the Kingdom;" and he was three several times named Justiciar. His energy and determination forced the acts abolishing the supremacy and jurisdiction of the Pope through the Irish parliament, and obtained the surrender of the religious houses; while, by carrying fire and sword into their territories, he brought the marauding rebel chiefs to their knees. He had acquired an Irish estate, and both his sons—though the elder held lands in various English counties, and occasionally resided at Nether Whitacre in Warwickshire—elected to become Irishmen. This elder son, Edward, who was little more than three years old at the time of his death, was created Baron of Ardee in 1615, and was the father of William, first Earl of Meath. Charles I., who bestowed this title upon the latter in 1627, had at the same time named him one of his Privy Council; and in 1644 he and two others of its members. Sir Henry Tichborne and Sir James Ware, were sent by the Marquess of Ormonde (then Lord Lieutenant) to confer with the King at Oxford on the affairs of Ireland. They had transacted their business, and were on their passage home, when they were chased and captured by a Parliament ship, and had barely time to toss into the sea the King's packet of letters to Ormonde, before they found themselves prisoners. All three were committed to the Tower, where Meath remained eleven months in confinement. He died in 1651, and has been followed by eleven successive Earls of his name. Sir Anthony, the second son of the Lord Justice, was appointed Governor of Connaught, and became seated at Ballinasloe in Galway. His grandson and namesake "upon the beginning of the commotions in 1641, forsook his religion and became a Papist; his father and grandfather having been good Protestants." He was the ancestor of the families of Ballinasloe, Partri, Newpark, Carrstown, and Killaly, in the counties of Roscommon, Louth, and Mayo, and of Anthony Brabazon, of Brabazon Park, in the latter county, who received an Irish baronetcy in 1797. It expired with his son, and his estate passed to the children of his sister, Mrs. Hercules Sharpe. Baskeruile : (in Wace, Basquevile). Martels de Basquevile was at the battle of Hastings. This was the descendant of Nicholas de Basquevile, one of the six sons of Baudry-le Teuton, who derived his name from Basceville or Basqueville, in the Fays de Caux, which continued to be the fief of Martel for two centuries. "The continuator of William de Jumieges, enumerating the nieces of Gunnora, Countess of Richard I. of Normandy, mentions one who married Nicholas de Bascheritivilla (vulgo Basqueville), and was the mother of William Martel and Walter de St. Martin."—Eyton's Shropshire. Bacquevile or Baskerville is not written in Domesday; but Mr. A. S. Ellis suggests that the surname of Ralph, a sub-tenant of Roger de Laci, at Icombe, in Salemanesberie hundred, and Winrush, Gloucestershire, was probably De Baskerville. In 1109, Robert de Baskerville, on his return from the Holy Land, granted lands to Gloucester Abbey (Mon. I. 115). Either he, or another of the same name, held five knight's fees in 1165 of Hugh de Laci in Herefordshire; and Radulph de Baskerville one fee under Adam de Port in the same county. Combe (Icombe) continued theirs for at least 200 years; and they were frequent benefactors to St. Peter's Abbey, where one of them, Bernard de Baskerville, assumed the habit of a monk. Sibilla de Baskerville—presumably the last heiress—was living in 1280.—v. Rudder's Gloucestershire. Long before this, however, the family had attained abnormal proportions, and extended into many other parts of the country. "At the beginning of the thirteenth century there were Baskervilles in Herefordshire, Northamptonshire and Shropshire, in Warwickshire, Norfolk, Buckinghamshire, Wiltshire, and possibly in other counties. No reasonable ground has yet occurred to my notice for further associating any two of the branches, except that the Shropshire and Northamptonshire branch was identical, and also had lands in Herefordshire. Yet these are not to be confounded with the Baskervilles of Eardisley in Herefordshire, however difficult it may be to preserve the distinction."—Eyton's Shropshire. This opens a wide and perplexing field of research, on which I must not attempt to enter. The principal house was that of Eardisley: "the habitation, for a long time, of the famous and ancient family of the Baskervilles, which bred in all times so many noted knights, and flourished long since in this county and its neighbour Shropshire, and held (to note so much by-the-bye) the hamlet of Lanton in Capite, as of the Honour of Montgomery, by the service of giving the King one barbed arrow as often as he came to hunt in Cormedon Chase."—Camden. Their tenure of Eardisley Castle "commenced at least as early as the thirteenth century. In 1251 Humphrey de Bohun and Aleanore his wife, by a fine granted the manor of 'Irdesle' to Walter de Baskerville (Close Rolls, 36 Hen. III. m. 16), but there is good reason to believe that his ancestors had been settled in that place—certainly in the county—at a much earlier date. They claim, indeed, to have acquired possession of the manor of Eardisley by the marriage of Sir Ralph Baskerville with Sibyl, heiress of Adam de Port and of his wife, who was a daughter of De Braose, and a grand-daughter of Milo, Earl of Hereford. With greater certainty we may state that Ralph de Baskerville held lands under Adam de Port de veteri feoffamento, i.e. by inheritance from the reign of Henry I. (Lib. Scut), and that on the murder of Ralph Baskerville in Northamptonshire about the year 1194, his son Thomas succeeded him at Pickthorn, the Shropshire estate (Eyton's Shropshire), and another son, Roger, at Eardisley in Herefordshire.—(Her. Visit.) "Walter de Baskerville, grandson of this Roger, had licence from the Bishop of Hereford in 1272 'to hold divine service in an oratory built within the walls of the castle' (Reg. Breton), and we may assume from this that Eardisley had then become the chief residence of the family, as it continued to be for the four succeeding centuries. "During that long period the house of Baskerville produced a series of knights, whom to mention by name would exceed our limits. They won their spurs not by wealth or by waiting upon the Court, but by active service at home and abroad, and on the grave of each might be inscribed the quaint old epitaph:— 'Eques Auratus well may he he said Whose coyne, not warlike courage, such hath made; To Baskerville, we Miles do afford As knighted on the field by his flesht sword.' "The most eminent members of the Eardisley line were Sir John Baskerville, who, while yet a boy, followed King Henry to the battlefield of Agincourt, and his son, Sir James, one of the three Herefordshire heroes who were made Knights Banneret by Henry VII. after the battle of Stoke in 1487. The latter married Sibyl, sister of Walter Devereux, first Lord Ferrers, who fell at Bosworth fighting against the cause which his brother-in-law supported. A descendant was Sir Thomas Baskerville, who died in 1597 commanding Queen Elizabeth's troops in Picardy. There was a tablet to his memory in old St. Paul's setting forth the glories 'of the right worthie and valiant gentlemen,' and his services in the Netherlands, Indies, Spain, and France, and attributing to him ' A pure regard to the immortall parte, A spotless minde and an unvanquisht heart.' In the Civil War, Sir Humphrey Baskerville of Eardisley took the side of the King, but was not actively engaged in the struggle. Indeed, the importance of the family had then begun to decline, and Symonds states that the income of the knight (whom he calls a traveller) had dwindled down from ,£3000 per annum to £300. Misfortunes continued to attend die family. The castle was burnt to the ground in the Civil War, only one of the gatehouses escaping, and in this the representative of the family was living in 1670 in comparative poverty.—(Blount's MS.). The parish register contains die burial entry of Benhail Baskerville in 1684, to whose name are added the words, 'Dominus Manerii de Erdisley.' At his death the family became extinct in the direct male line, and the remainder of the property (most of which had been sold by Sir Humphrey Baskerville in the reign of James I.) was purchased by William Barnesley, Bencher of the Inner Temple."—Castles of Herefordshire and their Lords, by C. J. Robinson. Ralph de Baskerville, who in 1165 held a knight's fee of Adam de Port in Herefordshire—probably at Bradwardine—is considered by Eyton to have been the progenitor of the Shropshire Baskervilles. About 1180, he was Lord of Pickthorn in that county, where his descendants continued for nine generations, and also held Lawton and other manors. He died in 1190, by the hand of one of his own vassals, leaving his son Thomas a minor. But no sooner was the young heir of age, than he challenged Roger Fitz William in the King's Court at Westminster, "for that wickedly, and in the King's peace, and in felony, and in murder, he slew Ralph de Baskerville his (Thomas') father in his house; and this the said Thomas saw, as he said, being a boy under age, and this he offers to prove against Roger with his body." This was in Easter Term, 1200; but it was only in the following year that the Court decided to allow the duel. "No record remains of this duel. The Appellant, however, survived it."—Eyton's Salop. The last of the line, John de Baskerville, died in infancy in 1383, and Pickthorn passed to his aunt, Margaret Foulhurst. Another John, descended from a younger brother, was living in the ensuing century; but his posterity likewise became extinct, and the Baskervilles of Newton had ended with an heiress in 1325. Those seated at Northwood were in fact Botterells, who, for some reason or other, bore their mother's, instead of their father's name; they, too, disappear after 1325. One single branch is all that is now left of this once far-spreading family,[53] and this only survives under a changed name. Its connection with the parent stock is not traced, and would have to be sought for in remote antiquity, as it has been seated in Cheshire for upwards of 600 years. "The early history of the Baskerville family is very obscure. No Inquisitiones post mortem were taken, as they held no lands directly under the Earl of Chester, and very few deeds relating to them have been met with."—Earwaker's East Cheshire. It is at all events certain that Sir John de Baskerville, about the year 1226, received from Robert de Camville a grant of Old Withington, and that this estate has been handed down to the present day by twenty generations of his successors. John Baskerville, who inherited it in 1718, having married Mary, daughter and heir of Robert Glegg, of Gayton-in-Wirrall in the same county, took the name and arms of Glegg, ever since retained by the family. Bures : Unless this be an interpolation, it cannot designate the ancient Suffolk family of Bures, who derived their name, not from the Norman town on the river Bethune in which Mabel de Belesme met her fate, but from Bures or Buer in the Hundred of Babergh, where St. Edmund. King of the East Angles, was crowned. They bore Ermine, on a chief indented Sable, two lions rampant Or. There was a French family thus denominated—one of whom, Pierre de Bures, was Viscount of Dieppe and Arques during the war of 1173-74—which very possibly had representatives in England, as the name is found in various parts of the country, and several different coats are assigned to it in Burke's Armoury. The Bowers of Iwerne House, Dorset, claim descent from Michael de Bures, a contemporary of the Conquerors, whose son Walter gave its present name of Bures to a small manor he possessed near Calne in Wiltshire. Nicholas de Boure, 2 Richard II., was seated at Boure's Place, near Deverell, holding part of his estate in capite; and Boure's Field, in the same county, belonged to his brother William. They bear Sable, three talbots' heads couped in chief, Argent langued Gules; in the middle point a cinquefoil Ermine. Sir Robert de Bures, Lord of Chartley, Stafford, served as Knight of the shire in 1313. Sir John de Bures of Somersetshire, several times mentioned at the same period in the Parliamentary Rolls, who likewise held lands in Berkshire and Gloucestershire, bore arms nearly identical with those of the Suffolk house. Bounilaine : evidently the Buttevillain of Levi's list: in Abbot Brompton's it appears as Boutevilain: and is Botevilain in the Roman de Rou. "Botevilain and Trossebot feared neither blow nor thrust, but heartily gave and took many on that day." Though thus signalised at the Battle of Hastings, the name does not occur in Domesday; and is only found in the following century in Norfolk and Northamptonshire. "Flordon (in the former county) came to the Buttevillains very early. Robert held it in 1139."—Blomfield. According to the Liber Niger, he held two knight's fees of Walter de Wahull, and three of Roger Bigot, Earl of Norfolk. His son William founded Pipewell Abbey in Northamptonshire, where "he held lands, at Pipewell and elsewhere. He was in great favour with Henry II., who, upon going into Normandy, gave him a writ, directed to the Bishops of London and Norwich, and to all his liege people, English and Norman, of Northamptonshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, granting him all the lands and other liberties that his father had enjoyed."—Banks. He married Joan, daughter of Sir Ralph Camois; and had a son, Robert, "one of the barons that levied war against King John, and received a pardon from Henry III. in 1216, yet was afterwards in arms against him both at Lewes and Evesham."—Blomfield. In this latter case the rebel must have been his son of the same name, called Roger by Matthew Paris, who tells us he was taken prisoner in 1264, but was subsequently pardoned. The next heir, William, is included by Banks among the Barones Pretermissi, as "one of those considerable men who, 24 Edward I. had summons to attend the great council, then appointed to convene at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, upon the subject of an expedition against the Scots. But after this period the name of Boutevelayn is no more noticed upon any similar occasion, although the posterity of this William long continued to possess considerable estates in Norfolk Northamptonshire, and elsewhere." Their possessions included Hastings and Gissing in Norfolk, Cottesbrook in Northants, and Fenwick and Thornditch in Bedfordshire. Sir William's son, Sir Robert, one of the tilters at the tournament at Stebenhithe (Stepney) and Dunstable in 1308, was slain on Midsummer Day, 1314, with the Earl of Gloucester in Scotland, and was followed by another Robert, "who 5 Hen. V. going into foreign parts, conveyed Cottesbrook to the Duke of Clarence and other feoffees for the time of his absence from the kingdom."—Bridge's Northants. With his son William the line terminated, and terminated miserably, for the last unhappy heir was an idiot. On his death in 1465, the estates passed to his two sisters, Elizabeth Chatterton and Julian Duke. The Boutevillians bore Argent, three crescents Gules. One of these Lords of Cottesbrook is roundly abused in the chronicle of Pipewell Abbey "It is there recorded that he denied the existence of the foundation charter; and worse than this, that, having claimed the maintenance of a horse and a pack of hounds at the Abbey, and suffered discomfiture by the ejection of his steed by a subtle device from the Abbot's stable, he threatened excision generally to their horse's tails, and dire demeanour to the brethren; for the which he was likened by them to Achitophel and to Herod." Bois : This name is only too amply represented. Five distinct families claiming it as their patronymic are specified in The Norman People, viz.: "1. De Bois-Arnaud, hereditary stewards of the Counts of Breteuil, sires of Poilly. Their signatures appear in the charter of William Fitz Osborne to Lire Abbey, temp. William the Conqueror. They long flourished in Leicester and Northants. "2. De Bois-Guillaume, of the bailifry of Caux, of William de Bois was seated in Essex, 1086. They long flourished in the Eastern Counties. "3. De Bois-Herbert, Barons of Halberton, Devon. Hugo de Bosco occurs 1083 (Exon. Domesday). They long flourished in Dorset, and the barons of Halberton, Devon, were a branch. "4. De Bois-Robert or Roard, of whom Robert de Bois and his brother held estates in Bucks, 1086. Sire Nicholas de Bois, of this family, lived in the fourteenth century. "5. De Bois, descended from a companion of Bernard de Neumarche, to whom he granted a barony in Brecknock, 1086, named after him Trebois." This opens a wide field for investigation, on which I feel I must leave it to other enquirers to win their spurs. Yet even so the list is incomplete, for it omits "Rogerus de Boscnorman," entered as a Northamptonshire baron in Domesday, and the great Kentish clan of Boys, of whom Hasted enumerates no less than ten branches seated at Fredville, Nonington, Betshanger,[54] Bonnington, Hoad, Barfriston, Denton, Tilmanstone, Sandwich, and St. Gregories. Their common ancestor was John de Bois, who died about thirty years after the Conquest; and they are mentioned by Phillpot in his Villare Paulinum, 1659, as having "been then settled for seventeen prior descents at Bonyngton." In the sixteenth century Sir John Boys founded Jesus Hospital at Canterbury: and in 1644 "Colonel John Boys was Governor of Donnington Castle in Berkshire, and was knighted by King Charles for his gallant defence of the castle against the rebels, receiving an augmentation to his bearing of a Crown imperial Or on a canton Azure."—Sir Bernard Burks. This very ancient East Kent family still survives in the main line. The name likewise travelled into Scotland. Sir Humphrey de Bois, of Dryfesdale, who was slain at Lochmaben in 1333, is supposed by Dalrymple to have been the ancestor of Hector Boece, the historian. Boteler : This name, as Pincerna, is three times entered in Domesday. "Hugo Pincerna" held a barony in Bedfordshire; and two others, Richard and Robert, were under-tenants, the first in Shropshire and Cheshire, the second in Shropshire only. The two first founded baronial families, and in giving some account of each of these, I will commence with Hugo, the feudal Butler of the Counts of Mellent. This dignity had been, and continued to be, hereditary in his family, as was then customary. He accompanied the Count to England in 1066, and received his share of the spoils awarded to the new Earl of Leicester. His son, Ralph Pincerna, had the custody of his suzerain's estates in 1130 (Rot. Pip.), and was a benefactor of Kenilworth Priory (Mon. ii. 115, 118, 134). Henry I. confirmed his grants. He was seated at Oversley in Warwickshire. "where," says Dugdale, "taking advantage of the natural Ascent of the Ground near the Stream of Arrow, he built a strong Castle, and within a Mile distance thereof (on the north side of Alcester) founded a Monastery for Benedictine monks anno 1140." His descendants, for three generations, were styled Pincerna, and then Le Botiller. One of them acquired the great Shropshire barony of Wem with the daughter of William Pantolf; another was a baron by writ 24 Ed. I.: and a third was disposed of in marriage by an agreement very characteristic of the times. He was only sixteen when his father died, and in the same year Walter de Beauchamp "obtained a grant of his marriage in behalf of Eleanor his daughter; and in case Eleanor should die before the accomplishment of that intended marriage, that then he might marry some other of his daughters. And, moreover, that if the said John le Botiller should depart this life before such marriage, that then the said Walter might have the same benefit of the next heir and so from heir to heir till one of his daughters were wedded to one of these Botillers." No man could have done more to secure an alliance on which he had set his heart; and yet it is very doubtful whether it ever took place. John died three years afterwards; and "whether this marriage was compleated by him or his brother Gawine (who was his heir) I make a question." The last Botiller lived in the time of Edward III., and left an heiress married to Sir Robert de Ferrers, who was thereupon summoned to Parliament as Baron of Wem. I find mention of at least three other representatives of Hugo Pincerna in the male line. His great grandson, "John, son of Robert Pincerna, son of Ralph (Mon. Angl. ii., 309), held lands in Bedford in 1165. Ralph le Botiler of Bedford, c. 1300, married Hawisia Gobiun, of the same county (Roberts, Cal. Gen.). In 1376 John Botiler married Isolda Gobiun, heiress of Waresley, Hunts, where he resided (Lodge, 'Irish Peerage '). From him descended the Butlers of Waresley, one of whom, George Butler, of Fen Drayton, Cambridge, was lineal ancestor of the Earls of Lanesborough. The arms of this family in various branches are those of the Botilers of Wemme."[55]—The Norman People. Sir Stephen Butler removed to Ireland in the reign of James I., and was the great grandfather of Brinsley, created in 1728 Viscount Lanesborough, whose son Humphrey was the first Earl of that name. Newton Butler, co. Fermanagh, takes its appellation from them. The second branch, of which Burke has not clearly made out the descent, was seated at Hatfield-Woodhall in Hertfordshire.[56] Sir John Butler of that place was first created a baronet by James I., and further advanced to a peerage by his successor in 1628 as Baron Butler of Bramfield in the same county. He was at the head of a goodly family of six sons and six daughters, but all the six sons died unmarried, and the title expired with the eldest in 1647. Another of the Botilers of Wem, named William, married Joan de Sudeley, sister of the last Lord Sudeley of Sudeley in Gloucestershire, who died unmarried in 1367. As her sister Marjory, the other co-heiress, left no children, this barony was eventually vested in her grandson, Sir Ralph Botiler. It was this Ralph that built Sudeley Castle, "of subject's castles the most handsome habitation, and of subject's habitations the strongest castle," of whom Leland says:—"The Lorde Sudeley that buildid the Castle was a famous Man of Warre in K. H. 5. and K. H. 6. Dayes, and was an Admirall (as I have heard) on Sea: whereupon it was supposed, and spoken, that it was partly builded ex spoliis Gallorum, and some speak of a Towre in it called Potmare's Towre, that it should be made of a Ransome of his. "One thinge was to be noted in this Castle, that part of the Windowes of it were glased with Berall." So splendid an abode well befitted its occupant, and the lengthy list of his honours and preferments, furnished by Dugdale. He had served his first campaign in the retinue of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in 1418: but three years later brought to the French wars a train of his own, composed of twenty men-at-arms and sixty archers on horseback, and throughout gained more than his full share of success and renown. He "stood firm to the Lancastrian Interest in all those sharp Contests betwixt that and the House of York;" and was amply rewarded for his fidelity by Henry VI. He was Chamberlain of the Royal Household and Baron Sudeley by letters patent in 1429, with a pension in support of his new dignity: Treasurer of the King's Exchequer in 1430; Lord Treasurer of England in 1443, receiving at the same time another annuity, and for "his Winter Robe, against Christmass, 10 Ells of fine Cloth of colour Violet in Grain; and for its Lining ccc Bellies of Minever"; joint governor, with Lord Beaumont, of the Channel Isles in 1446, and twice sent on embassies to France. "But upon thee Fall of King Henry the Sixth, the scene being changed, he excused himself from coming to Parliament by reason of his Age:" and withdrew altogether from public affairs. If he thus reckoned upon being unnoticed and passed over by his former enemies, he had left out of his calculations the tempting prize that even a sovereign might be found to covet. Accordingly, "K. E. 4 bore noe good Will to the L. Sudeley, as a Man suspected to be in heart K. H. 6 his Man; whereupon by complaints he was attached, and going up to London he looked from the Hill to Sudeley, and sayd, 'Sudeley Castle, thou art a Traytor, not I.' After he made an honest Declaration, and sould his Castle of Sudeley to K. E. 4."—Leland. No child of his was wronged by this transfer, for none had been born of his marriage. His barony died with him in 1473; and his heirs were the sons of his two sisters, Sir John Norbury and William Belknap. The second Pincerna entered in Domesday is Richard, the ancestor of the Butlers of Chester, who held great estates in Salop and Cheshire, and made grants to Chester Abbey about 1090 (Mon. i. 201). "It appears from the early arms of these barons that they were a branch of the house of Venables or Le Venur."—The Norman People. His son Robert founded a Cistercian abbey at Pulton in Cheshire, afterwards transferred to Delacres in Staffordshire; and Aumeric Pincerna acquired the barony of Warrington in Lancashire through his marriage with Beatrice de Vilers. William le Botiller was certified to hold eight knight's fees in that county of King John. To him succeeded a second William, Sheriff of Lancashire and Constable of Lancaster Castle 43 Hen. III., who enrolled himself in the ranks of the insurgent barons, but made his peace after Evesham, and subsequently served Edward I. so well in the wars of Scotland and Gascony, that he was summoned to Parliament by writ in 1294. His son had the like summons in the following reign, but none other of his descendants ever "stood in the degree of Barons of this Realm," though they continued seated at Beausey in Lancashire till after the time of Henry VIII. These Butlers gave their name to Crophill-Butler in Nottinghamshire. One of the Lords of Warrington was foully murdered in 1521. "Sir John Butler" (according to a MS. now in the Bodleian Library) "was slaine in his bedde by the procurement of the Lord Standley; Sir Piers Leigh and Master William Savage joining with him in that action (corrupting his servants): his porter setting a light in a window to give knowledge upon the water that was about his house at Bewsey. They came over the moat in leather boats, and so to his chamber, where one of his servants, named Houlcrofte, was slaine, being his chamberlaine; the other basely betrayed his master: they payd him a greate reward, and so coming away with him, they hanged him on a tree in Bewsey Park." The brave chamberlain was, says popular tradition, a negro, and helped to save his master's infant son, whom a faithful maid-servant wrapped up in her apron, and carried unharmed out of the house. The young heir's mother was absent at the time. "Sir John's lady at that instant being in London, did dream the same night that her husband was slaine, and that Bewsey Hall did swymme with blood: whereupon she presently came homewards, and heard by the way the report of his death." She afterwards prosecuted his murderers; "but, being married to the Lord Grey, he made her suite voyde, for which reason she parted from her husband and came into Lancashire, saying, 'If my Lorde will not let me have my will of my enemies, yet shall my body be buried with hym:' and she caused a tomb of alabaster to be made, where she lyeth on the right side of her husband, Sir John Boteler." In good sooth his blood remained unavenged; for none cared to prove the guilt of the head of the powerful house of Stanley; and of his two accomplices, only one underwent even a show of penance. This was Sir Piers Leigh, an ecclesiastic, who, six years afterwards, was sentenced to build a church at Disley. The cause of this deadly feud had been nothing more serious than some grudge or quarrel respecting the ford at Warrington. The last Boteler of Beausey died either in 1586 or 1587; but a junior branch is still represented by the Hoghtons of Hoghton Tower. "In the reign of William Rufus, the manor of Houghton was given by Warin Bussel with a daughter in marriage to Hamo Pincerna; after whose death his wife gave it to their second son, Richard. The son of Richard Fitz Hamo was Adam, who in the reign of Henry II. styled himself Adam de Horton, or Adam Dominus de Horton."—Bailie's Lancashire. Hoghton Tower, "rising in isolated pre-eminence from the rocky banks of Darwen," crowns the summit of a lofty hill, and was ruined in the Civil War, "when the gate-house was accidentally blown up with gun-powder, and one Captain Starkey, with two hundred soldiers, were killed in that blast most woefully. This stately fabric is invironed with a most spacious park" (Richard de Hoghton, 9 Richard II., obtained from his Earl, John of Gaunt, license to add sevenscore acres to his park): "which in former times was so full of tymber that a man passing through it could scarce have seen the sun shine at middle of day; but of late dayes most of it has been destroyed. It was much replenished with wild beasts, as with boars and bulls of a white and spangled colour, and red deer in great plentie."—Dr. Kuerden. James I. spent three days at Hoghton Tower, "in the midst of the most splendid festivities," on his progress from Edinburgh to London in 1617. "There is a laughable tradition still generally current in Lancashire that our knight-making monarch, finding, it is presumed, no undubbed man worthy of the honour, knighted at the banquet in Hoghton Tower, in the warmth of his liberality, a loin of beef, the part ever since called sir-loin. Those who would credit this story have the authority of Dr. Johnson to support them; among whose explanations of the word sir in his Dictionary is:—"a title given to a loin of beef, which one of our kings knighted in a fit of good humour."—Baines. Robert, the third Pincerna of Domesday, was the butler of the Earls of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, where Felton-Butler still designates one of his professions. To what family he belonged I am quite unable to determine. He may have been (according to The Norman People) the brother of Roger de Corcelle (ancestor of the Churchills) who held a great barony in Shropshire in 1086: or else the Robert Pincerna spoken of in the Recherches sur le Domesday as the brother of Geoffrey Alselin or Ascelin, likewise a powerful baron at the same time, whose name has been transformed by the English genealogists into Hauselyn. This Geoffrey or Goisfrid was the son of Ascelin, conjectured to have been either a bastard or a cadet of the family of Dinan in Brittany. Robert "probably shared in the forfeiture of his suzerain. Robert de Belesme, in 1102: for King Henry I., when he founded the Honour of Montgomery, annexed thereto the escheated estate of Robert Pincerna."—History and Antiquities of Shropshire. The great family that has made the name of Butler illustrious can find no place here, as they did not assume it till the time of Henry II., who first appointed Theobald Walter Chief Butler of Ireland.[57] This was an office of great dignity and power. "It cost the nation so recently as 1810 no less than £216,000 to purchase the prizage of wines (one of its hereditary privileges) from his heir the Marquess of Ormonde." Bourcher : or Bourchier: not the original form of this great name, which, derived from Boursseres in Burgundy, passed through various stages of transmutation as Berseres, Bursers, Boussers, Burcer, Bowser (as it is given by Duchesne) Burghcher, &c, &c, before it finally reached the one in which it is familiar to us. Urso de Berseres, in 1086, held Senly in Buckinghamshire (Domesd.) and Sylvester de Bursers, in 1165, was a tenant of the Honour of Clare, in Suffolk (Liber Niger). Nearly two hundred years after this, the name first comes to the front, on the marriage of Sir John, the son of Robert de Burser, with the heiress of Stansted Hall in Essex, "where his posterity grew in time so famous." She was the only child of Walter de Colchester and his wife Joan, one of the sisters and co-heirs of Roger de Montchensie, thus succeeding to a great estate, and bringing her husband an important position in the county. He was one of the justices in 1318: a Conservator of the peace in 1319, and a Justice of the Common Pleas in 1321. His son and successor Robert rapidly rose into eminence. He was Justiciar of Ireland, Lord High Chancellor of England, a baron by writ in 1342, and with the Black Prince "in the very heat of the battle" at Cressy. He had the King's license to hold his court leet at Halsted, to impark his woods there, and to make a castle of his manor house at Stansted. Edward III. further selected him as one of the ambassadors sent to treat for a peace with France in 1347. He died two years afterwards, cut off by the plague that then universally raged in England; and left two sons: John, second Lord Bourchier, and William, father of the first Earl of Eu. He, again, had found a wealthy wife, Margaret, sole heiress of Sir Thomas Prayers, by Anne, daughter and heir of Henry de Essex, one of the descendants of an earlier Henry, who was Baron of Rayleigh and Standard Bearer of England. John de Bourchier, who succeeded to his father's barony at twenty, "was one of the Lieutenants appointed by Edward III. to prosecute his right and title to the Crown of France, and spent a considerable part of his life in the wars of that kingdom, where he acquired great reputation."—Morant. He was some time Governor of Flanders and Captain of Ghent;—appointed, it is said, at the request of the Flemings themselves; and lived to be an old man—old enough to claim exemption from further service, either in the field or in the council chamber. The next Lord obtained a similar immunity on the same score of age and infirmity, and yet only out-lived his father nine years. The barony passed to his daughter Elizabeth, who successively carried it to Sir Henry Stafford and Sir Hugh Robsart, but died childless in 1432, when it retorted to her cousin Henry, the second Earl of Ewe. He was the grandson of William de Bourchier (the younger son of the first Baron), and the Louvaine heiress whom he had married. His father, a second William, had been made Constable of the Tower and created Earl of Ewe by Henry V., being the second husband of Anne Plantagenet, Countess of Stafford, daughter and eventual sole heir of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the sixth and youngest son of Edward III. They had four sons, who in honour of their royal blood, all filled high positions in the world, and were prominent in the bloody conflicts of the Red and White Rose. The eldest, Henry, second Earl of Ewe, became, as Lord Bourchier, the head of the house. Thomas, the second, first Bishop of Ely, and then for thirty-two years Archbishop of Canterbury, "wore a mitre fifty-one years, the like not to be paralel'd in any other Dignitary of the Church, before, nor since." William, the third, was summoned to parliament as Baron Fitz Warine in right of his wife. John, the youngest, married the heiress of another barony, and had summons to parliament as Lord Berners. Henry, the second Earl, began life, as did his brother, a zealous Lancastrian, and received many favours at the hand of Henry VI. He was only once summoned in his Norman dignity, for in 1446 he received the English title of Viscount Bourchier, and eight years later was Lord Treasurer of England. But his marriage changed his politics. The Bourchiers had become a power to be reckoned with in the State; and a princess of the blood, Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Earl of Cambridge, Lord Protector of England, and aunt of Edward IV., was given him in marriage by her brother the Duke of York, "in the firme hope and sure confidence that he and hys generacion should be a perpetual ayde to the duke and his sequele, as well in prosperitie as in aduersitie, associate together in all chance of fortune." Nor was this hope deceptive. Not only did Lord Bourchier forsake his old master and attach himself to the House of York, but his brothers followed in his wake, and Lord Berners, who had been installed a Knight of the Garter for his valour in the Lancastrian army at St. Albans, was five years afterwards appointed Governor of Windsor Castle by Edward IV. Lord Bourchier himself was loaded with honours and estates it the accession of the new dynasty. He was re-appointed Lord Treasure, created Earl of Essex, and received the castle and honour of Wark, with Tyndale in Northumberland, forfeited by Lord Ros; Aylesbury and other Buckinghamshire manors that had been the Earl of Devon's; the possessions of the attained Earl of Wiltshire in Essex, Suffolk, and Lancashire, and the Cambridgeshire estate of "John Ormund, alias Boteler." Nor were these lavish grants deemed sufficient; for in 1464, the King, "in recompense of the charge he had been at in his service, granted him Licence to transport 1,600 Woolen Clothes, of his proper Goods, or any others, without any Accompte, or Customs for the same." He died the same year as the King, having had, besides a daughter, Isabel, who only lived a few days, seven sons, almost all of whom advanced their fortunes by marriage, but, with the one exception of the eldest, left no posterity: 1. William, whose wife was the Queen's sister, Anne Wydeville. 2. Sir Henry, married to Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas, Lord Scales. 3. Sir Humphrey, married to Joan, daughter and co-heir of Sir Richard Stanhope, who, on the death of her elder sister, Maud, Lady Willoughby de Eresby, brought him their mother's barony of Cromwell, by which title he was summoned to parliament in 1460. Eleven years after that, he and another Humphrey Bourchier .(the son of the first Lord Berners) fell fighting for the House of York at the battle of Barnet. 4. Sir John, married to Elizabeth, grand-daughter and sole heir of William, fifth Lord Ferrers of Chartley, and widow of Sir Edward Grey. 5. Sir Thomas married to Isabel, daughter and heir of Sir John Barre, and widow of Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon, beheaded in 1469. 6. Sir Edward, slain at Wakefield. 7. Fulke, died young. William, the eldest, who had died in his father's life-time, and was the only one of these childless brothers that did not die s. p., left a son and two daughters; Henry, the second Earl and last heir-male; Cecily, married to John Devereux, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, in whose descendants the Earldom of Essex was ultimately vested; and Isabel, probably died young. Henry succeeded to the Earldom on his grandfather's death in 1483, when he was not more than eleven; yet Dugdale asks us to believe that, only two years afterwards, he was selected by "that prudent Prince," Henry VII., as one of his Privy Council. Though he is described as "a person of singular endowments," this is as astounding as the statement that his cousin, the second Lord Berners, had been made a Knight of the Bath by Edward IV. at the unripe age of eleven. It should, however, be borne in mind that the Bourchiers, with their usual felicitous tactics, had turned their faces to the rising sun, and earned the gratitude of the new Tudor dynasty. They had all taken part with the Earl of Richmond. Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at his coronation; and the same Lord Berners who had been so prematurely knighted by the Yorkist king was among the hostages left with the King of France "as security for the re-payment of the charges incurred in fitting out the expedition." One of the new King's first acts was to redeem them. The young Lord Essex took the field betimes. In 1492 he went with the King to the siege of Boulogne; and in 1496 was one of the three Earls that commanded the first division of the army at Blackheath. "Great confidence," Lord Bacon tells us, "was reposed in these three Leaders: All, men famed and loved among the people." On the accession of Henry VIII. he was named Captain of his Horse-guard, a newly formed and gorgeous corps of "Fifty Horse, trapp'd with Cloth of Gold, or Goldsmith's work: whereof every one had his Archer, a Demi-Lance, and Coustrill." From this time forth he belonged to the brilliant train of knightly courtiers that attended the King in peace and in war. As Lieut.-General of all the spears he went with him to Therouenne and Tournay; and was one of the four challengers at the famous Jousts held in honour of the King's sister, Queen Margaret; where he, with the King himself, the Duke of Suffolk, and Nicholas Carew, "answered all corners." His was among the stateliest figures in the magnificent pageant known is the Field of the 'Cloth of Gold, where the two Kings of France and England met to outvie and outdazzle each other in splendour. But in 1539, "adventuring to ride a young unruly Horse, at his Manor of Basse in Com. Hertf., he had the bard hap to be overthrown; and by the fall, to break his neck." He had increased his vast patrimony by the acquisition of one of the Duke of Buckingham's forfeited manors, granted to him by the King, and his marriage with the elder co-heir of Sir William Say. But he left no son to inherit it. His only child, Lady Anne, was Baroness Bourchier in her own right, and the wife of William, Lord Parr of Kendal, who in 1541 had livery of all her lands. A horrible mystery of some kind enshrouds the history of this most unhappy woman. Her children were bastardized by Act of Parliament in the following year: notwithstanding which her husband was created Earl of Essex in 1543 (a few months after his sister Katherine had become Queen of England), "with the same place and voice in Parliament" that had belonged to his father-in-law. Edward.VI., on his accession, advanced "his honest uncle," as he was pleased to call him, to the Marques-sate of Northampton, and constituted him Lord Great Chamberlain for life in 1550. "Having," says Dugdale, "about this time married Elizabeth, daughter of George Lord Cobham, in 5 Ed. 6 he obtain'd a special Act of Parliament for the disannulling of his marriage with the Lady Anne Bourchier, and also for ratifying his marriage with the said Elizabeth." The reasons—whatever they were—for this foul treatment of the great heiress, in whose veins flowed the haughty blood of Plantagenet, are carefully suppressed: but it is noted that four of the peers "dissented to the Bill." Of the fate of the poor, disgraced, and disinherited children we hear nothing. The barony of Bourchier passed to the last Earl's nephew, Walter, Lord Ferrers of Chartley. The line of Lord Berners had terminated with a grandson in 1532; but there yet existed descendants of the first Earl's third son, William, Lord Fitz Warine. He had acquired his barony through Thomasine his wife, daughter and heir of Sir Richard Hanckford, by Elizabeth, sister and heir of Fulk. seventh and last Lord Fitz Warine. At the downfall of the House of Lancaster, he participated in the benefits heaped upon his family by the new Yorkist King. and was named Master Forester of Exmoor and Racche in Somersetshire, with a license (similar to that granted to his elder brother, who, like him, was a trafficker in woollens), for the yearly export of 1000 cloths of his own goods, free of charge. His son married the heiress of Lord Dynham, and his grandson, who was created Earl of Bath in 1536 by Henry VIII., obtained another great fortune through his wife Cecily, daughter of Giles, Lord Daubeny, and sister and heir of Henry Daubeny, Earl of Bridgewater. Their estates lay, as the title implies, in the West of England, and their manor house was at Tawstock, near Barnstaple, in Devonshire, where the last Earls of this name lie buried. There were in all five; but the direct line ended with the fourth, who left only three daughters; Elizabeth, Countess of Denbigh: Dorothy, Lady Grey of Groby; and Anne, Countess of Middlesex, among whom the old barony of Fitz Warine fell into abeyance. The Earldom passed to a cousin, Henry Bourchier, who had no children, and became extinct at his death in 1654. A monument erected to him in Tawstock Church records the long descent and illustrious alliances of the great house of which he was the last heir. With him, the name disappears from its pride of place in the Baronage; yet it would seem not to have altogether passed away. Dugdale, in his 'Visitation of Yorkshire,' gives the pedigree of a family of Bourchier then existing in the county, that bore the arms of the Earls of Essex. It is brief: commencing with Sir Ralph Bourchier of Beningborough, from whom Barrington Bourchier, then (in 1665) fourteen years of age, was fourth in descent. Brabaion : evidently Brabason: a duplicate. Berners : from Bernieres, near Falaise. Hugh de Bernieres appears as a Domesday tenant in the counties of Essex, Cambridge, and Middlesex. In Essex he held Bernston (Bernerstown), Roding Berners, &c, under Geoffrey de Mandeville; and in Cambridgeshire Eversdon, which is said to have been his chief seat, as it certainly was that of his posterity. William de Berners, in 1093, witnesses Robert Fitz Hugh's charter to Chester Abbey; and two of the name are entered in the Liber Niger: Ralph de Bernieres, holding six knight's fees; and Richard de Bernieres, seven. Robert de Berners, 6 Ric. I. "gave a Fine of 200 Marks for obtaining the King's Favour, and restitution of his Lands."—Dugdale. Ralph, in 1264, took part with the rebellious barons; but must likewise have been reinstated and forgiven, if, as is believed, he was the same Ralph who served as Sheriff of Berkshire twenty years afterwards. He died in 1296, possessed of Islington in Middlesex, West Horsley in Surrey (the inheritance of his wife Christian), Icklingham in Sussex, and the old Domesday manors, with Berners-Berwick in Essex. His son Edmond, then serving in the wars of Gascony, was grandfather of Sir James de Berners, beheaded in 1388. He had been one of the detested favourites of Richard II., "who, in that King's Reign, when the great Lords were prevalent, amongst others (then accounted Enemies to the publick) was arrested of Treason, and committed to Prison: Whence, being brought to judgment, in the ensuing Parliament, he underwent the sentence of death, as a Traitor, and suffered accordingly. "To whom succeeded Richard his son and heir. Which Richard (residing at West Horsley in Com. Sur.) had the reputation of a Baron of this realm; though nothing of his Creation or Summons to Parliament (that I could ever see) doth appear thereof."—Ibid. It was the second husband of his daughter and sole heir Margery, 'Sir John Bourchier, K.G., who received summons to parliament as Lord Berners in 1454. This Sir John, the fourth son of William, Earl of Eu, trimmed his course, like the rest of his family, according to the exigency of the times, and was fist a Lancastrian, and then a Yorkist, in the Wars of the Roses. Henry VI. granted him his barony, and Edward IV. appointed him Constable of the castle, and Warden of the park and forest, of Windsor. His successor was a grandson of his own name, who enjoyed "the rare felicity of continuing in favour with Henry VIII. for eighteen years," and was Chancellor of the King's Exchequer and Lieutenant of Calais and the Marches, with munificent grants of land. He was fond of literature and literary work, and is best known for his excellent translation of Froissart, undertaken at the King's desire, though he was the author of several others, such as 'The Hystorye of the most noble and valyannt Knyghte Arthur of lytell Brytayne': 'The ancient, honorable, famous, and delightful Historie of Huon of Bourdeux, enterlaced with the love of many Ladies,' &c. Once he was sent on a mission to Spain, and his biographer quotes with evident relish a rough rejoinder he made to the French Ambassador there. Both had joined in the diversions of the Spanish Court: and "On Midsummer daye in the mornynge, the king, with xxiii with him, well appareled in coots and clokes of gould, and gouldsmythe worke, on horseback in the aid market place (at Saragoza) ranne and caste canes after the countrey maner, whear as the kinge did very well and was much praysed; a fresh sight for ace or twise to behold, and afterward, nothing. As soone as the cane is caste, they fly: whereof the Frenche Ambassador sayd, that it was a good game to teche men to flye. My lord Barners answered, that the frenchmen learned it well besides Gingate, at the jurney of Spurres. The same day at afternoon, in the aid market place, there was bull-baiting, &c." (Letter from the Ambassadors to Henry VIII.) He died at Calais in 1532, leaving no legitimate male heir, though he had several bastard sons that bore his name. His wife, Lady Katherine Howard (daughter of the "Jockey of Norfolk," slain at Bosworth), brought him two daughters, Mary, the wife of Alexander Unton, who had no children, and died before him, and Joan, married to Edmund Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk, and thus left sole heir. But there was little or nothing to inherit. "The laste lorde Barnes," Leland tells us, "solde almost the substance of all his Landes": and died very much in debt. It does not appear that Joan ever bore the title of Baroness Berners: but in 1832—Just 300 years after her father's death—his barony was called out of abeyance in favour of one of her descendants, Robert Wilson, whose great niece and heiress married Sir Henry Tyrwhitt. Morant speaks of another branch of this house, seated at Amberdon in the parish of Depden, Essex, whose pedigree could be traced up to the Hugh de Bernieres of Domesday. His son Ralph "came into the great estate of Payne Burnell by marrying Nesta, his sister and heir": and their descendants retained it till the time of Henry VI. Nicholas Berners, of Ambredon Hall, was the last, and died in 1441, leaving an only child, Catherine, the wife of Sir William Fynderne. The name, in its abbreviated form of Bernes or Barnes, is retained by their manor of Matching-Barnes. The identity of Dame Julyans Berners, authoress of the 'Treatyse on Fysshynge with an Angle,' has never been established. Some have called her the daughter of the Sir James who was executed in 1388; but the probable date of her book is about a century later; and from her title of Dame, she must have been a wife rather than a daughter. In these popularity-hunting days, it is refreshing to note how solicitous she is that her treatise should not be indiscriminately read,[58] and fall into unworthy hands, being intended only for true sportsmen. Her style is charmingly simple and natural, and the wholesome advice she gives her readers proves her to have been a worthy and God-fearing woman. She enjoins the angler to use "generous and noble conduct": not to fish in any poor man's special water: not to break any man's gins, wears, or hedges, or leave open his gates; not to act in a covetous and mercenary spirit for the sake of gain, but to use the sport principally for his solace, for the health of his body, and specially for his "poor soule": and pursue it as much as possible alone, that he may serve God devoutly, saying his accustomed prayer, and thus escape many vices and temptations, and "have the blessynge of God and Saynt Petyr, whyche he them grannte that wyth his precyous bloode us boughte." A treatise on Hunting, included in the same Booke of Seint Albans, is conjectured to be hers also. Braibuf : from the castle of Brebeuf in Normandy; "not the name of a fief, but simply of the locality."—Sir Francis Palgrave. No trace of this castle now remains. It stood near Conde-sur-Vire, in the district of Torigny, and a considerable domain was formerly attached to it, of which the only remnant, the Great Park and Little Park of Brebeuf, were sold about one hundred years ago by one of the last Seigneurs of the name. Nicholas de Braiboef is cited among the nobles belonging to the Viscountcy of Bayeux in 1272; and Jean de Brebeuf had a grant of main-levee from Henry V. in 1419. The translator of Lucian's Pharsalus—better known from Boileau's satires than from his own works—belonged to this family.—M. de Gerville. Their coat of arms sounds formidable: D'azur au boeuf furieux de sable accorne et ongle d'or. Hugues de Brebeuf is entered on the Dives Roll, and appears in Domesday as Hugo de Braiboue, holding Otringeberge (now Watringbury) in Kent under Bishop Odo. He must be the same Hugo de Braybeof that witnesses Ivo Tailboy's charter to Spalding Abbey (Mon. Angl.); and in the next century we find the name in Lincolnshire. "Radulf de Braiboef debet servicium three militum Willelmo de Romare in Co. Lincoln."—Liber Niger. Ralph de Braibuef (probably the same) is mentioned in the Great Pipe Roll of 1189-90, and "Rad' de Brayboft de Claxby," in the time of Edward I. was a benefactor to Newsom Abbey.—Rotuli Hundredorum. Claxby is four miles from Alford. A branch of the family was seated in Hampshire as early as the twelfth century, and "were of some note in the county." William de Braibof is mentioned there in 1194-1198 (Rotuli Curiae Regis): and another William, in 1272, had the custody of Porchester Castle, and was Sheriff of Hants in 1279 and 1280. Hackwood Park owes its origin to him; for in the first year of his shrievalty he obtained the King's license to impark "his wood of Hagwood with its timber," which at that time formed part of the forest of Eversley. In the following year he was summoned, with some others, to "show his title to free chase of the cat, the hare, and the fox, within the hundred of Basingstoke, and showed to the satisfaction of the jury that his ancestors had enjoyed the right from time immemorial, that is to say, from the time of Richard I."—Woodward's Hampshire. He died in 1284; seized of Cranborne, Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, the hamlet of Likputt, Eastrop, &c. His son was probably the William de Brayboef of Aldersbury in Wiltshire, who held Crofton (East Grafton?) in that county in 1316: and another of his descendants, Hugh, was the owner of Eastrop at the close of the same century. This must have been the same Sir Hugh, the last heir of the house, whose daughter married Sir Hugh Camoys, and left an only child, Elizabeth, who became the wife of Sir John Hamelin.—Dallaway's Sussex. Dallaway styles him Sir Hugh Brebeuf of Surrey, where he undoubtedly had property, and Brabeuf's manor retains his name. It was acquired in 1231 by Geoffrey de Brabeuf, whose posterity held it for more than one hundred and thirty years. Andrew de Brabeuf died in 1362, leaving Agnes his heiress, married first to Robert Danhurst, and secondly to Robert Loxley. Brande : William Brant held in Fincham, Norfolk, of Earl Warren (Domesday): and according to the Testa di Nevill, Robert Brant possessed estates in the same county in the thirteenth century. Robert Bronde, Prior of Norwich, who repaired, if not rebuilt, the chancel of his church, bore Gules, a cat of mountain (or ounce) Argent, spotted Sable, "Sir Bertram Braundes," is mentioned by Robert of Gloucester among the Crusaders who were at the siege of Jaffa with Richard Coeur de Lion. "King Richard the First with good intent To that city of Jaffa went; On morrow he sent after Robert Sakevile And Sire William de Watervile, Sire Hubert and Sire Robert de Turnham, Sire Bertram Braundes and John de St. John. Goth he sent to the Soudan, And Sey myselfe a yen thrifty man In the feilde y wolde with him fighte For to doe yeme Godes righte; &c." A knight of this name fell at Bosworth Field, "Sir William Brand was one of those who died; King Henry's standard he hevyed on hye, and vamisyd it, tyll with deathe's dent he was stryken downe." This name (supposed to be of Danish origin) is borne by a Hertfordshire family that acquired the barony of Dacre towards the close of the last century. Gertrude Trevor, who succeeded her brother, the nineteenth Lord, as Baroness Dacre in 1794, had married in 1771 Thomas Brand, of the Hoo. Her younger grandson, Henry, was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1872 to 1884, and received in the latter year the title of Viscount Hampden. Bronce : or Bruis (Leland preserves the original spelling): from the castle of Brus or Bruis (now called Brix), near Cherbourg. The ruins of an extensive fortress built there in the eleventh century by Adam de Brus, and called after him Chateau d'Adam, yet remain. Robert de Brus was at the battle of Hastings, and held a great barony of ninety-four manors in Yorkshire (Domesday), where he built Skelton Castle. Either he or his son of the same name (from the dates probably the son, as it is scarcely likely that the elder Robert should have outlived the Conquest for seventy-five years) married Agnes daughter of Fulk de Paganell, who brought him as her dowry Hart and Hartnesse in the Bishopric of Durham, "the maritime key of the Palatinate." How he acquired Annandale and his great Scottish estates is not so clear. Some say they were a grant from David I., having from his youth been "a friend and familiar of the King of Scots" at the court of his brother-in-law Henry I.; others believe that his second wife was Agnes of Annan, a Scottish heiress. It was probably both as an old acquaintance and liegeman that he was sent to offer terms of peace to the Scottish king on his invasion of England in 1138, and it is curious to note, that he was associated in this embassy with Bernard de Baliol. On the king's refusal, these two barons, whose descendants were destined to be such deadly rivals, fought side by side at the Battle of the Standard, and were also soon after ranged under the same banners as partizans of the Scotch intruder Cumin. Bruce died in 1141, and was buried in the Abbey he had founded at Guisborough, leaving by his first wife two sons; Adam, founder of the elder line of Skelton, who was with his father at Cowton Moor: and Robert, whose posterity sat on the throne of Scotland. The Lords of Skelton ended in the fifth generation with Peter de Brus, Constable of Scarborough Castle, who died in 1271. His four sisters divided the inheritance; and the extent of his territory may be estimated from the share allotted to each of them. That of Laderina, the youngest, is not specified: but the elder, Agnes, married to William de Fauconberg, had Skelton Castle and lands; Lucy, married to Marmaduke Thweng, had Danby with its chase and adjacent manors, and the whole forest of Vaux; while Margaret brought to her husband Robert de Ros the entire barony of Kendal. Robert de Bruce, the younger son, received Annandale as his appanage, and "being thus a liegeman of the Crown of Scotland, he was taken prisoner in fair battle by his own father, who sent him to the English monarch: and he, struck probably with the extraordinary situation of the parties, and pleased with the good faith of the father, placed his captive once more at the disposal of his own parents. The story has yet a sequel: the young Lord of Annandale, amongst other familiar discourse, complained that his valley of Annan afforded no wheaten bread, and his father, to compensate for the privation, gave him the wheat-producing district of Hart and Hartness."—Surtees. It was the great grandson of this Robert that made the famous alliance with the blood royal of Scotland, through his wife Isabel, one of the co-heiresses of David Earl of Huntingdon, the brother of William the Lion: and in her right their son Robert, sixth of this hereditary name, formed one of the crowd of competitors for the Scottish throne that appeared on the death of the Maid of Norway in 1291. He had been one of the fifteen Regents of Scotland in 1255, and a faithful adherent of Henry III. throughout the Barons' War, having been taken prisoner while commanding the Scottish contingent with Baliol and Comyn at the battle of Lewes. When Edward I., the appointed umpire, decided in favour of Baliol's claim to the throne, he appears to have at once accepted the decision, and acknowledged the new king. The next Robert, who was several times summoned to parliament by Edward I., went with him in his earlier days to Palestine, and on his return chanced to meet the young Countess of Carrick (heiress of an Earl Neil killed in the Crusades), hunting in the woods near her castle of Turnbery, and she, seeing this "gallant young knight, handsome and courteous," just come back from the Holy Land with Prince Edward, fell in love with him at first sight, and invited him to be her guest. He was unwilling to comply, but she seized his bridle reins "with a gentle violence," led him to her castle, and within fifteen days became his wife. From that time he was Earl of Carrick, de jure uxoris, till the death of the Countess, when he passed on the title to his eldest son. Like his father, he acknowledged the title of Baliol, and remained through life the staunch liegeman of England. He even forfeited his Scottish estates by attending the King in the invasion of Scotland that followed Baliol's renunciation of allegiance in 1298, having had, it is said, some hopes held out to him of receiving the Scottish crown. But "when the prize was won, and Bruce reminded the King of his promise, the stern monarch turned round upon him, "Ne avons nous autres choses a faire que a, voz reaumes gagner?" His son was of different metal. It is true that he, too, began by twice taking the oath of fealty to England; but he speedily stood forth as the chosen champion who was to achieve the independence of Scotland; and the heroic and romantic story of Robert the Bruce, crowned King at Scone in 1306, yet long a hunted fugitive in his own dominions, maintaining the stubborn and desperate struggle that closed with the glories of Bannockburn, stirs the heart of every Scotsman, and cannot need to be recalled here. He was twice married. His first wife, Isabel of Mar, brought him only a daughter named Marjory, by the second, Elizabeth de Burgh (the "proud English wife," who despised the homely Scottish court, and taunted him with being but "a summer's king"), he had one son, who succeeded him on the throne as David II., and whose marriage he had the triumph to "contract, en plein souverain, with the daughter of that English Edward who had so lately trampled the crown of Scotland in the dust."—Surtees. But Joan Plantagenet brought David no children. Nor did any of the Bruce's brothers leave any posterity. Edward, the second, was crowned King of Ireland in 1316, and killed at the battle of Dundalk two years afterwards; and the three others, Thomas, Alexander, and Nigel, all fell into the hands of the English, and were mercilessly put to death as traitors. One cousin remained—Sir John Bruce, the son of his uncle Sir Bernard, who was seated, at Exton in Rutlandshire: but he, too, left no heir save a daughter: and thus the royal male line of Bruce came to an early end. It was King Robert's eldest daughter, Princess Marjory, the wife of the Lord High Steward of Scotland, who eventually transmitted the crown to her son Robert II., and was the ancestress of the long line of Stuart kings, of whom one was destined to unite under his sceptre the rival kingdoms so long and so bitterly divided. "A French queen shall bear the son, Shall rule all Britain to the sea, He of the Bruce's blood shall come, As near as of the ninth degree." —Thomas the Rhymer. There were two other co-heiresses, the half-sisters of Marjory, born of her father's second marriage: first, the Princess Margaret, Countess of Sutherland, now represented by the Duke of Sutherland; next the Princess Maud, married to Thomas de Izac, from whom descended the Stuarts of Rossythe in Fife, and New Halls in West Lothian. The still existing families that bear this proud name descend from a distant kinsman and namesake of Robert the Bruce, to whom David II. granted the castle and manor of Clackmannan, with some other manors, in 1359, by a charter in which he designates him as Dilecto et fideli consanguineo suo Roberto de Bruis. At what period these cousins had branched off from the parent stock is not known; but it cannot have been less than 140 years before that date, as they clearly made no claim to the succession, and did not therefore descend from Robert V., who married the Scottish princess Isabel, and succeeded his father as Lord of Annandale in 1215. This Sir Robert Bruce of Clackmannan had a very numerous posterity. From him came the Bruces of Kennet, represented by Lord Balfour of Burleigh; the Bruces of Blair Hall, whose chief is the Earl of Elgin: the Bruces of Airth, the Bruces of Stenhouse, &c. Their detailed pedigrees are given in Drummond's 'Noble British Families.' The first Lord Elgin was the second son of Edward Bruce, created in 1603 Lord Bruce of Kinloss, and succeeded his elder brother (killed in a duel by Sir Edward Sackville) in the barony in 1613: ten years later he received his Earldom, and in 1641 an English peerage with the title of Lord Bruce of Whorlton. His son was made Earl of Aylesbury in 1664, but both these English creations expired on the death of Charles, third Earl of Aylesbury, and fourth Earl of Elgin, in 1774. This Earl Charles, having early lost his only son, obtained a fresh patent of his barony with remainder to his adopted heir, Thomas Brudenell (the youngest son of his sister Elizabeth, Countess of Cardigan), who consequently succeeded him as Lord Bruce of Tottenham in Wiltshire, was afterwards created Earl of Aylesbury, and was the father of the first Marquess of that name. The Scottish honours passed to his heirs-general, the Bruces of Carnock, who had been since 1647 Earls of Kincardine; and thus Charles Bruce, who succeeded his namesake exactly a hundred years afterwards as fifth Earl of Elgin, was already the ninth Earl of Kincardine, and united the two Scottish titles now jointly borne by his descendants. The name is still represented in France. "A branch of the Barons of Bruce continued in Normandy, and had a seat in the Exchequer, and the arms they quarter are the arms of Bruce of Annandale."—Sir F. Palgrave. Burgh : "They who assumed the surname of Burgh, or Burke, are descended from William Fitz-Adelm, steward of Henry II., and Governor of Wexford in Ireland."—Sir Egerton Brydges. This refers to the existing family, whose splendid pedigree, giving them "an Imperial Carlovingian descent in the male line, and a more dignified origin than the houses of Bourbon, Hanover, Saxony, Savoy, or Stuart," dates only from about the middle of the last century, when it appeared for the first time in an Irish peerage, and is utterly ignored by Dugdale and the older authorities. "Burgh" must here stand for Serlo de Burgh, a powerful Northern baron in the time of the Conqueror, who built Knaresborough Castle, and appears to have taken his name from the manor of Burgh,[59] in Yorkshire. He left no son, and was succeeded by his nephew Eustace Fitzjohn, who married two of the greatest heiresses in England, and founded the illustrious houses of De Vesci and De Lacy. (See Vescy and Lacy.) Bushy : or Bussy, as Leland gives it, from Buci, in Normandy. Robert de Buci held a great barony in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire in 1086 (Domesday): but left no heir save a daughter, married to Ralph Basset, Justiciary of England under Henry I. (Mon. ii. 190). Collateral branches were not, however, wanting; for, in the same reign, William Jordan, and Roger de Buyssy witness Walter Espec's foundation charter to Kirkham Priory. William was Espec's brother-in-law, the husband of Hawise, the eldest of the three sisters who became his co-heiresses; and their son, Jordan de Bussi, is mentioned in the time of Stephen, when he held his uncle Walter Espec's castle of Werke, "and gallantly repulsed the attack of William Fitz Duncan, King of Scots." Of his descendants I am unable to find any account, except that they held of Mowbray in the thirteenth century.—The Norman People. Dugdale mentions Roesia, daughter of Ralph FitzGilbert, and widow of William de Bussi, who re-married John de Buisli, temp. King John. Another William de Bussy occurs in Yorkshire about the year 1272.—Rotul. Hundred. The first Jordan de Bussy, called, in the pedigree, the son of Lambert, founded a great Lincolnshire house, that lasted till the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. There exists no county history to blazon their deeds of arms or count up their forfeitures: we are not informed on which side they fought during the Barons' War, or whether they wore the colours of York or Lancaster. They intermarried with the Paynells; with the heiress of Nevill of Scotton; and with a co-heir of John de Dive, whose mother was an Amundeville; but of the long line of knights one only stands out with any degree of individuality—Sir John, third of the name. He it was, who in the Parliament called together in September 1397—a parliament "packed with royal partizans"—stood up in his place to impeach one of the King's principal opponents. "Sir John Busshy accused Thomas de Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, of three-fold treason. To wit, I., granting the government of the realm, when he was Chancellor, to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester: II. under pretence of that commission, usurping Royal authority. By which usurpation, III. Sir Simon Burley and Sir James Barnes were traitorously murdered and put to death. Of which things," said Busshy, "your Commons demand judgement, worthy of so high treason, to be terribly pronounced by you; and because the Archbishop is a man of great consanguinite, affinitie, power, and most politike wit, and cruell nature, require he may be put into safe custodie, until the first execution of his judgement." The Archbishop was accordingly banished the realm, but when, two years afterwards, he returned in triumph with the new King, Henry of Lancaster, he had not forgotten his former accuser in the Commons, and Sir John Bussy's head fell on the block. It has been said that an English family takes rank according to the number of its members that have been put to death for high treason: and it is not surprising to find Leland, about a century and a half later, speaking with veneration of this Sir John. "The gentilmen communely caullid Busseyes cam with the Conqueror owt of Normandie. "Bussey that was so greate in King Richard the 2. Dayes, and was behedid at Brightstow, had his principal Howse and Manor Place at Hougheham a 3. Myles from Granteham. "Busse's Wife that was behedid at Brightstow lyith at Howheham, and diverse of the Busses in the same Paroche Chirche. "Bussey now alive is the v. or vi. in Descent from great Bussey that was behedid, and is the last Heir Male of this Howse. "This Bussey's Doughter and Heire is maried on the Sunne and Heire of Brightenel in Northamptonshir." The heiress's husband was the uncle of the first Earl of Cardigan, Sir Edmund Brudenell of Dean, esteemed by Camden "an excellent improver and admirer of renowned antiquity." Agnes Bussy brought him Thisselton in Rutlandshire, and her paternal seat of Hougham, both of which, according to Collins, "remained in the family, though she died issueless." By another and more likely account, Hougham passed to her father's sister Joan, the wife of Thomas Meeres, of Kirton in Holland. A junior line, the Bussys of Haydor, near Sleaford, had branched off from the main stock three generations before, and died out about the beginning of the seventeenth century. There was also a yeoman family of this name seated at Leverton, near Boston, in the preceding century, "but there is no evidence to shew their connexion with the great house of Hougham and Haydor." Kirkham-Buci, in Sussex, belonged to the De Bucis, who held it from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, "and gave their name as a suffix, which has been ignorantly corrupted by sea."—Lower's Sussex. "Dom. Hugh de Buscy" occurs in the Hundred Rolls of 1272 as a landowner in Northumberland, Norfolk, Lincoln, Suffolk and Sussex; and may have been the father of Hugh de Bowcy, Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1340, whose co-heirs were two daughters—Sybil, married to Sir John de Islebon; and Joan, married to Sir William de Fyfhide. "John de Islebon and Sybil renounced, in favour of Sir William and Joan, their claim to the right of' the coat of arms, crest, and helmet' belonging to the late Hugh de Buci—a singular, though not unique, instance of this practice in heraldry during the Middle Ages."—Ibid. In 1300, Sir Hugh de Busseye, of Lincoln, bore Argent, three bars Sable. Banet : or Bavet, for Bavent, with which it corresponds in Leland's list. The name is so spelt in the Liber Niger, where Picot de Bavet is entered as holding one knight's fee in Norfolk of William de Albini. It was derived from Bavent, lying on the Dive, a little south of Varaville, in Normandy. "De Baudre de Bavent" was represented at the great Assembly of Norman nobles in 1789; and belonged to the Bailifry of Bayeux. Another Norfolk mesne-lord appears in the Liber Niger, Hubert de Baduent, an undertenant of the Honour of Rie. From him descended Adam de Bavent, who in the following century obtained through his wife a share of the estate of William de Wiston in Sussex, and was the father of another Adam, married to Alice de Scudamore. The latter had died before 1292, when the wardship of his son Roger was in dispute between the King and William de Say; and the contest was revived fourteen years afterwards by William's son Geoffrey; the young heir being then still under age. Roger de Bavent came from Sussex to the coronation of Edward II. (Palgrave's Parl. Writs): and was afterwards summoned to Parliament with tolerable regularity from 1313 till 1321, when, as an adherent of the Earl of Lancaster, the whole of his possessions were seized by the Crown. He recovered them at the general restoration of forfeitures on the accession of Edward III., and added to them an estate in Wiltshire; for in 1327 "he was found to be one of the heirs of John Lord Gifford of Brimsfield, viz: son of Alice (wife of Adam de Bavent), daughter of Peter Scudamore, son of Maud (wife of Godfrey Scudamore), one of the aunts of John the last Lord Gifford of Brimsfield." Two of these manors, Norton-Bavent, and Fifield-Bavent, still bear his name. He had the privilege of a weekly market and yearly fair at Marom in Lincolnshire, and Shipborne in Kent (the latter granted to his father in 1283), where Wrotham was held of him by the Colepepers.—v. Hasted's Kent. His successor, Roger II., made over to the King, in 1344, the whole of his estates in Wales, Dorset, Wilts, Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, with the reversion of a manor in Suffolk, and "all the other lands and tenements in England and Wales, which he then held in demesne, or which might come to him by right of inheritance, with the exception only of the manors of Chiltington and Sloghtree in the county of Sussex." This was merely to constitute the King his heir; for he soon after received a fresh grant of the lands for life. He died in 1355, leaving a son John, who (according to Dallaway) only survived him three years, and having no posterity, Eleanor his daughter, the wife of William de Braose, was her brother's heir. "From this Eleanor descended Beatrix de Braose (daughter of Peter, son of John, son of the said Eleanor) who, by death of her brother Sir John Braose, without issue, became heir of this line. She married Sir Hugh Shirley, who was Master of the Hounds to King Henry IV., and was slain, fighting on his part, at the battle of Shrewsbury. "The present Marquess Townshend (1808) is her heir and representative."—Townsend's Additions to Dugdale's Baronage. This is one account, given by Banks, and followed by Dallaway in his History of Sussex; but Dugdale substitutes for Roger II. Thomas de Bavent, who, in 1330, obtained a licence for a weekly market at Eston-Bavent, in Suffolk. He was succeeded by his son Peter, who died in 1370, leaving Eleanor and Cecily his daughters and heirs. Banks adds yet another pedigree, which apparently belongs to a different line altogether, commencing with William Bavent of Bilsby (one of the Lincolnshire manors in which Roger I. had free warren), obt. 1252. Of him, in the fourth generation, came Peter Bavent, the last heir male, and the father of two daughters; Alianor, married to Marmaduke Lumley; and Elizabeth, married to William Chamberlain of Edlington. "The several pedigrees of this family are so variant from each other, that to endeavour to reconcile them with the records would be an almost indefinite task, unless for any one who, in the character of heir-general, may conceive a baronial claim to be derivable under, and by virtue of the writs of summons before cited."—Banks. It is clear the name did not expire with the barony, for we find two Bavents—Roger and John—among the esquires who were present at Agincourt in Lord Maltravers' train. Blondell : "This family came to England with' William Malet; and William Blondel in 1165 held three knight's fees of the Honour of the Malets at Eye (Liber Niger): and Robert de Crek held two more fees from Blondel. In Salop this family was seated before 1250 (Eyton). Sir Robert Blundell witnessed a charter of Abberbury Abbey there (Mon. i. 606)."—The Norman People. In Lancashire "the Blundells, from the time of the Conquest, are said to have been lords of Ince Blundell. William Blundell had a seat here in the reign of Henry III.; from him it descended to John Blundell, the plaintiff against John de Chatherton and Katherina his wife at Westminster in 49 Ed. III. for the manor of Ince juxta Sefton .... which the same John and Katherina remitted and quit-claimed to him and his heirs for ever, in consideration of 100 marks of silver. The pedigrees of this family are very obscure, and certainly not very accurate, for none of them notices this John, so incontestably proved by this instrument to have held Ince in the reign of Ed. III. In the pedigree of Blundell of Crosby, Alice, daughter of Nicholas Blundell, 4 Ed. III., and sister of Henry, living 26 Henry VI., is stated to be the first wife of——Blundell of Ince. As there is an interval of a century and a half between Nicholas and Henry, it is not improbable" (the gentle irony of this is delightful) "that the Crosby pedigree is also erroneous; but this is the first mention of the Ince branch in the family papers. After this nothing is certain until the time of Robert Blundell, who died 1763, and was succeeded in Lydiate and Lostock by Henry Blundell, who married Agnes, daughter of Sir George Mostyn, of Telacre in Flintshire, and died in 1810, aged eighty-six. His representative is Charles Blundell, Esq., owner of the greater part of the township, but the manorial rights are claimed by him and the Earl of Sefton."—Baine's Lancashire. Charles Blundell died s. p. in 1838. The Crosby line ended with Nicholas Blundell in 1737; and in 1772 the son of his second daughter, Frances Pippard, assumed the name and arms of Blundell, and is still represented. The grandfather of the last male heir, William Blundell of Crosby, was a captain of dragoons under Sir Thomas Tildesley, in the Royalist army of 1642, and had his thigh shattered by a musket shot at the assault on Lancaster. "My equipage for the war," he says in one of his letters, "was far above my fortune. But in the first day of my services, before I had mustered the 100 dragoons which I was, by commission, raising, I lost the use of my limbs by a shot, and could never recover them since." The 'Note Book' of this gallant Cavalier, published in 1880, shows him to have been a man of sense and wit, a strict Catholic, and honourable, true and loyal to the core. He lost his father when he was eleven years old, and his grandfather, anxious to re-settle the estate during his own lifetime (for two-thirds of the landed property of recusants then lay absolutely at the mercy of the Crown), married him at fifteen to a daughter of Sir Thomas Haggerston, of Northumberland. "You will remember," he writes in after years to his mother-in-law, "what a pretty, straight young thing, all dashing in scarlet, I came to Haggerston." Anne Haggerston proved an exemplary wife. "And now," he says in another letter, "when I speak of your ark, I must here acknowledge that the dove which was sent from thence, some 30 years ago, hath saved from sinking our little cock-boat at Crosby[60] in many a storm." His troubles commenced betimes; for he was barely twenty-two when he became a cripple for life, nicknamed Halt-Will by his tenants; and upon this first misfortune followed the plunder of almost all his goods, and the sequestration of his lands, which continued for ten long years. "Thus," says he, "I was in the prime of my youth confined to my plundered bare walls and a pair of crutches;" but it was, he adds emphatically, "for the noblest cause in the world." He was four times imprisoned during the Commonwealth; once for ten weeks in "a loathsome prison" at Liverpool; and twice paid ransom, till at length he never ventured near his own home, from the fear of being again apprehended. Crosby was left in charge of his wife and sister; and so exposed were these poor women "while the war lasted, to domiciliary visits, in which the soldiers carried off anything they could lay their hands on, that they were obliged to bury their bread from meal to meal." At length, in 1653, he obtained leave to compound for his estate, that is, to re-purchase his own life interest in it with money borrowed from his friends; and in addition found himself saddled with arrears of rent due to the Crown (arising from frequent grants for recusancy), some of which dated back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and were detailed in a portentous bill—a roll twenty feet long—that is still shown at Crosby. The Restoration brought him no compensation and he in fact remained, on account of his religion, constantly more or less under suspicion, and sometimes under persecution, to the end of his life. He writes in 1679, "I was troubled a little some months agoe to see my trusty old sword taken from me (wch had been my companion when I lost my limbs, my lands, my liberty for acting against the rebels in the King's behalf) by an officer appointed for ye purpose, who in that former old war had been a captain against the King." He underwent his fifth term of imprisonment in 1689, and died in 1698, an old man fast approaching eighty. It is remarkable that though he loved books, and was himself an author, with a talent for poetry, he appears never to have read Shakespeare, and only knew (and heartily disliked) the prose writings of Milton. One of these Blundells settled in Bedfordshire, where the name is found in a list of the principal gentry of the county in the time of Henry VI. Fuller, in quoting this catalogue from an ancient record, says, "Hungry Time has made a glutton's meal on this catalogue of gentry, and hath left but a little morsel, for manners, remaining; so few of these are found extant in this shire, and fewer continuing in genteel equipage; among whom I must not forget the family of the Blundells, whereof Sir Edward Blundell behaved himself right valiantly in the unfortunate expedition to the isle of Roe." This was the expedition to the isle of Rhee, under the Duke of Buckingham. The family thence migrated to Ireland. Francis, brother and heir of Sir George Blundell, of Cardington, Bedfordshire, was appointed Irish Secretary in 1619, created a baronet in 1620, and had a grant of a manor in the Queen's County, to which he gave his own name. Sir Montague, his great grandson, was raised to the peerage of Ireland in 1720 as Baron of Edenderry and Viscount Blundell, but left no surviving son to inherit his titles on his death in 1756. One of his daughters was the grandmother of Mary, Baroness Sandys, who became the wife of the second Marquess of Down shire. In Lancashire the old name is affixed not only to Ince-Blundell, but to Blundellsands, near Liverpool. Breton : Brito, or Le Breton. No less than nine of this name appear in Domesday Book: all of them probably Breton knights that had followed the fortunes of Alain-le-Roux or his kinsmen. Alured Brito held of the King a barony of twenty-two lordships in Devonshire: Gozelin another in Bucks, Gloucester, and Bedfordshire; Oger one in Leicester and Lincoln; Rainald one in Sussex; Tihel one in Essex and Norfolk; Waldeve one in Lincoln and Cheshire; and Maigno or Manno Brito one in Bucks and Leicestershire. Two others, Roger and William, were mesne-lords in Somerset and Huntingdon. It would seem an endless—not to say a hopeless—task to disentangle the genealogies of all these various adventurers from Brittany; the more so as many of them probably assumed the name of their manors. This was the case with Richard Brito's descendants in Nottinghamshire. Annesley, part of the great fee held by Ralph FitzHerbert at the time of Domesday, was held under him by "one Richard, who probably was father or ancestor of Ralph called Brito, who, together with his son Reginald de Anesleia, gave the church of Felley to the Priory of St. Cuthbert de Radford, near Worksop, in the year 1158."—Thoroton's Notts. From him descended Francis Annesley, first Viscount Valentia, temp. James I., and the Earls of Anglesey, Mountmorris, and Annesley. Maigno Brito, the Buckinghamshire baron, was the ancestor of the Wolvertons of Stoke-Hamond (one of his manors mentioned in Domesday), where they continued for a considerable time.—Lysons. Banks enumerates several "persons of great eminence" bearing this name among his Barones Pretermissi. Amongst them are Ranulph Briton, of Northamptonshire, Chancellor to Henry III., as well as to his Queen, who died of apoplexy about 1247; John Briton, Bishop of Hereford, one of the King's Justices in the same reign; another John, seated in Norfolk, who affixed his name to Edward I.'s memorable letter to the Pope as Johannes le Briton, Dominus de Sporle; and William Breton, whose identity has never been satisfactorily established, who had a writ of military summons to attend the King at Newcastle in 1295. Morant informs us that the surname of the "Tihell Brito" of Domesday was De Helion, and that he founded a flourishing and richly-endowed family in Essex, which gave the name to their seat of Bumsted-Helion. Their barony was, however, subjected by the Empress Maud to Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford. The last heir-male, John Helion, whose mother, a very great heiress, had brought the estates of the Swinburnes and Bottetourts, died 28 Hen. VI. He had himself acquired Gosfield Hall through his wife, Alice Rolf; and the whole accumulated inheritance centred on his second daughter, Isabella Tyrell; the eldest, who had married Sir Thomas Montgomery, of Falkborn Hall, being childless. Bluat : or Bloet; Bluett in Leland's list; from Briqueville-la-Blouette, in Normandy. This name was still represented there in the last century. "Blouet de Cahagnolles," belonging to the Bailiwick of Caen, sat in the great Assembly of the Norman nobles in 1789. Richard Blouet is on the Dives Roll; and Ralph Bloiet was an undertenant in Hampshire in 1086. He is mentioned in the Monasticon Anglicanum (lb. i. 118) as a benefactor to Gloucester Abbey. Robert Blouet was Bishop of Winchester in the time of William the Conqueror. (Order. Vit. 763). The family long remained of eminence in the West of England; and Collins, misled by an Elizabethan herald, Hervey, Clarencieux-King-of-Arms in 1584 (the epoch of mendacious genealogies), claims for their ancestor the title of Earl of Sarum or Salisbury. This is a purely gratuitous assumption, as there is no record of any prior grant of the Earldom that was bestowed by the Empress Maud on Patrick D'Evreux early in the twelfth century. The son or grandson of this fabled Earl, Sir Roland Bluet, became Lord of Raglan in right of his wife Lucretia, and his posterity held the castle for several generations. William Bluett was summoned with other barons to march against the Welsh in 1256. Another descendant acquired Holcombe Rogus, Devonshire, by marriage with a co-heiress of Chiselden in the fifteenth century; and a third (the younger brother of a Sir Roger Bluett, who died in 1566), married a Cornish heiress, the daughter of Roger Colan, and "from him," says Gilbert, "all the Bluetts of Cornwall are since descended." There must, however, have been an earlier connection with the county, for I find John Bluett served as Sheriff 21 Henry VI. The direct line of the Devonshire branch ended in 1656 with another John Bluett, who is said to have owned one of the largest estates in the West, and left four daughters, married into the families of Jones, Wallop, Louthall, and Basset. They have been generally called his co-heiresses; but it is clear that Halcombe, at least, passed to a cousin of the same name, the son of his uncle Francis, who had been killed at the siege of Lyme in 1644. This cousin died s. p. in 1700, the last heir male of the elder line, and bequeathed his estate to the representative of the Cornish branch, Robert Bluett of Colan. Robert's son Buckland again proved childless, and "made a long but fruitless search to ascertain the existence of any male descendants of his family. One Roger Bluett (the son of Sir Roger's youngest son Nicholas) had five sons living at the time of the Visitation of 1620, but no trace could be found of this branch."—Lysons. At length, in default of evidence, he had to accept "the presumption that Peter Bluett, then of Falmouth, might be descended from one of the sons of a half-brother of Colan Bluett, who lived in the early part of the seventeenth century," and left him Holcombe Court at his death in 1786. It is still held by his posterity. I find mention of several other branches of this old house. There was one in Somersetshire, seated at Hinton Blewett, where they held one knight's fee of Le Despencer, and continued as late as 38 Henry VIII. (vide Collinson). In Hampshire, Ralph Bluet of Anne occurs during the fourteenth century. In Leicestershire an earlier "Ralph Bloet was seized of the manor of Daglingworth, temp. Henry II.; which King had a natural son by the wife of Ralph. This son was named Morgan, and was elected Bishop of Durham, but was denied a dispensation by the Pope, as the canons require in case of bastardy, because he persisted to own himself the King's son, and not Bloet's, and so lost his bishopric."—Nichol's Leicestershire. His descendant Ralph, forfeited his estate for rebellion under Edward II.; but was restored on the accession of Edward III. Sir John, his son, left an heiress named Elizabeth, married to James de Berkeley, who died 6 Henry IV. Daglingworth had been in the family for two hundred and fifty years. Baious : Bayous in Duchesne's copy; for De Bayeux, from the town of that name. "Ranulph de Bayeux was one of the Proceres of Normandy, 1050, in rebellion against Duke William (Ord. Vitalis). His descendants were great barons in Lincoln. The name continued long as Bayouse, Beyouse, and at last Bews."—The Norman People. Dugdale commences their pedigree with Ranulph de Bayeux, who temp. Henry I. had great possessions in Lincolnshire "whereof five Knight's Fees were held of him by Peter de Gosla (alias Gousel) who, towards the latter end of that King's Reign founded the first Abbey of the Praemonstratensian Order in this Realm, called Newhus." Both he and his son Hugh were benefactors of this Abbey. The latter died in the early part of Richard Coeur de Lion's reign, when "Alianor his Widow gave a fine of c Marks, that she might, with the consent of her Friends, marry unto whom she liked best." John the next in succession, was the last of the family that held the barony, for though he had a brother named Stephen, his two daughters were his heirs, of whom one was granted in marriage by the King to Elyas de Rabayne. But "under colour of that Grant, this Elyas took the other Daughter, and carried her beyond Sea, to the intent that he might as well defraud the King of the Custody of the moiety of that Barony, as the other Coheir of her Inheritance. The King, therefore, sent his Precept to the Sheriffs of Somerset, Dorset, and Lincoln Shires" to seize the lands. How the matter ended does not clearly appear. Backwell-Bayouse, in Somersetshire, and Waybayouse (now Upway) in Dorsetshire, take their name from this family. Browne : "a name, I suspect, of long subsequent date."—Sir Egerton Brydges. Undoubtedly so, in its present modernized guise; but as Le Brun or Brunnus, it frequently occurs in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of the twelfth century, and is several times written in Domesday. William le Brun held in Suffolk; and Bruno (perhaps the same) in Warwickshire: besides "Brun presbyter" in Oxfordshire. Yet it would be presumptuous to pronounce all the Brownes to be of Norman lineage,[61] for they are so preponderant, that in one single year (1838), 5585 births, marriages, and deaths, were registered among them: and twenty-one different families "have received from the Sovereign hereditary titles of nobility."—Sir Bernard Burke. Of these, the most considerable—that of the Viscounts Montague—was an offset of the great Norman house of La Ferte, who held the barony of La Ferte (now La Ferte Fresnel) near Evreux. Hugh de la Ferte is mentioned by Wace at Hastings. Richard de la Ferte accompanied Robert of Normandy to Palestine in 1096, and his youngest son, Gamel, surnamed Le Brun (according to family tradition to distinguish him from a brother called Le Blond), settled in Cumberland, where he had baronial grants from Waldeve FitzGospatric, and his descendants long flourished, the name gradually changing to Broyne, Broun, or Browne. Anthony, a younger son of Robert le Broun, knight of the shire for Cumberland 1317-1339, settled in London, became a rich merchant, and was created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Richard II., as a reward for having lent the King a very large sum of money, and then generously cancelled the bond. He left two sons, Sir Robert and Sir Stephen, the latter of whom became Lord Mayor of London in 1439. The eldest, Sir Robert, of Beechworth, in Surrey, was the ancestor of the baronets of Beechworth, extinct in 1690; and of Anthony Browne, the fortunate cadet with whom the promotion of the family began. He was "Standard Bearer throughout the whole realm of England and elsewhere" under Henry VII.: Esquire of the Body to the King, Constable of Queenborough, and carried away one of the chief matrimonial prizes of the day, Lady Lucy Nevill, the fourth of the great Montague heiresses, and widow of Sir Thomas FitzWilliam. Their son, a second Sir Anthony, was an able and astute courtier, who, throughout the reign of Henry VIII., stood high in the favour and confidence of his master, and served him faithfully and efficiently. "The times," says Lloyd, "were dark: his carriage so too: the waves were boisterous; but he, the solid rock, or the well-guided ship that could go with the tide." He was knighted at the siege of Morlaix in 1523; in 1525 appointed an Esquire of the King's Body; then Master of the Horse for life—"an eminent office" in those days—in 1539, and a Knight of the Garter in 1540. He attended the King to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where he had the credit of unhorsing the French King in a joust, and was his proxy at the marriage ceremony with Anne of Cleves.[62] At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, he received the splendid gift of Battle Abbey, once "the pledge and token of the royal crown," with the lion's share of his possessions. The story goes, that when he was holding his house-warming in the Abbot's Hall with great rejoicings and festivity, a monk suddenly made his appearance in the midst of the guests, strode up to the dais, and pronounced a solemn malediction upon the spoliator of the Church. He warned Sir Anthony that the curse would cleave to his remotest posterity, and foretold the special doom that was to be their temporal punishment. "By fire and water," he cried, "your line shall come to an end, and perish out of the land!" This prophecy sunk deep in the minds of men; for it was still well remembered and current in the county, when it came to pass after the lapse of two hundred and fifty years. In 1542, another great estate accrued to him by the death of his half-brother, William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton, from whom he inherited (with Easebourne Priory, Waverley Abbey, and some other Church lands), the beautiful domain of Cowdray in West Sussex, where a stately mansion had just been built. He had himself commenced a great manor-house at Battle, and when, in 1547, he was found to be one of the executors of Henry VIII.'s will, and the guardian of his two younger children, he added a wing for the reception of the Princess Elizabeth, who it was proposed should take up her abode with him. But he died, before it was completed, in the following year. He had married Alice, daughter of Sir John Gage; and when left a widower at the ripe age of sixty, obtained the hand of a beautiful and high-born girl of fifteen, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald—Surrey's "fair Geraldine." His eldest son (by his first wife) was created Viscount Montague by Queen Mary, on the occasion of her marriage with Philip of Spain. She further appointed him her Master of the Horse, and gave him the Garter in 1555. He was through life a zealous and uncompromising Roman Catholic, resolutely refusing to vote for the abolition of the Pope's supremacy at the accession of Elizabeth; yet, when the realm was threatened with invasion, and some of his co-religionists were having masses said for the success of the Armada, he was "the first that showed his bands to the Queen" at Tilbury. He was "very sickly and in age," but came ready to hazard his life, and all else he had to give, in her quarrel, bringing with him about two hundred horsemen, "led by his two sons, and with them a young child, very comely, seated on horseback, being the heir of his house, that is, the eldest son of his son and heir." Three years later, during one of her summer progresses in Sussex, Elizabeth spent six days with him at Cowdray, and was magnificently entertained, with the usual pageants and compliments. There exists a long and detailed account of this Royal visit, where we find it noted that on Sunday morning three oxen and one hundred and forty geese were consumed at breakfast; and on the Thursday following the Queen dined at a table "48 yardes long, in the privie walks of the garden." The good old Viscount died in the ensuing year, and was succeeded by the "comely child" his grandson, Anthony Mary, whom, Horace Walpole includes among his "Royal and Noble Authors," on the strength of a voluminous "Booke of Orders and Rules for the better Direction and Government of my Household and Family," that he compiled when he came of age. It furnishes a very curious picture of a nobleman's establishment in 1595. The number of retainers is prodigious; thirty-seven "Principal Officers" are enumerated, many of whom had subordinates under them; the first fourteen being "Gentlemen by birth," the next two "Gentlemen by Office," and the rest "Yeomen Officers." Nor does this long list include other servants incidentally mentioned, such as "Butler, Pantler, Housekeeper, Footemen, Caters (Caterers), Gentlemen's servants, Boys of the Kytchen," &c. &c, besides "Gentlewomen," and the necessary complement of "Chambermaydes" and "Lawnderers." The etiquette observed would not have disgraced the Court of Louis XIV. Lord Montague never left the house without having one, at least, of the Gentlemen of his Chamber, and several Yeomen of his Chamber and Gentlemen Waiters in "diligent attendance": if he rode out, the Gentleman of the Horse helped him into his saddle, while the Yeoman of the Horse held his stirrup, and a footman stood at his horse's head. When he and his wife took a journey, the entire household, headed by the Steward, rode in array before him, always bare-headed when they passed through a town or village, followed by his "brethren, children, and uncles," with all the parade of a royal progress. He could not sit down to any meal till a minute and august ceremonial had been gone through, the observances commencing with the cookery, for the Clerk of the Kitchen is enjoined to suffer "none to stand unseemely with his back to my meate when it is at the range." Even the dinner table was an object of reverence; the Yeomen of the Ewry only approached it with three low obeisances, and kissed it respectfully before laying the cloth. The dinner and supper were brought in by a long and solemn procession, heralded, on important occasions, by the Marshall of the Hall, followed by the Steward and Comptroller, bearing their white wands of office, and all stood up uncovered as they crossed the hall. The rest of the household took their meals at six different tables, divided according to their rank by the most punctilious rule of precedence. Finally, at night, a Gentleman of the Chamber lighted his Lord to his room, and tucked him up in bed. Unfortunately for Lord Montague, Guy Fawkes had twice been—though for a short time only—a member of this over-grown household; and on the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, he was sent to the Tower as an accomplice. His father-in-law, Lord Dorset, interceded in his behalf, and succeeded, it is said, in mitigating his sentence, though he was condemned to pay a fine of £4000; and suffer imprisonment during the King's pleasure. His son was further impoverished by his loyalty during the Civil War, when his estates were sequestered, and Cowdray was garrisoned and somewhat misused by Sir William Waller. He was obliged to dispark the Great Park at Battle, and his successor, again in want of ready money, pulled down the great conventual kitchen for the sake of the materials. The Abbey itself was disposed of by the sixth Viscount, who sold it in 1719 to Sir Thomas Webster. The next Lord, who married a Methodist of Lady Huntingdon's sect, was the first of the family that seceded from the Church of Rome; and it was accordingly on his only son and heir that the monk's curse lighted. This eighth Viscount Montague was drowned in the Rhine in September 1793, when only twenty-four years of age. He was on a boating expedition with his friend Mr. Sedley Burdett, and made a fool-hardy attempt to shoot the falls of Laufenberg, in which they both lost their lives. They had been duly advised of the danger of the venture, and entreated not to risk it; but warning and persuasion were alike disregarded. At the last moment, as they were stepping into their boat, Lord Montague's servant clutched his collar, crying "My lord—my lord! the curse of water!" but he wrenched himself free, and sprang away out of reach. The boat capsized in the second wave of the Laufen, and the two gentlemen, with their dog, were seen swimming gallantly through the surges, till all disappeared in the vortex under the Oelberg. The Rhine is there one hundred feet deep, and though large rewards were more than once offered, the bodies could never be recovered. The messenger that carried these heavy tidings to England crossed another hurrying out to inform the poor young Viscount of a dire calamity that had befallen him at home. On the night of September 24, 1793, Cowdray House was burnt to the ground. It was conjectured that some careless workmen had left a pan of smouldering charcoal behind in the great gallery; at all events the fire, however caused, spread so rapidly and devouringly that scarcely anything could be saved. Pictures, carvings, tapestries, frescoes, and furniture—the accumulated treasures of generations—all perished together in the flames, and the curse pronounced upon the sacreligious Sir Anthony was fulfilled to the very letter. By flood and by fire his house had been overthrown, and come to its appointed end. It is true that one heir male was left, a distant cousin, then an old bachelor, who bore the title for four years, but it expired at his death in 1797. With the extinction of the family in the male line, it might have been supposed that the curse had done its work, and would thenceforward no longer rest on the doomed inheritance. But the saddest part of the tragedy is yet to be told. Cowdray had passed to the only sister of the poor young man drowned at Laufenberg, Elizabeth Mary, married in 1794 to Stephen Poyntz of Midgeham in Berkshire, by whom she had a family of two sons and three daughters. In the summer of 1815, Mr. and Mrs. Poyntz were staying with their children at Bognor, and two Miss Parrys, the daughters of Admiral Parry, who were relations of hers, were on a visit to them. One fine, warm day, Mr. Poyntz proposed a boating excursion, and, with these ladies and his two sons, put out to sea in a little skiff, managed by a boatman and his boy. Mrs. Poyntz, who is said to have had a superstitious dread of going on the water, declined accompanying him, and, as the evening approached, was sitting at the window watching them on their return home. They were close in shore, when a sudden squall struck the sail and upset the boat, and the wretched mother saw her two sons drowned literally before her eyes. For some time they clung to their father's coat, who had managed to lay hold of the capsized boat; but, whether from cramp or terror, their strength failed them, and poor Mr. Poyntz, unable to assist them, had the agony of feeling one after the other let go, and drop back into the sea. The two Miss Parrys and the sailor's lad were also drowned, but Mr. Poyntz was rescued by the boatman; and of the merry party that had set out together that morning, they returned the sole survivors. This terrible event was at once put to the account of the accursed inheritance of Cowdray; and there had, in truth, been evil auguries abroad long before it happened. Croker writes in 1831: "When I visited the ruins of Cowdray twenty years ago, I was reminded (in addition to other stories[63]) that the curse of both fire and water had fallen on Cowdray, and the good folks of the neighbourhood did not scruple to prophesy that it would turn out a fatal inheritance. At that period, the present possessor, Mr. Poyntz, who had married Lord Montague's heiress, had two sons, who seem destined to inherit Cowdray: but on July 7, 1815, these young gentlemen, boating off Bognor with their father, on a very fine day, the boat was unaccountably upset, the two youths perished, and thus were once more fulfilled the forebodings of superstition." The three daughters, thus become co-heiresses, divided the property between them, and Cowdray was sold in 1843. Frances Elizabeth, the eldest, married first Robert, eighteenth Lord Clinton, and secondly Sir Horace Seymour; the second, Elizabeth Georgiana, married Frederick, fourth Earl Spencer; and the youngest, Isabella, married Brownlow, second Marquess of Exeter. The two latter narrowly escaped sharing their brother's fate. Lady Clinton had married in the preceeding year, and was not with them; but the younger sisters were both to have joined the boating party, had Lady Exeter been ready in time. She had often been too late before, and as their father was rigidly punctual, her sister Elizabeth remained behind with her to share the blame, and Mr. Poyntz fortunately declared that he would not wait for them. Dallaway, in his History of Sussex, mentions that, "a branch of this family, according to uncertain tradition, was settled in Ireland in 1565; the ancestor having accompanied Sir H. Sydney, Lord Deputy, from whom the present Marquess of Sligo is descended." This ancestor, Thomas Browne, of whose descent the peerages furnish no details, was seated in Mayo, where his son—the first sheriff of the county—lost his life in an affray with the native Irish, and his posterity continues to the present day. John Browne, created a baronet in 1632, had two sons, Sir George, and John: from the elder are derived the Viscounts Kilmaine; from the younger, the Marquesses of Sligo. Beke : This great Norman house was divided into two branches, that gave their name to Bec-Crespin and Bec-en Caux, and claimed to descend from Duke Rollo's daughter Crispina, the wife of Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco. Their coat of arms, "Fuselee d'argent et de gueules," was that of the Grimaldis. Other authorities derive them from Amfrid the Dane, whose son Turstin Goz is given as the common ancestor of the house of Avranches, Earls of Chester, and the Barons of Bec-Crespin, hereditary Constables of Normandy, and Castellans of Tillieres. Again, Dugdale asserts that Walter Bec, the progenitor of the Lords Beke of Eresby, had "a fair inheritance in Flanders"; in this following a pedigree furnished by Glover in 1582.[64] It is in some respects unreliable; for it further affirms that Walter Bec received Eresby by gift of the Conqueror, whereas in reality it was only acquired one hundred years afterwards. Two of the name are found in Domesday; Goisfrid de Bec, a great baron in Hertfordshire; and Walter Bec, a small sub-tenant in Buckinghamshire. From one or other of these—to judge by the Christian name, most likely the latter—descended another Walter Bec, who married the heiress of Hugh Fitz Pinco, entered in the Liber Niger as holding seven knight's fees in Lincolnshire of the Bishop of Durham. She brought the estate said to have been the gift of the Conqueror; and her great grandson John was summoned to Parliament as Lord Beke of Eresby in 1295. The succesion is distinctly set forth in a charter by which this Lord of Eresby confirms all the grants made by his ancestors to Kirksted Abbey, from the time of its foundation in 1139. Therein are mentioned "Hugo films Pincionis abavus meus";—"Walterus Beke, proavus meus";—"Agnes filia Hugonis filii Pincionis, quondam uxor predicti Walteri Beke";—"Henricus Beke avus meus;"—and "Walterus Beke pater meus." The first Walter and the heiress of Eresby had four sons; of whom Hugh, the first-born, died on his return from the Crusade of 1189, unmarried: and Henry, the next, "being weak of understanding, his brothers divided the inheritance with him." These were:—Walter, seated at Lusceby in Lincolnshire, whose grandson and namesake was Constable of Lincoln Castle in the time of Henry III. and Edward I.: and Thomas, a priest. The weak-minded heir, however, found a well born and richly dowered bride, and was the father of Walter II., with whose three sons, John, Thomas, and Anthony, the succession closed. John was, as I have said, a peer of the realm, with the grant of a yearly market and fair at Spilsby, and license to make a castle at Eresby. He died, a very old man, in 1303, the year after his only son, on whose death he adopted his grandson Robert de Willughby, and made over to him Eresby and the other estates. Robert was the son of the eldest of his two daughters, Alice, wife of William de Willughby, of Willughby in Lincolnshire, and was summoned to Parliament as Lord Willoughby de Eresby in 1313. His descendants in the male line held the barony till 1525, when it passed through an heiress to the Berties,[65] from whom it has been transferred by the Burrells to the Heathcotes. Lord Beke's other co-heiress, Margery, married Richard de Harcourt, of Stanton-Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. His two younger brothers, Thomas and Anthony, were both of them princes of the Church. Thomas was Chancellor of Oxford in 1269, Lord Treasurer of England in 1279, and Bishop of St. David's in 1280: but his fame was utterly eclipsed by that of his magnificent brother Anthony, Prince-Bishop of Durham, one of the chief potentates of his age, and "the prowdest Lorde in Christientie." "No man in all the Realm, except the King, did equal him for habit, behaviour, and military pomp: and he was more versed in State affairs than in ecclesiastical duties; ever assisting the King most powerfully in his wars; having sometimes in Scotland 26 Standard Bearers, and of his ordinary Retinue 140 Knights, so that he was thought to be rather a temporal Prince than a priest or Bishop."—Dugdale. As Prince Palatine, there was not, in point of fact, a single attribute of sovereignty that did not belong to him. He levied taxes; raised troops; sate in judgment of life and death; coined money; instituted corporations by charter; created Barons, who formed his council or Parliament, and granted fairs and markets. He was Lord High Admiral of the seas or waters within or adjoining the Palatinate; impressed ships for war; and had Vice-Admirals and Courts of Admiralty. Nor was aught wanting of the state and dignity of Royalty. Nobles addressed him only on bended knee; and knights waited bare-headed in his presence-chamber. His wealth was enormous, and his expenditure as magnificent as his income. He was a great builder. Besides his own collegiate chapel at Bishop's Auckland, he founded the two great collegiate churches of Chester-le-Street and Lanchester in his diocese of Durham; he built the castle of Somerton, near Lincoln, and the Manor of Eltham; re-built and castellated Auckland: "buildyed or renewyd Kensington, and gave it to King or Prince": and added greatly both to Alnwick and Barnard Castle. Another of his erections was his palace in London, Duresme Place. The lavish splendour of his household was proverbial. He is known to have given forty shillings (about £80 of our money) for as many fresh herrings in Lent:—and once, hearing that it had been said of some costly stuff offered for sale, "This cloth is so dear that even Bishop Anthony would not venture to pay for it," he immediately ordered the whole to be bought and cut up into horse-cloths. Yet his own mode of life was rigidly austere. Like his great predecessor, St. Cuthbert, he was never known to look a woman full in the face, always rose from his meals with an appetite, and never took but one sleep, saying that it did not become a man to turn himself in bed. His chief delight was in war and feats of arms, for he was every inch a soldier; and the little army marching under the banner of St. Cuthbert was foremost in all Edward I.'s Scottish expeditions. None but himself was ever suffered to lead it in the field; and on one occasion, whilst fighting in the melee at the battle of Falkirk, he was met by the cry, "To your mass, O priest!" Langtoft's rhyming Chronicle praises his activity and boldness of heart: "Le eveske de Duram, ke mout fet a loer, En conquerant la tere fu tuzjours li primer." He "never left the precincts of his castle but in magnificent military array" r and a short-bladed sword inscribed with his name is still preserved at Auckland. Edward I. appointed him Constable of the Tower, and frequently employed him on embassies. When, as his ambassador to Rome, he brought a Royal gift of some vessels of pure gold to the Pope, "His Holiness, taking especial notice of his courtly behaviour and magnanimity of spirit, advanced him to the title of Patriarch of Jerusalem." He died in 1310, and was the first Bishop ever buried in Durham Cathedral, where he rests in the chapel of the Nine Altars. Before his time none had ever ventured to be laid near the sacred grave of St. Cuthbert; and such was the superstitious dread of the people, that at his funeral they did not dare to bring in the body through the church doors, but introduced it furtively through a whole broken in the wall for that purpose. This breach is, I believe, still visible. His heir was his nephew Robert, Lord Willoughby de Eresby. It is remarkable that three other prelates—all of them collateral descendants of the House of Eresby, are found within the next half century, viz.: Thomas, elected Bishop of Lincoln in 1319, who died a few months afterwards; Anthony, "made Bishop of Norwich by the Pope's mandate in 1337, who, being as proud and overbearing as his 'magnanimous' namesake and kinsman, but without his good qualities, was poisoned by his servants in 1343"; and Thomas, third of the name, who again was Bishop of Lincoln. The first Thomas—Lord Beke's brother—"died in 1293, and as the last Thomas was elected to the see of Lincoln in 1342, it follows that there was no less than five bishops of the same name and family living within the brief period of half a century—a fact unparalleled in the history of the Anglican, perhaps even of the whole Catholic Church."—Herald and Genealogist, vol. vii., p. 453. A John Beke was Vice Chancellor of Oxford 1450-52. Beke's Inn, in that city, existed until the beginning of the sixteenth century. Further ramifications of the family are to be met with. In 1156, Everard de Bec, and Alan de Bec (then a minor) held lands in Cambridge of Hugh de Dovres (Lib. Niger). Hugh Beke, a contemporary of Walter I., Lord of Eresby in right of his wife, married, like him, an heiress, who brought him Livingsbourne (since Bekesbourne), a chief member of the Cinque-port of Hastings, which he held in grand serjeanty of the King by the service of furnishing one ship. (Testa de Nevill.) "Bekesbourne appears to have passed into other hands about the end of the thirteenth century; but the name is met with in the neighbourhood about the beginning of the fifteenth century, from which time down to the present day the descent of the family is to be regularly traced.—Ibid. Bickard : "Nicholas de Bichar" witnesses a charter of William de Granavilla to Gateshead: and was, without doubt, the same Nicholas, mentioned in the Rot. Cur. Northumbriae, who was Lord of Byker, near Newcastle, in the reign of Henry III. This manor was anciently held in grand serjeancy, by carrying the King's writ between the rivers Tyne and Coquet, and making distresses of goods for the King's debts.—Hutchinson's Northumberland. The family continued there till 1346. Richard de Bicker was summoned to attend the great Council at Westminster in 1324.—Palgrave's Parl. Writs. The name is found at a rather earlier date in Lincolnshire, where Gerard de Bikere occurs in the Rotul. Cancellarii of 1202, and was presumably the owner of Bicker, "a very ancient and pleasant village, nine miles from Folkingham." But in this, as in the foregoing case, it seems most probable that the lord adopted the name of his manor, instead of imposing upon it his own; and if so, it can only be an interpolation with which we have no need to concern ourselves. Nevertheless it is noteworthy that we meet with it in other localities. Peter Becard, of Yorkshire, and William Bikere, of Bedfordshire, were living in the time of Edward I. (Rotul. Hundredorum). John Becard is included in the list of the gentlemen of Nottinghamshire made in 1433. Banastre : from Banastre, now Beneter, near Etampes. Camden, however, "derives the name from Balneator, Master of the Bath, which conjecture is countenanced by the old Banastre arms of two water buckets."—Bain's Lancashire. It still survives as Bannister. An ancient pedigree of this family, preserved in a petition on the Rolls of Parliament, begins with Robert Banastre, who came over at the Conquest, and held Prestatyn, one of the hundreds of Flintshire, under Robert de Ruelent. "Here a tower was built on the coast, whereof the foundations are still distinguishable. It was destroyed by the Welsh when they regained possession of that district in the time of Henry II. Robert, the son of Robert Banastre, withdrew with all his people into Lancashire, where they are found holding extensive possessions under the Earls of Chester, whose palatinate extended over the South of that county."—Sir Bernard Burke. Robert left three sons, Richard, Warin, and Thurstan, of whom the two elder died s. p. Warin, about the time of King John, was Baron of Newton (one of the palatinate baronies), and was succeeded either by his brother Thurstan, or Thurstan's son Robert, whose heiress was his grand-daughter Alice. She carried his barony to the Langtons: but several collateral branches of the family remained. "Bank Hall was for centuries the manorial residence of the Banastres or Banisters, Lords of the manor of Bretherton. In 34 Ed. III. a mandate was issued from the Duchy court, on the death of Thomas Banastre, directing the Escheator to seize his lands for the King and the Duke. A Thomas Banastre is mentioned in the Lansdowne Feodary, 23 Hen. Ill, as the son and heir of Sir Adam Banastre, whom Dr. Whitaker conjectures to have been of this family, and who was beheaded temp. Ed. II. by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, for his active opposition to that powerful and factious baron. The descent of the Banastres of Bank is not satisfactorily traced before the reign of Henry VIII., in whose second year died Henry Banastre of Bank."—Bain's Lancashire. The last heir male, Christopher Banastre, was High Sheriff in 1669. The family was very numerous elsewhere in England. In Shropshire, Richard Banastre "was Lord of Munslow and Aston-Munslow in 1115, holding the same in capite under Henry I., and standing high in provincial importance. I think however that Richard Banastre was a greater man in Cheshire than in Shropshire. A deed of Richard, Earl of Chester, and the Countess Ermentrude, his mother, of the date of 1106, names Richard Banastre as one of the Barons of Cheshire: and in 1128 he is a prominent witness to a charter of Robert de Meschines. "The successor of Richard Banastre, both in Cheshire and Shropshire, was Thurstan Banastre, probably his son, whose line ended either with himself, or his successor of the same name, and I think in the time of Henry II. He left two daughters his co-heirs, Margery, wife of Richard Fitz Roger, and Matilda, wife of William de Hastings."—Eyton's Shropshire. Nigel Banastre, in the twelfth century, acquired by marriage Hadnall in the same county, which his grandson, about 1230, held of the fee of John Fitz Alan, doing the service of one knight at Oswestry in war time. Another descendant is mentioned in 1316, "I will not attempt," continues Eyton, "to give any later or connected account of the Banastres of Hadnall. In the fourteenth century there were three families of Banastre, styled respectively of Hadnall, Smethcott, and Yarton. I cannot say how they were related, nor, indeed, which was the elder line." William Banastre, of Wem, was Sheriff of Shropshire in 1402. He, or one of his immediate descendants, obtained Lacon through the heiress of Hussey; and Ralph Banastre of Lacon was the faithless servant[66] who betrayed the Duke of Buckingham to Richard III. See Toesni. The Duke is said to have been "disguised and digging a ditch at the time of his arrest; and on the approach of Thomas Mytton the sheriff, who came to apprehend him, he knelt down in the orchard wherein he was taken, and solemnly imprecated vengeance upon the traitor and his posterity, which curses are said to have been signally fulfilled." Hall writes, "Sure it is that shortlie after he had betrayed the duke his master, his sonne and heyre waxed mad, and so dyed in a bore's stye: his eldest daughter, of excellent beautie, was sodainly stricken with a foule leperye; his second sonne very marvellously deformed of his limmes and made decrepit; his younger sonne in a small puddel was strangled and drowned; and he, being of extreme age, arraigned and found gyltie of a murder, and by his clergye saved: And as for his thousand pounds, kyng Richard gave him not one farthing, howbeit some say he had a small office or a ferme to stop his mouth."—Owen and Blakeway's Shrewsbury. That he received the manor of Ealding (now Yalden) in Kent as the reward of his perfidy is beyond all question; but the appalling list of domestic calamities called down upon him by his master's curse is hard of belief; and it should be borne in mind that the benefit of clergy was never extended to murder. "The family to which he belonged grew ashamed of this disgraceful member, and his name appears on none of their pedigrees."—Ibid. "If ever wight had cause to rue A wretched deed, vile and untrue, Then Banister with shame may sing, Who sold his life that loved him." The Banastres also continued in Cheshire, where they have left their name to Mollington-Banastre, near Chester. Redacre Hall, in the parish of Prestbury, was their residence in the seventeenth century; and mention is made of a contemporary Hugh Banaster of Riding. Sulhamstead-Bannister, in Berkshire, commemorates another line of collaterals, of whom three were Sheriffs of the county; Alan Banastre, in 1169; Alard, in 1173, and Thomas, in 1203. One of the early Knights of the Garter is derived by Beltz, in his Memorials of the Order, from Englefield in Berkshire. Again, there were Banastres seated at Gnosall in Staffordshire. "Philip, son of Sir Philip, of that house, held Bosworth and Upton in Leicestershire in 1280. They ended early in the seventeenth century."—Nicholls. Dorothy daughter and sole heir of Sir Robert Banastre of Passenham, in Northamptonshire (perhaps their representative?), married William, second Lord Maynard, to whom she brought a great estate. She was the mother of Banastre, third Lord, and died in 1649. Baloun : Baalun, or Baladon—Leland mis-spells it Bealum—from the castle of Balaon or Baladon in Normandy, which as Orderic informs us, was garrisoned in 1088 by William Rufus. Three of the name, the sons of Drogo de Baladon, Hamelin, Wynoc, and Wynebald (the Guinebaud de Balon of the Dives Roll) came to England with the Conqueror. Hamelin received vast grants in Wales and Cornwall, and built a strong castle at Abergavenny, now The rent Norman tower that overhangs The lucid Esk:— as a shapeless and shattered ruin. Being one of the strongholds of the ruthless Lords Marcher, it was the scene of many a deed of blood and violence, and Giraldus avers "that it was dishonoured by treason oftener than any other castle in Wales." In Leland's time it' was still "a faire Castell"; and then likewise remained "a Priori of Blake Monks of the French Order" (Benedictines) that Hamelin had founded in the town, and in which he lies buried. He died in 1090, childless; and left his castle and the whole vast Honour of Abergavenny to Brian Fitz Count, the son of his sister Lucie. This nephew, represented as "nobly descended and of great dignity" (though his lineage is dubious), was already Baron of Wallingford in right of his wife Maud, widow of Milo Crespin, and sole daughter of the Conqueror's favourite noble, Robert D'Oyley. But his two sons by this great heiress were both of them lepers; and it was in Abergavenny Priory that their broken-hearted father bestowed them before he assumed the Cross, and relinquishing every worldly possession, took his departure for Jerusalem. Of Drogo de Baladon's second son, Wynoc, we hear nothing; but the third, Wynebald, was a great baron in the time of Henry I., and the benefactor of two religious houses. "With the consent of Roger his son," he gave his lordship of Rodeford, his mill at Fromelade, and half a hide at Ameneye, to St. Peter's at Gloucester; and Bridesthorne, the church of Hardwicke, &c, in Hertfordshire to the monks of Bermondsey in 1092.—Chauncy's Herts. But I can find no subsequent mention of Roger, and the name only occurs again in the county about 1290, when "Dionisia de Monte Caniso granted to the hospital of Biggin all the lands she had of the grant of Catherine Balun in Little Horsmead."—Ibid. The manor of Balun (now Balance) in that parish, took the name of its ancient owners. John de Baalun, presumed to be of the same family, was one of the Lords Marcher guarding the Welsh frontier in the time of Henry III., and constantly summoned to arms in its defence. He was likewise in the French wars, and fought on the side of the Barons at Evesham, but soon after made his peace. His wife Auda, was the sister and co-heir of William Painell; "but further than this," ends Dugdale, "I have not seen of him." Some account of his descendants is given in Robinson's Castles of Herefordshire and their Lords. "The earliest lord of Much-Marcle after the extinction of the Lacies (the grantees at the Conquest) of whom we find any record is John de Balun or de Baladon, who was a witness to Magna Charta in the ninth year of Henry III. Either he, or his sons, were commanded by the same King in 1257 to assist Humphrey de Bohun in guarding the Welsh Marches, and we find his name also among the benefactors of Aconbury Priory. By his descendants numerous alterations were made, and thus the great manor of Marcle became sub-divided. Walter de Balun married Isolda, daughter of Ralph de Mortimer, and at his death, about the year 1284, left his widow dower in Marcle. She took for her second husband Hugh de Audley: and an enquiry was consequently made by the Escheator whether it would be for the King's damage if John de Balun, kinsman and heir of Walter, alienated to her husband in fee the land which she held in dower. This alienation was effected, and the result of it was the formation of the manor of Marcle-Audley. The De Baluns, however, continued to hold land in Marcle for some time after this." Matthew de Baelun held five knight's fees of the Earl of Eu in 1165 (Liber Niger): and the name survived in Sussex till the time of Queen Elizabeth, when Robert Balam was a burgess of Bramber. Beauchampe : Hugo de Belcamp (as it is written in Domesday), who in 1086 held a great barony in Herts, Bucks, and Bedfordshire, was the ancestor of "the god-like brood of Beauchamps," as Drayton calls them, whose family history would fill volumes. He derived his name from Beauchamp of Avranches, seated between that city and Granville, which formed part of the barony of St. Denis le Gaste (De Gerville, Anciens Chateaux de la Manche). It has consequently been suggested that the Beauchamps were a branch of the barons of St. Denis; but this is only a conjecture.[67] Nor is the name of Hugh's wife known; but he certainly left three sons; Simon, Pain (Paganus), and Milo, the ancestor of the Beauchamps of Eaton. Simon died childless, and probably early in life; for in the time of William Rufus his brother Pain had succeeded him, and obtained from that King the barony of Bedford, "which was," says Dugdale, "a Capital Honour; and also the strong castle of Bedford, the Head of that Barony," afterwards so nobly defended against King Stephen. Pain's wife was the widowed Countess of Essex, Rohais, daughter of Alberic de Vere, Lord Justiciary temp. Henry I., with whom he founded Chicksand Priory, Bedfordshire, where she lies buried. It was during the life of their son Simon II. that Bedford Castle stood its famous siege. Stephen had given Simon's daughter, with the whole barony of Bedford, to Hugh de Mellent, and commanded the Beauchamps to hold it of him, and do him service as their suzerain. Milo, who by royal license had then the custody of the fortress, refused obedience, and with his disinherited nephews, or, as Orderic calls them, the sons of Robert de Beauchamp, garrisoned it against the Royal forces. The pedigree is rather confused; and Mr. Planche maintains that it must have been the daughter of the elder Simon (hitherto believed to have died s. p.), of whom Orderic speaks as the cause of the feud; "for that she could not be the daughter of the second Simon, son of Pain, first Baron of Bedford, is clear, as he was living in 1207." Now it is equally clear that the grandson of the Hugh of Domesday could not be living one hundred and forty-one years after the Conquest, nor be the father of William de Beauchamp, who died about 1256. Dugdale has evidently skipped a generation in the pedigree, and merged two successive Simons into one. Bedford Castle was a formidable stronghold. It stood on high ground, "a Fort of great Strength, environed with a mighty Rampire of Earth, and an high wall within which was an impregnable Tower," and the King raised an army for its assault; "but," Orderic tells us, "as it was the season of Christmas, and the weather very rainy, after great exertions he had no success." He was at last wearied out, and withdrew, leaving orders that the leaguer should be continued till the place was reduced by famine; and the gallant garrison, after holding out for five weeks, finally yielded it by the mediation of the King's brother, and marched out upon honourable terms. The castle was demolished by Henry III. in 1223, for William de Beauchamp, who was then its possessor, "as he had been an active person in those turbulent Times against King John, so did he continue against King Henry III., as is manifest from his being taken prisoner at the battle of Lincoln." But Ida his wife was the King's cousin; and he obtained permission to rebuild his house and surround it with a wall, though "without any battlement." The line terminated with his three sons, of whom John, the last, was slain at Evesham, and his lands were divided between his daughters, Maud de Moubray, Beatrix Fitz Otes, and Ela de Wake. Two junior branches remained; the Barons of Eaton descended (as I have said) from Milo; and the Barons of Elmley, to whom were apportioned the most brilliant destinies of the race. Of the former was Hugh de Beauchamp, who founded the priory of Besmade near his park at Eaton; and "in 32 Henry III. being at Jerusalem, on pilgrimage, he was the year next following slain in the Holy Land, in that battle wherein Guy, King of Jerusalem was taken prisoner." The last of these Lords of Eaton mentioned by Dugdale is Roger in 21 Edward I., for, "in regard that they were not of the degree of Barons," nothing is said of his posterity. Walter de Beauchamp of Elmley Castle in Worcestershire, whose exact relationship to the parent stock has never been clearly made out, married Emmeline, the heiress of Urso de Abitot, and received from Henry I. the hereditary Shrievalty of Worcester "to hold as freely as any of his ancestors had done." His son William was, as he himself had been, Despenser to the King, and termed "King of the Weste Partes," for he was sheriff of four neighbouring counties, and held fifteen knights' fees. His descendants—all of them stout soldiers—served as Barons-Marcher, till, in the middle of the thirteenth century, another William de Beauchamp, obtained the hand of Isabel de Mauduit, who brought to her son not only the Barony of Hanslape, but the famous Earldom of Warwick and its splendid castle, "the most Princely seat there is within the midland parts of the Realm." The second Earl was christened Guy in memory of his celebrated predecessor, and valiantly upheld the ancient glory of the name. He fought in the Scottish wars under the eye of Edward I.; receiving from him the forfeited lands of the Baliols, and when the great King lay on his death-bed at Burgh-on-the-Sands in Cumberland, "calling divers of his Nobility unto him, and among them this Earl Guy, he desired them to be good to his son, and not to suffer Piers Gaveston to return to England." Accordingly, in the next reign, Earl Guy was conspicuous among the barons who took part against the favourite; and in 1311, as he was travelling across Oxfordshire, came in the night time with a number of men, seized him, carried him to Warwick, and cut off his head. He avenged a private as well as a public quarrel; for "Piers," says Dugdale, "had much angered the Earl of Warwick by calling him the Black Dog of Arderne, because of his black and swarthy complexion." But he paid the penalty with his own life, for he died of poison administered by one of Gaveston's partizans. His wife, Alice de Toeni, the widow of Thomas de Leyborne, was again a great heiress; and their two sons—left fatherless in very tender years—each became renowned in arms. Both brothers were founder Knights of the Garter. John, the younger, was Captain of Calais, Admiral of the Fleet, and Standard Bearer at Cressy, and had summons to parliament as a baron, but died s. p.: while Thomas, the third Earl, a soldier from his earliest boyhood, followed Edward HI. throughout his triumphant campaigns. He was one of the principal commanders that, with the Black Prince, led the van of the army at Cressy, and fought there till "his hand was galled with the exercise of his sword and pole-axe." Before that, in 1346, followed only by a single squire and six archers, he had been the first man who set foot on shore at Hogue in Normandy, and "tho' he had but these few men, and a weak Horse under him, he encountered with one hundred Normans, whereof they slew sixty, making way for the Army to land." Again, on another occasion, hearing that the English lay idly encamped near Calais, "he hasted away with some choyce men," sailed across the Channel, and "highly blamed those that occasioned the English to forbear fighting, saying, 'I will goe on and fighte before the English bread which we have eaten be digested:' and thereupon presently entered the Isle of Caus, which he wasted. But, alas! on his return towards Caleys he fell sick of the pestilence, and dyed on the 13th November, 1369." He it was who built the existing castle of Warwick, founded the choir of the collegiate church of St. Mary's (where the curiously drawn likenesses of his nine daughters are placed in the S. windows), and made the town toll-free. But the fame of all his fore-fathers paled before the star of Earl Thomas' grandson, Richard, "the very plume and pride of his martial race, who travelled to Russia, Poland, Venice, and Jerusalem, and whose livery the Soldan's Lieutenant coveted to wear." This latter story is so curious that it deserves to be given in detail. The Earl's journey to the Holy Land seems to have been more like a royal progress than a pilgrimage; and when "he had perform'd his offerings at the Sepulchre of our blessed Saviour, he set up his Armes on the N. side of the Temple, which continued there many years after. At the time of his being thus at Hierusalem, a noble person call'd Baltredam, the Souldan's Lieutenant, hearing that he was descended from the famous Sir Guy de Warwick, whose story they had in books of their own language, invited him to his Palace; and royally feasting him, presented him with three pretious stones of great value, besides divers clothes of silk and gold. Where this Baltredam told him privately that he faithfully believed as he did, tho' he durst not discover himself, and rehearsed the Articles of the Creed. And on the morrow he feasted Sir Baltredam's servants, and gave them scarlet with other English Cloth; which being showed Sir Baltredam, he return'd again to him, and said he would wear his livery, and be Marshal of his Hall. Whereupon he gave Sir Baltredam a gown of black puke furred, and had much discourse with him, for he was skilful in sundry languages." It is strange to note how one of the favourite tales of Christendom had thus struck root in the far East. On another occasion, when Earl Richard, being sent to the great Council of Constance, had overthrown and slain his challenger ("a greate Duke") in the lists, the Empress, moved to admiration, took his badge (or, as Dugdale calls it, his livery), the Bear, from the shoulder of one of his knights, and placed it on her own; whereupon the Earl, not to be outdone, presented to her the Badge wrought in pearls and precious stones. When he was Captain of Calais, he entertained the Emperor there on his way from England, "his comportment being such, that the Emperour told King Henry 'that no Christian Prince had such another knight for Wisdom, Nurture, and Manhood:' adding, 'that if all courtesie were lost, yet might it be found again in him,' insomuch as ever after, by the same Emperor's authority, he was called the Father of Courtesie." It was at Calais that, in 1415, he held his splendid tournament, having sent letters to the French Court, "offering to joust with any knight of France twelve courses." The first day he came into the lists with closed visor; his horse trapped with the red maunch of Toeni on its silver field; the second day accoutred in the scarlet and silver bars of Hanslape, and again with his visor down; but on the third day he made himself known, for he came with his face open, with the chaplet on his helm rich with pearls and precious stones, and in his coat of arms of Guy and Beauchamp quarterly, having the arms of Toeni and Hanslape on his trappers, and said, "That as he had in his own person performed the service the two days before, so, with God's grace, he would the 3rd." He overthrew all his three opponents, unhorsing them so easily, that the discomfited Frenchmen "declared that he himself was bound to his saddle; whereupon he alighted and presently got up again; but all being ended, he returned to his pavilion, feasted all the people, gave to those three knights great rewards, and so rode to Calais with great honour." His first battle was against Owen Glendower in 1402, when he captured his banner and put him to flight; his next against the Percys at Shrewsbury; but it was in the French wars under Henry V. that the "victorious Warwick" won his great military renown. He had been in the King's service from the time he was Prince of Wales, officiated as High Steward of England at his coronation, and was appointed guardian to his infant son, Henry VI., by his will. It does not, however, appear that he was with him at Agincourt. In 1417 "he attended the Duke of Clarence into France, took Dampfront, and was the first to enter Caen, and set the King's arms on the walls with the Duke's, crying a Clarence! a Clarence! laid siege to Caudebec, blockt up the city of Roan by land and by water, and won Mont St. Michel, and other strong places, for which the King created him Earl of Aumarle, and on the death of the Duke of Bedford, Lieutenant-General of the whole realm of France and Normandy." He died in his French government, at Rouen Castle, in 1439; but desired that his body might be brought home, and lies buried in the Lady Chapel at Warwick, under a tomb second in magnificence only to that of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. He had been twice married. By his first wife, Elizabeth de Berkeley, the heiress of Thomas, Viscount Lisle, he had three daughters; 1. Margaret, married to the Earl of Shrewsbury, from whose son, John Talbot, the Dudleys, Earls of Warwick, derived; 2. Alianor, wife of Thomas, Lord de Ros, ancestor of the Dukes of Rutland; and 3. Elizabeth, wife of George Nevill, Lord Latimer. By his second Countess (again an heiress), Isabel le Despencer, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, and widow of his cousin, the Earl of Worcester, he left another daughter and a son, each of them married to a Nevill; for Anne de Beauchamp, "was wedded to Richard, Earl of Salisbury, on the same year that Henry, her brother" (then scarce ten years old) "wedded Cecily, his sister." The young heir, Henry, sixth Earl of Warwick, was loaded with such manifold honours from his very boyhood, that it is hard to conceive what further illustration could have been reserved for his maturer years. Before he was nineteen, true to the war-like instincts of his race, he had proffered his services for the defence of Aquitaine, and been created Premier Earl of England, with permission for himself and his heirs male to wear a gold coronet "in the presence of the King and elsewhere." Not more than three days later, he was made Duke of Warwick, with a grant of precedence immediately after the Duke of Norfolk; which last mark of Royal favour so bitterly angered the Duke of Buckingham, that an Act of Parliament was required, and actually passed, to adjust their relative rank. Further, he received a grant of the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Sark, Erme, and Alderney, to be held for the annual rent of a rose; with the hundred and manor of Bristol, and all the Royal castles and manors in the Forest of Dean; and was crowned King of the Isle of Wight by the King's own hands. "But, alas! this hopefull branch, the onely heir male to these great Earls, was cropt in the flower of his youth, and dyed at 22." He left only a little daughter of two years old, Anne, in her own right Countess of Warwick, who was committed to the care of Queen Margaret, but did not long survive. On her death, in 1449, the honours and possessions of her house reverted to her aunt Anne, Countess of Salisbury, the wife of the great mediaeval prince known as the King Maker, to whom the Earldom was confirmed by letters patent in the same year. When, after the fatal battle of Barnet, Lady Warwick was left a widow in 1471, she underwent great distress; the heiress of the Beauchamps "being constrained to take sanctuary in the abbey of Beaulieu in Hampshire, where she continued a long time in a very mean condition." The whole of her vast property had been taken from her by Act of Parliament, and settled upon her two daughters, as if she had been already dead. She, however, outlived them both; and in 1487 received back her inheritance from Henry VII., but evidently on the understanding that it should be passed on to him; for she lost no time in transferring the whole Warwick estate, and the Channel Islands—every shred of her birthright—by a special deed to the King. Of the many ennobled offsets of this princely house, none proved of long continuance, and few outlasted the second generation. The Lords Beauchamp of Hache, a Somersetshire branch, first summoned to Parliament in 1299, ended in 1360 with three heiresses, of whom Cecily, the eldest, carried the lion's share of the property to the Seymours. The first Duke of Somerset, among his other titles, consequently received that of Viscount Beauchamp, now borne by the Marquesses of Hertford. The Lords of Kydder-minster continued for only two generations, from 1387 to 1420; and Margaret, their heiress, married first, John Pauncefort, and then John Wysham. There were four Barons of Bletshoe. The first was Roger de Beauchamp, an eminent soldier in the French wars, Captain of Calais, and Chamberlain to Edward III., who acquired Bletshoe by marrying Sybil de Patshul, and died in 1379; the last, his great-grandson John, whose sister, Margaret, carried the barony to the St. Johns. She was three times married; first, to Sir Oliver St. John; secondly, to John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, by whom she was mother of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and grandmother of Henry VII.; and thirdly, to Sir Leo de Welles. The Lords St. Amand, descended from William de Beauchamp, who in 1449 had summons to Parliament by that title in right of his wife, again ended in the second generation in 1580, leaving no posterity; while the Lords Beauchamp of Powyke, from whom they derived, had already become extinct in 1496. Here, also, we find not more than two Lords of the name. They were seated at Beauchamp's Court, near Alcester; and the first baron by writ, Sir John de Beauchamp; a Knight of the Garter, was appointed by Henry VI. Justice of South Wales, and Lord Treasurer of England. His son left three daughters: 1. Elizabeth, married to Lord Willoughby de Broke; 2. Anne, married to Richard Lygon; and 3. Margaret, married to Richard Rede. From the second daughter, Anne, are derived the Earls Beauchamp, whose ancestor, Reginald Pyndar, married the heiress of the Lygons in the last century. Not a single heir-male now remains of this historical house. Not one of the many fair branches put forth by the stately and far-spreading tree survives.[68] Yet the multiplicity of manors retaining the name, proves how freely they once extended, and how wide a space they occupied in mediaeval England. The following long list probably gives but an imperfect impression of their number. In Worcestershire, Neshington-Beauchamp, Sheldesley-Beauchamp, Acton-Beauchamp, and Naunton-Beauchamp; in Somersetshire, Shepton-Beauchamp, Hatch-Beauchamp, and Beauchamp-Stoke; in Essex, Beauchamp-Roding or Roding-Beauchamp; Beauchamp-Otes, Beauchamp-Walter, Beauchamp-St. Paul's, Beauchamp-St. Ethelbert, and Beauchamp-Prediton; in Buckinghamshire, Drayton; Beauchamp; in Berkshire, Compton-Beauchamp; and in Leicestershire, Kibworth-Beauchamp. Braye : William de Braye was one of the subscribing witnesses to the charter of Battle Abbey in 1088; but does not appear in Domesday. His name was derived from Bray, near Evreux. "Milo de Brai, father of Hugh Trussel, married, c. 1070, Litheuil, Viscountess of Troyes, and c. 1064, founded Longport Abbey, Normandy (Ordaric Vitalis). Milo de Brai, his son, was a crusader 1096 (Idem). In 1148 Richard de Braio held lands at Winchester from the Bishop (Winton Domesday). The De Brais possessed estates in Cambridge and Bedford 1165 (Liber Niger). A branch was seated in Devon in the thirteenth century."—The Norman People. In Bedfordshire we find Eaton Bray, in the hundred of Manshead, a village about four miles from Dunstaple. "The family of Bray were of consequence in the county," says Lysons, "at an early period. Thomas de Bray was knight of the shire in 1289, and Roger de Bray in 1312. When they settled at Eaton-Bray, to which they gave their name, does not appear; but it was long before they were possessed of the manor. Edmund Bray, grandfather of Sir Reginald, the faithful minister of King Henry VII., was described as of this place, and it appears on record, that the parish was called Eaton-Bray in the reign of Edward III. It is probable that the Brays held the manor under the Barons Cantilupe and Zouche. Sir Edmund Bray, nephew of Sir Reginald, was summoned to parliament in 1530 as baron of Eaton-Bray. The title became extinct by the death of his son John Lord Bray without issue in 1537. The manor of Eaton-Bray passed to the posterity of William Lord Sandys, who married the only child of John Bray, uncle of the first Lord Bray. In the chancel of the parish church is the monument of Jane, wife of Edmund Lord Bray, who died in 1538. In the S. aisle is a fragment of stone-work, richly carved and ornamented with the Royal arms, and the arms and device of Sir Reginald Bray." This was the same Sir Reginald, who, on the battle-field of Bosworth, found the Royal crown in a hawthorn bush, "where, apparently, after falling from Richard's head, it had been secreted during the engagement."[69] Like Henry V. at Agincourt, he had come to battle wearing his crown upon his helmet, and he wore it to the last.[70] When the tardy interference of the temporizing Stanleys had decided the fortunes of the day, and one of his knights came to tell him that all was lost, adding, "I holde it tyme for you to flye": he replied by calling for his battle-axe. Then he took a solemn oath—"By Him that shope both se and lande, Kynge of Englande this day will I dye; one foote away will I not fie whil brethe wyll byde my brest within." He kept his word right royally. Making way with his sword, "high in blood and anger," he slew Richmond's standard-bearer, Sir Charles Brandon, with his own hand, thinking his next stroke should reach the Earl himself; and when Sir John Cheney interposed to raise the fallen banner, hurled him from his saddle with a single blow. But his foemen closed in on all sides, and overpowered and out-numbered, he fell, pierced with many wounds, ere he could cross swords with his rival. "They hewed the crowne of golde from his head with dowtful dents": and while his mangled and dishonoured corpse, flung across a horse's back, was being conveyed to Leicester, Sir Reginald Bray brought his trophy to Sir William Stanley, who, amidst the shouts and acclaims of the soldiers, crowned the new Lancastrian King on the field of battle. "Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee! Lo, here, these long usurped royalties From the dead temples of this bloody wretch Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withall; Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it." Sir Reginald was amply rewarded. He was a Knight Banneret, a Knight of the Garter, and Lord Treasurer of England. "He was noted," says Lord Bacon, "to have had the greatest Freedome of any Councillor, but it was but a Freedome, the better to set off Flatterie. Yet he bare more than his just part of Envie, for the Exactions." He left no posterity. The first Lord Braye had two younger brothers, who are still represented: 1. Sir Edward, Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, 30 Henry VIII., ancestor of the Brays of Shere in that county; and 2. Reginald, seated at Barrington in Gloucestershire. His son, the second and last Lord, had no less than seven married sisters, among whom the barony fell into abeyance in 1537; and thus, hopelessly merged in a crowd of claimants, it continued till 1839, when it was adjudged to Mrs. Otway Cave, as the descendant of the second sister, Elizabeth Verney. None of her four sons lived to succeed to it, and none of them left children; and once more it was fated to lapse among co-heiresses. But of her four daughters, the three eldest also died childless; the last of them in 1879, and Mrs. Wyatt Edgell, the youngest, became Baroness Braye. She had two sons; the eldest of whom was killed in 1879 in the war at the Cape; and the second succeeded to the barony on her own death soon afterwards. Finally, in 1880, after the lapse of nearly three hundred and fifty years, a Lord Braye again took his seat in the House of Lords. Bandy : Leland gives it Baudyn, which would appear to be but a duplicate of Baudoin or Bawdewyn. It probably stands for Bondy, from a place so named near St. Denis, Isle de France. Ralph de Bonde occurs in Palgrave's Rotuli Curiae Regis of 1199. Robert de Bundy founded Bradley Priory, Leicestershire, in the time of King John. There was a family of Bendys in Staffordshire, that bore Argent two bars Azure each charged with three martlets. "Shutt-End," says Erdeswick, "is an old house, formerly of the Bendys." William Bendy of Holbeach left two daughters his co-heirs: and another William Bendy, of King's Swinford, was Clerk of the Peace for the county, and died in 1684. William Bondi, of Bedfordshire, and Thomas Bundi, of Shropshire, occur in the Rotuli Hundredorum, c. 1272. Richard Bundy, in 1313, appears in Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs as "manucaptor of John Pistor, Burgess returned for Guilford." The arms of Bondy: Or a bend, and on the sinister side two bendlets Vert, are preserved by Robson. Bracy : from Brecy near Caen-Robert de Breze and M. de Brece were among the one hundred and nineteen Norman gentlemen who defended Mont St. Michel, against the English in 1423; and three noble families of the name existed in the Duchy. It dates from the Conquest in England. William, son of Radulphus de Braceio (who occurs in a Norman charter of 1080), held Wistaton in Cheshire of the Barony of Nantwich; and the first mesne-lords of the manor, who bore its name, and continued till the time of Henry VI., are conjectured to have been the elder male branch of his descendants. The younger, that continued to be called De Bracy, "was connected with the parish soon after the Conquest, and had a share in the manor which they alienated before 16 Hen. VI."—Ormerod. William Malbank, Baron of Nantwich, gives notice, in one of his charters, that he has received from "Robert de Bracy, his black nephew," the homage and service of three knight's fees. Their original seat at Wistaston was Wildecattesheth, which became Wilcott's or Wilcock's Heath. From this parent stock there were numerous offsets; for in Cheshire "the Bressie's hath been a great name of gentlemen," writes Sir Peter Leycester; "but the connection of the branches is not sufficiently identified to form a pedigree."—Ormerod. Robert de Bracy was Sheriff of the county 31 and 33 Ed. I. Wilcock's Heath was still in their possession in 1666, though, during the reign of Henry IV., Thomas de Bracy had removed to Tiverton, on his marriage with the heiress of its manorial lords, the Hulgreves. "The family continued settled here in the male line to the middle of the last century. The daughter of the last Bressy married a Mr. Garnett, and was resident in the old family mansion, in 1804. From this last line the Bressies of Chester descended."—Ormerod. The Bressies of Bulkeley, derived from a common ancestor, survived in a lower grade of the social scale. Hamo de Bresci acquired Roger de Bulkeley's estate through the heiress of the Hadleighs about 1409. "The Bressies continued resident there in great respectability for two centuries and a half; and their lineal representative, Richard Bressy, entered his pedigree in Sir William Dugdale's Visitation of 1663. The family have retained their property" (of 300 or 400 acres) "but have gradually sunk to the rank of yeomanry, and are now represented by Mr. Richard Bressie of Cotton Abbott's, grandson of the above-named Richard, and proprietor of the Bressie estate in this township."—Ibid. To this "race of substantial yeomen" belonged the eminent engineer and contractor Thomas Brassey, whose eldest son received a baronetcy a few years ago, and was further created Lord Brassey of Bulkeley in 1886. "His father had lands of his own at Buerton, and rented from the Marquess of Westminster a large farm adjacent to it."—Sir Arthur Helps. He bequeathed to his children the largest fortune probably ever made by individual enterprise; and what, in these days of reckless speculation, is the rarer legacy of a stainless name. Brace's Leigh, in Worcestershire, bears the name of another branch of the family, that can, with every probability, be traced back to the Domesday owner. "Warmedon and Eston were then held of the Bishop's manor of Norwiche by Urso d'Abitot and by Robert of him" (here follows a description of the property): "to which agreeth the book of tenures, temp. Ed. I., where Robert de Bracy held in Warmedon of William de Beauchamp" (who inherited Urso's domains). "Robert de Bracy 20 Ed. III., held in Warmedon the same land that Robert his ancestor had. "Soon after this, the Bracys went to Madresfield. 7 Henry VI. William Bracy was an esquire returned into the Exchequer to attend the King's person with horse and arms into France; and the same year Thomas Lygon was certified in the Exchequer to hold the lands in Warmedon which Robert Bracy sometime had; for 7 Henry V. Joan Bracy, the heiress of that family, married Thomas Lygon."—Nash's Worcestershire. Madresfield is now the seat of Earl Beauchamp, their representative in the female line. Nothing is said of William Bracy's posterity; most probably he had none. His arms, Gules, a fesse and two mullets in chief Or, remain in one of the windows of Malvern Church; and are entirely different from those of the Cheshire Bracys, who bore Quarterly indented per fesse Sable and Argent, in the first quarter a mallard of the second. "'Aldulfus de Braci, filius Bwerne, nepos Osberti Martell,' as he is styled in the Registers of Croxton Abbey, Leicestershire, and Melton Priory, Yorkshire, to both of which he was a benefactor, occurs in Domesday only as 'the foreigner' holding Croxton. He gave to the canons of Sempringham some large possessions in Normandy."—Nichol's Leicestershire. Three Ardulfs or Audulfs de Bracy, presumably his descendants, appear in Shropshire during the two ensuing centuries. The first Audulf, in the time of Henry II., received from his kinsman, William Martel, the manor of Meole, since Melesbracy or Meole-Brace; and held Eaton in Bedfordshire by gift of King John. His daughter Mascelina was the first wife of the first William de Cantilupe. Audulf II. was a benefactor of Dunstaple Priory, as his father had been before him; and had a long lawsuit with Roger de Mortimer, who unsuccessfully contested Meole. "The Fitz Warine Chronicle calls Audulf de Bracy his cousin, and implies that he shared his exile in Little Brittany in 1201."—Eyton. Audulf III. occurs 1267-1280, and had apparently succeeded John de Bracy of Meole, who was dead before 1262. Robert, perhaps his son, living 1272-1306, married Maud, one of the daughters and co-heirs of William de Warren or de Blancminster (Albo Monasterio), murdered about 1260. He and his wife granted their share (a third part) of Whitchurch-Warren to Fulco le Estraunge and his wife Alianor (perhaps their daughter); "the latter to restore the premises to the Grantors for their lives, to hold by payment of a rose-rent, and by render of all capital services."—Ibid, The last mentioned of the name is Ralph Bracy, Vicar of Meole in 1333. In the Rotuli Hundredorum of 1272 I find entered Richard and Elias de Bracy, both of Oxfordshire; and William de Bracy, with his daughters Avicia and Joanna, of Kent. Boundes : I find in Normandy a family named De la Bonde that bore Ermine a cross Gules, and was ennobled in 1698. On this side of the Channel the name frequently appears in the Hundred Rolls, about 1272, chiefly in Norfolk and Lincoln; but the only earlier mention of it I can find is in Yorkshire, where "Bonde of Whasington" witnesses a grant of Hervey Fitz Aker of some land at Ravensworth in the North Riding. In Kent the manor house of Bounds, in the parish of Bidborough, took the name of its ancient owners, who continued there till 1347.—Hasted's Kent. Bernard de Bonde of Stamford, witnesses a deed there 30 Ed. I., and Beckley in Oxfordshire was held by Sir Nicholas Bonde of Edward Prince of Wales, t. Edward II. The existing Dorsetshire family of Bond of Grange has the honour of being included in Mr. Evelyn Shirley's jealously-guarded Libro d' Oro, "The Noble and Gentle Men of England," and claims a very high antiquity, but I fear on unsubstantial grounds. "Mr. Bond, of Creech Grange, has a very long pedigree of his family in the handwriting of his ancestor Denis Bond of Sutton, who died in 1658. It deduces their descent from 'Bond, a Norman,' who came into England with the Conqueror, and married the heiress of Bond of Penryn in Cornwall, from whom were eleven descents of the Bonds of Penryn, ending in an only daughter and heir, married to Sir William Mardolfe, knt. From her uncle Richard Bond sprang eight descents, described as of Yearthe (Earthe, near Saltash) in Cornwall; the last of whom, Robert Bond, is said to have had three sons: 1. Thomas of Yearthe, who left an only daughter married to John Halwell of Devonshire: 2. Robert of Yearthe, ancestor of the Bonds who were living at that place in 1623, when their pedigree was recorded in the Herald's Visitation of that year: and 3. Robert, ancestor of the Bonds of the Isle of Purbeck, who was living 9 Hen. VI. This pedigree was given to Elias Bond by a person named Sanque, described as one of the heralds, whom he met with at Rouen, in Normandy. Mr. Denis Bond, brother of Elias, says he had himself met this person in Spain, whither he had fled on the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, for he was a popish fello and one of the gunpouder treson." He affirmed the pedigree to be true, but Mr. Bond gave it no credit. It is very erroneous, has no dates, and is unsupported by original evidences. "A more reliable account of the Bonds of the Isle of Purbeck shows them to have sprung from Hatch Beauchamp, in Somersetshire, where the name is to be met with as early as the commencement of the reign of Edward III."—Hutchin's Dorset. They purchased Creech Grange in 1686 from the Lawrences, and bear as their motto Point de faux-bond. "Mr. Denis Bond thought the Bonds of London, whose pedigree is recorded in the Herald's Visitation of 1633, and whose descendant, Sir Thomas Bond, Comptroller of the Household of Queen Henrietta Maria, was created a Baronet by Charles II., were descended from a younger son of the first Robert Bond of Hatch Beauchamp. It is evident, however, from a calculation of dates, that they could not have been connected with him in the way supposed, though it is highly probable they were a branch of his family. Sir Thomas, the first baronet, was son of Sir William Bond of Highgate, Middlesex, son of Sir George Bond, Lord Mayor of London, and the brother of William Bond of Crosby Palace of Bishopsgate St., the magnificent Gothic hall of which still remains standing. He built Old Bond St. in London, which proved an unfortunate speculation, for Evelyn in his Diary says he built it 'to his great undoing.' Some interesting old monuments of these Bonds remain in the church of Great St. Helen's, Bishopsgate Street, adjoining Crosby Hall."—Ibid. The baronetcy expired in the last century. Bascoun : The name of "P. Bascon" is inscribed on a marble tablet at Mont St. Michel, as one of the hundred and nineteen Norman gentlemen who defended the place against the English in 1423. "We find Bacon or Bacco in the eleventh century in Maine; but this family was Northman. Anchetil Bacon, before the Conquest, made grants at his lordship of Molay to Ste. Barbe-en-Auge (Des Bois): William Bacon, Lord of Molay, in 1082, founded Holy Trinity, Caen; and in 1154 Roger Bacon (who is mentioned as of Vieux-Molay) held estates in Wilts (Rot. Pip.). Robert, William, and Alexander Bacon held four knight's fees of ancient enfeoffment in 1165 from the Barony of Montfichet in Essex (Liber Niger).—The Norman People. The "Sire de Viez Molai," spoken of by Wace at the battle of Hastings, was the William Bacon above-mentioned, who founded, or according to another version, made donations to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, where his sister had taken the veil. His son or grandson may have been the Richard Bacon, who was a nephew of Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester, and the founder of Roucester Priory, in Staffordshire. It seems all but self-evident that these Norman Lords of Molai, who came over at the Conquest, must have been the ancestors of the English family that has made their name illustrious. Few among our ancient houses can count up such a succession of eminent men as are shown on the pedigree of the Bacons: "no single cord, but a twisted cable of many together," as Fuller quaintly describes them. There was the Doctor Mirabilis of the thirteenth century, Friar Bacon, whose learning was so far in advance of the age that he was accounted a wizard: John Bacon, the studious and eloquent Carmelite styled the "Resolute Doctor;" Sir Nicholas Bacon, Queen Elizabeth's Lord Keeper, who "was, for judgment, the other pillar of the State;" and above all, his son Francis Lord Verulam, one of the greatest geniuses of his time. Voltaire calls him the father of experimental philosophy: and "his works are, for expression as well as thought, the glory of our nation and of all latter ages." His half-brother Nicholas received the first baronetcy ever conferred in this kingdom, now held by his descendants. But the obvious derivation from the Sires de Molai does not commend itself to the family. They "deduce their descent from Grimbald, a cousin of William de Warrenne, whose great grandson, according to their genealogists, assumed the name of Bacon in Normandy."—J. R. Planche. "Why," pertinently asks M. de Prevost, "do the English Bacons choose to deduce their origin from this Grimbald, in preference to the well-known Bacons of Molai?" It is a question that I, at least, am unable to answer. According to Betham's Baronetage, "their pedigree was transcribed out of a book belonging to Binfield Priory, which is at large inserted in the book of evidences concerning this family." Broilem : Brulin? I find in Anselme's Histoire Genealogique de la France a Seigneur de Brulin (of the house of Bussy) in the fifteenth century. Or it may simply be a contraction or abbreviation of Bruillemail in Normandy. A "Hervey de Brael," in 1183, occurs among the witnesses of Robert de Stafford's charter to Bordesley Abbey.—The Staffordshire Chartulary. Broleuy : from the fief of Broilly, near Valognes; one of the most ancient families of Normandy, mentioned in charters of the eleventh century, and fir st enrolled among the nobility in 1463. It is still represented. The arms are Azure, a chief Gules, and a lion Or, crowned and armed of the second. The coat of the English Bruleys is in one of the windows of the parish church at Stanford, Leicestershire. "Osbern de Broily held lands in Bedfordshire 1086; and Robert de Bruilli in 1178 witnessed the charter of Lindores, Scotland. (Mon. ii. 1052.) Simon de Broily held lands in Warwick (Testa de Nevill), and John de Bruilly, 1324, was summoned to a great council at Westminster."—The Norman People. "They acquired Waterstock, in Oxfordshire, by marriage, from the Foliots; Sir Henry Bruilly was in possession of it in 1279, and held it of the Bishop for one knight's fee. It remained with his descendants for six generations; and then passed to Joan de Bruilly, the daughter of the last heir, and through her to the Danvers."—Antiquities of Oxfordshire. William de Broly held in Kent in the time of Edward I. (Rotul. Hundred); and John de Broyli in Gloucestershire (Ibid.). The arms, as given in Hutchin's Dorset, are, On a bend Gules, three chevronels Or. Burnell : "That this family has been of great antiquity here in England," says Dugdale, "an old Martyrologe (sometime belonging to the abbey of Buildewas, county Salop) doth plainly demonstrate: for thereby appeareth that Sir Robert Burnell, knt, died 15 November, 1087; Sir Philip, 14 December, 1107; Sir Roger, 5 February, 1140; Sir Hugh, 7 January, 1189; Sir Hugh, 12 May, 1242; and another Sir Robert, 6 December, 1249." This evidence is too minutely circumstantial as regards dates to be above suspicion;[71] and with the exception of Robert and Philip, none of the Christian names given are found in the records, nor even these at the same periods. An Ingelram Burnell was living in 1165; and a William Burnell attested one of the charters of Wenlock Abbey in 1170. (Eyton's Salop.) They were seated in Shropshire, where they have left their name to the village of Acton Burnell, and Eudon Burnell. The first mention of them at Acton (Actune, the oak town) is found in the Testa de Nevill, where it is stated that William and Gerain Burnell held half a fee there. A passage in the Hundred Rolls, evidently referable to the time of Henry III., proves that Robert Burnell then held it in fee of Thomas Corbet. William had joined the rebellious barons; but Robert, a churchman of remarkable ability, was the "secretary and confidential clerk" of Prince Edward, and his most trusted and valued counsellor when he became King. In 1272 he was nominated Archbishop of Canterbury, though, as the Pope refused to confirm his election, the see was left vacant for several years, and he had to content himself with the Bishopric of Bath and Wells. He was Chancellor of England from 1274 till his death in 1292, and twice received a visit from his Royal master at Acton Burnell. Edward was there for six weeks in 1283, when the Parliament summoned for the trial of Prince David met at Shrewsbury,[72] not choosing to be present himself, lest he might be supposed to influence the verdict. Yet there was no ambiguity in the language of his writs. When the unhappy Welsh sovereign had been sentenced to die the horrible death of a traitor, and dragged at his horse's heels to the place of execution, the Parliament adjourned its sittings to Acton Burnell. It was there they "passed that celebrated statute-merchant bearing its name, and from the preamble to which, as well as from an instrument in Rymer (vol. ii. p. 247) it is manifest that the three estates of the realm were not separated as has been usually supposed into two chambers, but were an undivided body of representatives."—C. E. Hartshorne. Mr. Hallam, however, says that while the Lords passed judgment upon Prince David at Shrewsbury, the clergy and Commons sat in Acton Burnell. An ancient building, of which merely the gables are left, still bears the local name of the Parliament House. In the following year Bishop Burnell obtained license to crenellate, with permission to take timber from the Royal forest of Salop, and built the yet existing castle of Acton Burnell. He had been allowed to make a park of his wood of Combes, within the precincts of this forest, during the previous reign, and received from Henry III. the grant of a Tuesday market and two annual fairs, with free warren in all his demesne. Burnell's Brome, in Warwickshire, was purchased by him in 1279; and "'tis very like," says Dugdale, "that the Burnells, having here a manor-house with such great advantages for pleasure and profit, sometimes made it their abode, though their principall seat was at the Castle of Holgate in Shropshire." Crooke-Burnell, in Devonshire, was another of his possessions, as well as East-Ham Burnell in Essex; and it was found, at his death, that he held estates in nineteen different counties besides Shropshire, where his domain extended over thirty manors. The whole of this splendid inheritance devolved on his nephew Philip Burnell, and from him passed to Edward his son, who was summoned to Parliament as a baron in 1311. "He served in many actions in Scotland under Edward I., and appeared with great splendour. He was always attended with a chariot decked with banners, on which, as well as on the trappings of his horses, were depicted his arms. He married Alice, daughter of Lord Despencer, by whom he had no issue. On his decease in 1315, his sister Maud became sole heir. She married first John, Lord Lovel of Tichmarsh, surnamed the Rich; he died in 1335. Her second husband was John de Handlo, who died in 1346, and left by her one son, Nicholas Lord Burnell, the subject of much contest in the court of chivalry with Robert de Morley, on account of the arms which Nicholas bore, in right of certain lands of the barony of Burnell, bestowed on him by his mother. These arms De Morley had assumed without any just pretence; but because, as he declared, 'it was his will and pleasure so to do, and that he would defend his so doing.' Probably he had no arms of his own, having been the first of his family that had appeared in a military capacity. He had served as esquire to Sir Edward Burnell, without any other domestic but one boy; and ever since the death of his master assumed the arms in dispute. It happened that they both were at the siege of Calais, under Edward III. in 1346, arrayed in the same arms. Nicholas Lord Burnell challenged the arms as belonging to the Burnells only, he having at that time under his command one hundred men, on whose banners were his proper arms. Sir Peter Corbet, then in his retinue, offered to combat with Robert de Morley in support of the right which his master had to the arms, but the duel never took place, probably because the King denied his assent. The suit was then referred to the court of chivalry, held on the sands of Calais, before William Bohun Earl of Northampton, High Constable of England, and Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, Earl Marshall. The trial lasted several days, when Robert, apprehending that the cause would go against him, took an opportunity, in presence of the King, to swear by God's flesh, that if the arms in question were net adjudged to him, he never more would arm himself in the King's service. On this, the King out of personal regard for the signal services he had performed in those arms, and considering the right of Nicholas Lord Burnell, was desirous to put an end to the contest with as little offence as possible. He therefore sent the Earl of Lancaster and other lords to Nicholas, to request that he would permit Robert de Morley to bear the arms in dispute for the term of his life only, to which Nicholas out of respect to the King assented. The King then directed the High Constable and Earl Marshal to give judgment accordingly. This they performed in the church of St. Peter near Calais, and their sentence was immediately proclaimed by a herald in the presence of the whole army there assembled."—C. E. Hartshorne. It seems unaccountable that it should have been Nicholas de Handlo, the son of Maud Burnell by her second husband, the famous soldier John de Handlo, and not John Lovel, the issue of her first marriage, who took her name and bore her brother's title. Banks explains that John Lovel was deprived of his inheritance by fine, and Nicholas, thus becoming possessed of Holgate, the caput baroniae, Acton Burnell, &c, was summoned to parliament among the barons of the realm in 1350. He was succeeded in 1382 by his son Hugh, with whom the line ended. This, Hugh, "being one of Richard II.'s favourites, was deemed amongst his evil counsellors, and banished the court. However, upon the deposal of that unfortunate king, he became popular; and by Henry IV. was made Governor of several Castles."—Banks. He died in 1420, having outlived his only son, whose three daughters became his co-heirs. Joice, the eldest, married Thomas Erdington; Margery, Edward Hungerford; and Catherine, Sir John Ratcliffe. The barony of Burnell fell into abeyance between them, and has never been revived. Bellet : William Belet held Frome—since Frome-Belet, of the King in 1086: (Domesday) and William Belet, perhaps his grandson, is entered in the Liber Niger as a baron in Dorset in 1165. "Michael Bellet was grand justiciary to Henry II. (Hov. i. 515). Robert Bellet was of Dorset in the thirteenth century. The name continually occurs in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of 1180-98."—The Norman People. "The Belets were a family of great honour and worth. Hervey Belet lived in the reign of King Henry I., and was father to Michael Belet, cup-bearer to King Henry II., who served under the Earl Warren at the coronation of Alianore, wife to that King (he served that day for Hugh, Earl of Arundel) and married Emma, daughter and heir of John de Cheney, by whom he had Michael and Henry Belet, and other children. This Michael (as I take it) was a judge 32 Hen. II., and High Sheriff of Leicestershire for several years in the same reign. In 7 King John, he had a grant to himself and his heirs to be the King's Butler."—Blomfield's Norfolk. Another Michael Belet, early in the reign of Henry III. (about 1230), founded Wroxton Priory in Oxfordshire: it was dedicated to the Virgin, and consisted of a superior and six canons of the order of St. Augustine. "King John's patent to Michael Belet clears up the pedigree of this family, wherein he gives to Master Michael Beleth, son of Michael Beleth, and his heirs, the office of being his butler or cup-bearer (officium de pinc' nora n'ra) with all the rights belonging to it, to be held of the King and his heirs, freely, quietly, wholly, and honourably, as Michael, father of the aforesaid Master Michael held it; and that King further grants and confirms to the said Master Michael and his heirs all the lands which his grandfather Hervey Belet held."—Ibid. The Belets bore Argent on a chief Gules two crescents Or. I can find no further mention of them in Norfolk; but one of the name—probably belonging to the Dorsetshire house—occurs in Cornwall during—the reign of Edward VI., when "Reginald de Mohun gave this barton of Bochym to one of his daughters married to Bellot. Since they came to Bochym," continues Hals, "the Bellots have intermarried with Monk, Pendarves, and the inheritrix of Spour of Trebatha; but their estate is all spent by riot and excess, and, as I take it, the name extinct in those parts." In 1703 Bochym belonged to the husband of the heiress of Trebatha, Renatus Bellot, who represented the borough of Michell in parliament, and died of a fever in 1709, leaving an only son of the same name, that soon after followed him to the grave. Their coat, Argent on a chief Gules three cinquefoils of the field, was very similar to that of the Norfolk family. A scion of the latter, John Belief, "descended heir-male from William Bellot of Gayton," settled in Cheshire in the time of Henry VI., having married the heiress of the Moretons of Great Moreton. Their grandson James, unus Valectus camere nostre, was appointed by his Earl Bailiff of the Hundred of Edisbury 3 Ed. IV. They were several times Sheriffs of the county. Of this family was Hugh Bellot, Bishop of Chester, who died in 1596, the year after his translation from Bangor: and Sir John Bellot, created a baronet in 1663. This baronetcy expired in 1713."—Ormerod's Cheshire. Beaudewin : Baudyn, according to Leland. There were three, if not four, noble families of this in Normandy. Four Baudoins are at all events enumerated in the great gathering of the Ordre de Noblesse of the province in 1789; De Baudoin, Seigneur d'Avenel; De Baudoin, Seigneur du fief des Pins; Baudoin d'Espins; and Baudoin de Gouzeville. "Baldwinus" appears among the tenants in capite in Gloucestershire (Domesd.). "This Baldwin held in capite only three virgates of land in Ampney, but there can be no doubt his name occurs elsewhere in the Survey, though there are no means of identifying him with certainty. Possibly he was the Baldwin to whom Queen Matilda had given lands in Fairford, and the Baldwin Fitz Herluin, who had had a manor in Bradeley hundred."—A. S. Ellis. Besides, "Baldwinus Vicecomes" (Baldwin de Brionne, see Brian), another of the name, Baldvinus quidam serviens Regis, is entered among the Domesday barons. All these are self-evident Christian names; and Baldwin, as a surname, is not to be met with till the thirteenth century. It is extremely common in the Rotuli Hundredorum of 1272, occurring in Berkshire, Norfolk, Essex, Northumberland, Kent, Huntingdon, and Oxfordshire. An old Shropshire family that bore it is supposed to have a Norman origin; but its first recognised ancestor is Roger Baldwin of Diddlebury in Corvedale, who died in 1398. In the last century these Baldwins removed to Staffordshire, and took the name of Childe by intermarriage with an heiress. Beaumont : When William of Normandy, preparing for the invasion of England, summoned his barons to the great council at Lillebonne, "he sent moreover for Roger de Vieilles, who was much honoured and esteemed for his wisdom, and was now of considerable age, having sons who were already noble and brave knights. He was lord of Belmont-le-Rogier, and possessed much land."—Wace. He is usually styled De Beaumont or De Bellomont; and "it is unanimously recorded," says Mr. Planche, "that he was the noblest, the wealthiest, and the most valiant seigneur of Normandy, and the greatest and most trusted friend of the Danish family. Son of Humphrey de Vieilles, and grandson of Thorold de Pont Audemer, he was a descendant of the Kings of Denmark through Bernard the Dane, a companion of the first Norman conqueror, Duke Rollo.[73] Illustrious as was such an origin in the eyes of his countrymen he considered his alliance with Adelina, Countess of Meulent, sufficiently honourable and important to induce him to adopt the title of her family in preference to his own." He furnished sixty vessels to the Conqueror's fleet, and Wace places him on the roll of the Norman chiefs at Hastings. "Old Rogier de Beaumont attacked the English in the front rank; and was of high service, as is plain by the wealth his heirs enjoy; any one may know that they had good ancestors, standing well with their lords who gave them such honors." But, both William de Poitou and Ordericus state that he remained in Normandy, as president of the council appointed by the Duke to assist his Duchess in the government, "sending his young son Robert to win his spurs at Senlac."[74] "Though then but a novice in arms," he greatly distinguished himself in the battle, was one of the first to break through the English stockade, and by his courage and conduct won for himself the surname of Prudhomme. "A certain Norman young soldier," writes William of Poitou, "son of Roger de Bellomont, making his first onset in that fight, did what deserves lasting fame, boldly charging and breaking in upon the enemy with the troops he commanded in the right wing of the army." His reward was a great barony of ninety manors, lying in Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Wiltshire, and Northamptonshire. On his mother's death in 1081, he became Count of Meulent, "did homage to Philip I. King of France for the lands to which he succeeded in that kingdom, and in 1082 sat as a peer of France in the parliament held at Poissy."—Planche. His first English peerage was conferred upon him by Henry I., who, soon after his accession, created him Earl of Leicester. He had been one of the hunting party in the New Forest where Rufus lost his life, and had ridden by the new King's side when he hastened away to Winchester to seize the royal treasure and make sure of his succession to the throne. He had remained Henry's "prime counsellor" and trusted friend, and commanded the army that achieved the conquest of Normandy in 1106. "He was in worldly affairs," writes Henry of Huntingdon, "the wisest of all men between England and Jerusalem; eminent for knowledge, plausible of speech, keen and crafty, a subtle genius, of great foresight and prudence, not easily over-reached, profound in counsel and of great wisdom, by which means he acquired vast possessions; honours, cities, castles, towns, and woods. The first of these he held, not only in England, but in Normandy and France, insomuch that he made the Kings of France and England friends or foes to each other at his pleasure. If he was displeased with any man, he forced him to submissive humiliation; if pleased, he advanced him as he chose, by which means he got an incredible proportion of money and jewels. Being urged by his confessor on his death-bed to make restitution of whatsoever he had got by force or fraud from any man, he answered, 'If I do so, what shall I leave my sons?'" This was suggestive, and Orderic tells an ugly story relating to his English Earldom. The town of Leicester had then four masters;—the King, the Bishop of Lincoln, Simon de St. Liz, and Ivo, the son of Hugh de Grentemesnil. "Ivo, having begun a Rebellion in England, wherein he had done much mischief by firing some Houses of his Neighbours; and being, through the King's excessive indignation towards him, fined at a vast sum, made his Addresses to this Earl of Mellent, who was the chief of the King's Council, hoping, by his means, to obtain some favour; who thereupon cunningly advised him to perform a long pilgrimage;[75] for effecting whereof, he would help him to Five hundred marks of Silver, keeping his Lands in pawn for Fifteen years; with promise, That at the end of that term, they should be wholly restored to his Son; and not only so, but that he would give him his Brother's Daughter (viz. Henry, Earl of Warwick) in marriage. For the performance of which Agreement, this Earl gave his Oath, the King himself likewise assenting thereto. But in this Pilgrimage, Ivo departing the World, his Son neither had the Woman (as was promised) nor any of his Paternal Inheritance." William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, grows eloquent in the great Earl's praise. "He was the supporter of justice, the persuader of peace," though "in war the insurer of victory; his advice was regarded as though an oracle of God had been consulted; and he could speedily bring about whatever he desired by the power of his eloquence." Like the Greek Emperor Alexius, he chose, on the score of health, to break his fast only once in twenty-four hours; and the whole nobility of England was emulous to follow his example. What genius, sage, or philosopher now-a-days could, by his gifts of persuasion, curtail the meals of even a single English man-servant? He had a taste for music, for, in a franchise to the monks of Bec, remitting certain import dues, he made it a condition that the masters of all boats passing the castles of Meulent and Mantes should play on the flageolet as they shot the bridges—an embarrassing moment for the performance! His end was miserable. Left childless by his first wife, he chose, when he was between fifty and sixty, a new bride in the first bloom of youth, Isabel (or Elizabeth) de Vermandois, and became the happy father of a large family. "But in the height of his glory, another Earl" (William de Warreune) "seduced his wife by every intrigue and artifice;" and she deserted her old husband for his young rival. He never recovered the blow; but retired, "abandoned to sorrow and troubled in mind," to the Abbey of Preaux, where he took the monastic habit shortly before his death in 1118. He was buried among his brethren, but his heart was preserved in salt, and carried to Brackley, a monastery that he had founded in Northamptonshire. The frail Isabel had borne him three sons, and four, if not five, daughters; of whom the eldest, Isabel, became one of the many mistresses of Henry I., and afterwards married Gilbert Earl of Pembroke. The two first-born sons were twins; Waleran, the elder, succeeded as Earl of Mellent; with all his father's domains in France and Normandy, and Robert, called Le Bossu, was Earl of Leicester. Hugh, the youngest brother, received from King Stephen the Earldom of Bedford, "with the Daughter of Milo de Beauchamp, upon the expulsion of Milo; Being a person remiss and negligent himself, and committing the custody of that Castle to Milo, he fell from the dignity of an Earl, to the state of a Knight; and, in the end to miserable poverty." He was dubbed "the Pauper." Waleran's was a troubled and turbulent life. He rebelled against Henry I., who burnt his towns of Brienne and Pont Audemer, captured both castles—the latter after seven weeks' siege—took him prisoner, and kept him in durance for five years. Then we find him in arms for King Stephen, and betrothed to his little daughter of two years old; next, signed with the cross as a pilgrim to Jerusalem; on his return, out of favour with the King, who fell in dislike with him," and in 1149; "took from him by assault the city of Worcester (which he had given him) and reduced it to ashes." This is the last we hear of him in England. Robert, second Earl of Leicester, was another powerful and crafty chief, of whom it may be affirmed that his policy was as crooked as his back. It is true that he remained loyal to Henry Beauclerk to the last, and attended his deathbed at Lions; but he played fast and loose with his allegiance during the turmoil of the succeeding reign. He came to England with Stephen in 1137; then fell off to join the Angevins; presently came back, was welcomed with enthusiasm, and received the Castle, town, and (with some exceptions) the entire county of Hereford; "notwithstanding all which," says Dugdale, "in 1151 he was one of those Nobles who met Henry Duke of Normandy, at his first arrival in England, and supplied him with necessaries; and grew in such high esteem with him, after his attaining the Crown of this Realm, that he advanced him to that great Office of Justice of England." He was very liberal to the Church; for besides his benefactions to other religious houses, he founded two Abbeys and a Nunnery in his own co. of Leicester, and a Priory in Northamptonshire. He himself wore the habit of a canon regular of Leicester Abbey for fifteen years before his death in 1167: though, as he continued in secular employments, and was Justiciary at the same time, the strict observance of the rule of the cloister must in his case have been dispensed with. By his wife Amicia, the daughter of Ralph de Waet, Earl of Norfolk, and Emma Fitz Osbern, he had an only son, Robert, surnamed Blanchmaines, who on his uncle's death inherited the great Norman Honour of Breteville, that had been Fitz Osbern's. This white-handed Earl took part with Henry II.'s rebellious son, and landed at Walton in Suffolk with a body of Norman and Flemish mercenaries, but was defeated by the loyal Justiciaries, near St. Edmond'sbury, taken prisoner, and lodged in Falaise Castle with Hugh Earl of Chester, who had also been in revolt. The garrison he had left behind at Leicester gave some trouble; and the unhappy town, as usual, paid the penalty of its master's treason, and was burnt by the King's troops. In 1177 the Earl was pardoned and restored; carried the sword of state at Coeur de Lion's coronation in 1189, and died the year following at Duras in Greece, on his way home from Palestine. He had married a great heiress, Petronill de Grentemesnil (the descendant of the defrauded Ivo), who brought him, with the Honour of Winckley, the Great Stewardship of England. Their son Robert Fitz Parnel, fourth Earl, also made one, if not two, expeditions to the Holy Land, where he is said to have unhorsed and slain the Soldan in a tournament. King John granted to him the whole of Richmondshire, with its appertaining forests and fees, the castles of Richmond and Bowes alone excepted; and his wife Lauretta de Braose was dowered with twenty-five more knight's fees in Devonshire. But she was childless; and at his death in 1204 his great Earldom was divided between his two sisters. Amicia, the elder, married the celebrated Simon de Montfort, who was thereupon created Earl of Leicester; and Margaret was the wife of Saer de Quinci, who shortly afterwards was invested with the Earldom of Winchester. All authorities are agreed that the subsequent Viscounts Beaumont, first summoned to Parliament by Edward II, had no connection whatever with this house. Burdon : or bourdon, a palmer's staff, which, with his scrip, always received a solemn benediction from the priest before he set out on his journey.[76] "Les Croises et les Pelerins ne manquaient pas, avant leur depart, d'aller faire benir a l'Eglise leur escarcelle avec leur bourdon, et Saint Louis fit cette ceremonie a S. Denis."—Le Grand Fabliaux: vol. i., p. 310. This name, no doubt given or assumed in memory of some pilgrimage, was common both in Normandy and England. During the latter half of the twelfth century it occurs several times in the Exchequer Rolls of the Duchy; and William Burdon, according to Duchesne, held of the Honour of Grentemesnil. Four Bourdons—Bourdon de Gramont du Lys, Bourdon du Lys, Bourdon du Quesnay, and Bourdon de Pommeret—were present in the Assembly of the Norman nobles in 1789; the latter had only been enrolled in their ranks the year preceding, and bore D 'argent a trois bourdons de pelerins de gueules. In the co. Durham we find the family seated very soon after the Conquest. Roger Burdon witnesses a deed in Bishop Flambard's time (1099-1133); and Elfer and Amfrid de Birdan appear in the Domesday of the North, the "Bolden Buke" compiled between 1153 and 1194. The name is retained by two villages in the Parish of Bishop-Wearmouth, East and West Burdon (otherwise Old Burdon and Towne Burdon), and was frequent in the county. In 1320 Hugh Burdon of Ivesley-Burdon left Agnes his daughter and heir. Rowland Burdon of Stockton in 1644 had a certificate "that he is well affected to the Parliament." Eve, daughter of T. Burdon of Old Burdon, was baptized in 1653. "The last descendants of this family," says Surtees, "were Quakers." They bore allusive arms: three palmer's staves, interseme of cross-crosslets. The Burdons of Castle Eden, still represented, descend from a Thomas Burdon who was nine times Mayor of Stockton-on-Tees in the time of Ed. IV. The family is found in many different parts of the country. Arnulph Burdon held a mansion in Winchester, 1148 (Winton Domesday): and Robert Burdon was Lord of Kingsteignton, Devon, temp. Richard I. (Pole's Devon). Burdon, near High Hampton, retains the name in the county. Robert Burdon was of Yorkshire, in 1255 (Roberts, Excerpta): and at about the same date, or a little later, Roger Burdon of Burdon's Hall, Boscomb, occurs in Wiltshire. His last heir-male died in the time of Ed. III. (Hoare's Wilts). Mapledec or Malebec in Nottinghamshire was "held anciently by the Burdons." John Burdon witnesses a charter of Ameissa (Agnes) the wife of Eustace Fitz John, t. Henry I.: and a second John (probably his son) was a benefactor of Rufford Abbey. "The last of the line was Sir Nicholas Burdon, who fell at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1402, leaving Elizabeth, his daughter and heir, married to Sir Richard Markham, the son of the Judge."—Thoroton's Notts. Berteuilay : see Beteville or Bretteville. Barre : from La Barre in the Cotentin. (See also Delabere). Ralph Barre, the son of Godefridus, is mentioned in 1139, and was of Torlaston in Nottinghamshire. His wife must have been a De Lisle, for his son Richard, in one of his deeds, speaks of Ranulf de Insula, his grandfather, and Matilda Malebisse, his grandmother. Fifth in descent from Richard was Thomas, Dominus de Teversall (or Tearsall), who first called himself Barry, as the family continued to do till it ended with John Barry in the reign of Henry VI. A branch seated at Torlaston lasted about one hundred years longer. These Barres or Barrys were benefactors to the monks of Beauchief, and bore allusive arms. "The seal of Sir Galfrid Barre, with his name circumscribed, in 1244, was Barry of eight or ten, with a File of five Labels."—Ibid. In Northamptonshire, William Barre, or Barry, of Great Billing, held one fee of Courcy in 1165 (Liber Niger) and gave Billing Church to Leicester Abbey (Mon. ii. 312). Sir Ralph, presumably his great grandson, held two fees of Ripariis and Mortimer in Billing (Testa de Nevill): and the next heir, Sir Robert, was returned as knight of the shire for Northants 12 Ed. II., and for Bucks 25 Ed. I. and 6 Ed. II. Third in descent from Sir Robert we find another Robert, who, in 1361, again represented Buckinghamshire. Baker, in his History of Northamptonshire, gives a pedigree in which, as he tells us, "the scattered notices of this family are embodied. But the accuracy of the connections may be doubted down to Sir Robert, who first occurs 4 Ed. I., and 25 Ed. I. is on the list of knights possessed of £20 per an. in lands and tenements in this county or elsewhere, summoned to meet the King with horse and arms at Portsmouth. Not a single marriage of this family can be retrieved; and it is entirely lost sight of after the reign of Ed. III." Busseuille : or Bosevile (Leland). "The Bosviles probably derived their name from Boschevile,[77] a town between Pont Audemer and Honfleur, now famous for its market and fair. A William de Boseville is a witness to a charter of Humphrey de Bohun in 1125. Michael, son of William de Boseville, was a benefactor to Warden Abbey, Beds, and is spoken of by Geoffrey, Comes de Maundevyle, as his knight, in the same chartulary. Again, a Richard and Ralph de Boseville were early benefactors to the house of De la Pre, near Northampton; and in support of the presumption that this Ralph was of the same family as the Bosvilles of Yorkshire, it is observed that the device upon his seal was an ox issuing from a holt of trees, a badge used afterwards by the Yorkshire family. "Elias de Boseville, who flourished before the year 1159, when Henry II. confirmed his donation to Nostell Priory, was probably the ancestor of the latter. He appears to have been a person much connected with the Newmarches, to which connection the Bosviles owed the five fusils in fesse they bore on their shield, afterwards distinguished by three bears' heads, or some other figure in chief. Sir John Bosvile, living 1252 and '54, married the heiress of Darfield. They were afterwards seated at Ardsley and Newhall, Chevet, and Peniston-Coningsburgh, Warmsworth, Braithwell, and Ravenfield, Yorkshire, and Belhouse Grange, Notts. Their vast possessions must have placed them in the very first rank of the gentry of the North. Robert Bosvile was Constable of Pontefract in 1333. Thomas Bosvile, the last male, who died in 1639, desired in his will that he might be buried among his ancestors in the quire of the parish church of Darfield."—Hunter's South Yorkshire. At the east end of the south choir one of their monuments, with effigies of a knight and lady of the time of Richard II.—the knight wearing the collar of SS as a Lancastrian badge—is still to be seen. The name did not perish with this Thomas, but continued to be represented by various junior branches; and one of them, that had been seated at Gunthwaite, in the same county, from the time of Henry VI., survived till 1813. The first Boseville there was Richard, who died in 1501, and had Gunthwaite and other lands by gift of his mother; but he and his two immediate successors chiefly resided at Beighton, in Derbyshire, where they were farmers of the estate of Lord Dacre of the South. In the following generation, Ralph, a younger brother of Godfrey (the first of that name of the family), acquired a large fortune as clerk of the Court of Wards, and "bought Bradbourne, near Seven Oaks and Eynsford in Kent, where the descendants of his two sons, Henry and Sir Robert, were among the principal gentry of the county as long as they continued." Another Bosville, the heir of Gunthwaite, "was a captain in Ireland, and there either slain or lost in a bog." His son, Godfrey, married Margaret Greville, a cousin of Lord Brooke, settled among his wife's kin, at Wroxall, in Warwickshire, and adopted their politics. He represented Warwick in the Long Parliament, held the rank of a colonel in the Roundhead army, and was present at the defence of Warwick Castle and the taking of Coventry in 1642. The last heirs-male were the two sons of another Godfrey Bosville (obt. 1784), and both of them soldiers; one was slain in Flanders, and the other died s. p. in 1813, leaving two sisters, married to Lord Macdonald and Viscount Dudley. The elder, Elizabeth Lady Macdonald, inherited the property, and her son Godfrey added the name of Bosville to his own. At Rossington, a few miles from Doncaster, lies buried Charles Bosvile, one of this family, "still remembered in the traditions of the village as having established a species of sovereignty among the gypsies, who, before the enclosures, used to frequent the moors about Rossington. His word amongst them was law; and his authority so great, that he perfectly restrained the pilfering propensities for which the tribe is censured, and gained the entire good will for himself and his people of the farmers and the people around. No gipsy for many years passed near Rossington without going to pay respect at the grave of him whom they called their king; and I am informed that even now, if the question were asked of any of the people who still haunt the lanes in this neighbourhood, especially about the time of Doncaster races, they would answer that they were Bosvile's people..... He was a gentleman with an estate of about £200 a year, and is described by De la Pryme, of Hatfield, as 'a mad spark, mighty fine and brisk, and keeps company with a great many gentlemen, knights, and esquires, and yet runs about the country.'"[78]—Hunter's South Yorkshire. He was the predecessor of Bamfylde Moore Carew, who several years later, adopted a similar mode of life. The headstone on his grave had disappeared even before Hunter's time; but it continued for a number of years to be a place of pilgrimage for the gipsy tribes, who used to visit it once a year, and:here perform some of their accustomed rites. One of these (a curious survival of the old heathen libations) consisted in pouring a flagon of ale upon the grave. I have met with the name in several other counties. "In 1180, 100s. rent in Higham and Wykin were given by Robert Bloet, in fee simple, to Guarinus de Busa. Villa."—Nichols Leicestershire. In Norfolk, Boseville's Manor (or Hedeston), was named from Walkelin de Boseville, who acquired it in 1199 by his wife, Agatha de Hedeston. It continued for nearly two hundred years in the name, for the last possessor, Adam de Boseville, died in 1363. Blunt : Wotton gives this great Norman house a classical ancestry. "They take their Rise," he says, "from the Blondi or Biondi in Italy, whom Historians derive from the Roman Flavii." But the origin of the distinctive name, Le Blond, would appear, like Le Brun or Le Roux, simply to denote a difference of hair or complexion. Two of the family are inscribed in Domesday (where the name is variously given as Blon, Blondus, or Blundus), whose father, according to the same authority, was the Lord of Guisnes. "He is said to have had three sons in the Conqueror's army. One returned to France; the other two, Robert and William, remained in England, and gave a Beginning to all the Blounts in this Kingdom." Sir Robert, Baron of Icksworth, in Suffolk, married Gundred, daughter of Earl Ferrers. He was Dux Manuum Militarum, and held Orford Castle, and several other manors in Suffolk. Gilbert, his son, whom Camden calls Magna Nobilitatis Vir, founded a monastery of the Order of St. Augustine at Icksworth, the head of his barony. But though his posterity spread and flourished throughout England, and continues numerous to this day, the duration of this elder line was brief. It expired with the sixth Lord of Icksworth, William le Blount, who fell bearing Simon de Montfort's standard at the battle of Lewes. He left no children, and his barony was forfeited under attainder, but his two sisters, Agnes de Criketot and Roese de Valoines, were, nevertheless, permitted to share his estates, lying chiefly in Suffolk and Lincolnshire. After him, Dugdale mentions three others of the name not found in the family pedigree (which is variously given, and arduous to follow): Peter le Blount, Constable of the Tower in 1254; Andrew, engaged on the Baron's side at Evesham; and Hugh, Sheriff of Essex and Herts for the last half year of 14 Edward I. But the existing families are, by general consent, traced to Sir Stephen le Blount, first cousin of the last Baron, who married the heiress of Sir William le Blount, of Saxlingham, of Suffolk, the representative of that other Sir William who came over at the Conquest, and thus united the kindred houses. It was the first in the succession of rich marriages by which the fortunes of his posterity were rapidly built up. Their son, Sir Robert, Lord of Belton, in Rutland, in right of his wife, Isabel de Odingsells, was the father of 1. Ralph; 2. William, of whom presently. Ralph, having married the heiress of Lovet, was seated at Hampton-Lovet in Herefordshire, and the father of Sir Thomas, Steward of the Household to Ed. II., and the second husband of the famous "Infanta of Kent," Juliana de Leybourne. She brought him not only very great possessions, but the claim to a barony that had been granted to her grandfather in 1298, and Sir Thomas was accordingly summoned to parliament in 1326 by Ed. II. Yet, not long after, he proved unfaithful to his unhappy master, on whose flight into Wales he joined the Queen and Mortimer at Bristol; and sat in parliament among the barons who voted his deposition from the throne. He was in the retinue of Henry Earl of Lancaster during Ed. III.'s first Scottish campaign, and twice again received summons to parliament; "after which," says Dugdale, "I find no more of him." He left two sons by his first wife; for the great Kentish heiress, though three times married, never had children; and the youngest, Nicholas, was deeply engaged in a plot for the restoration of Richard II., and changed his name to Croke in 1404, to shelter himself from the vengeance of Henry IV. The line of the elder expired in 1400. The second brother, William, had two sons; Peter, Chamberlain to Ed. II., who had no issue; and Sir Walter, who married the heiress of Sodington, still the family seat in Worcestershire. His eldest son, Sir William Blount of Hampton Lovet, served in the Scottish wars, and was summoned to parliament jure uxoris in 1327, his wife Margaret being one of the co-heirs of a great baron, Theobald de Verdon; but he, again, left no posterity. Sir Walter's second son, Sir John, was the progenitor of all the families that now bear his name. Of his first marriage with Isolda de Montjoye came the Blounts of Sodington, and the now extinct branch of Kinlet; of his second marriage with Eleanor, co-heiress of John Beauchamp of Hache, the Lords Montjoye, the Herefordshire line of Grendon, Eldersfield, Orleton, &c, and the Blounts of Maple Durham. Sir Walter Blount, his son by his second wife Eleanor, was a famous soldier, who served his apprenticeship in arms under John of Gaunt, and remained his faithful follower to the end of his life. He was with him in 1367 in his Spanish campaign, and brought home a foreign wife from the household of Constance of Castille, Donna Sancha de Ayala, daughter of the Alcalde Mayor of Toledo. As one of the Duke of Lancaster's most trusted knights, he was named executor to his will; and Henry IV., mindful of his father's friend, appointed him his Standard Bearer. He was slain in 1403 at the battle of Shrewsbury, together with Sir Hugh Shirley and two others knights, accoutred in the royal coat-armour:— "Semblably furnished like the King himself." Shakespeare introduces him in his Hen. IV. (Part 1, Act iv., Scene 3) as sent to offer terms to the rebels before the battle:— "Hotspur. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; And 'would to God You were of our determination! Some of us love you well: and even those some Envy your great deserving, and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us as an enemy. Blunt. And Heaven defend, but still I shall stand so, So long as, out of limit and true rule, You stand against anointed Majesty!" He has left his name to Barton-Blount, near Derby, which, with Elvaston and other estates, he bought of the family of Bakapuz. His Spanish wife had brought him four sons. The eldest, Sir John, was again bred in the wars; and surpassed his father in feats of renown. He was Governor of a Garrison in Acquitaine in 1412, and "being there besieged by the Marshal of France, with three hundred men vanquished all the Marshal's Army; took Prisoners twelve persons of Note, and others to the number of one hundred and twenty."—Dugdale. For this service he received the Garter in the ensuing year. His brother and successor Sir Thomas was Treasurer of Normandy, and the father of Walter, Lord Treasurer of England, who was created Lord Mountjoy by Edward IV., in 1465.[79] He had discarded the Lancastrian traditions of his house, and "became so active a person in the King's service in that troublesome time," that he received an ample share of the confiscated estates, including those of the Earl of Devon, Sir William Carey, and Sir William Vaux. But, although thus generously endowed, his posterity was not found among those devote'd families that "withered with the White Rose." His grandson, the fourth Lord Mountjoy, was called to the Privy Council on the accession of Henry VII.; and fourteen years afterwards had "a speciall Grant from the King of all the Preheminences, Dignities, Honours, Mannors, &c, which his Father enjoyed." Henry VIII. appointed him master of the Mint of the Tower of London, as well as "throughout the Realm of England and the Town of Calais." Both father and son employed him, and in the latter reign he subscribed the articles against Cardinal Wolsey, and the famous letter to Pope Clement VII. regarding the Queen's divorce. His son Charles, fifth Lord, served in the rear-guard of the army sent to France in 1544: and "by his Testament made at that time, ordained a Stone to be laid over his Grave in case he should there be slain; with this following Epitaph thereon, for a Memorial to his Children; to continue and keep themselves worthy of so much Honour, as to be called hereafter to dye for their Master and Country:— 'Willingly have I sought, And willing have I found, The fatal end that brought Me hither, as duty bound. Discharg'd I am of that I ought To my Country by honest ownde; My Soul departed Christ hath bought, The end of Man is ground.'" It does not appear, however, that he fell in battle, though he died in the following year. Second in descent from him was another Charles, who, as eighth Baron, succeeded in 1594 to "a fortune much sunk by the extravagance of his grandfather, his father's obstinate pursuit of the philosopher's stone, and his brother's profuseness." He was tall and extremely good-looking, and when he first appeared at Court at the age of twenty, made so agreeable an impression on Queen Elizabeth, that she gave him her hand to kiss, saying, "Fail not to come to Court, and I will bethink myself how to do you good." She was true to her word; and "having run one day very well at tilt," he received from her an enamelled chess-queen as a token of her favour. Lord Essex, seeing it on his sleeve, cried contemptuously, "Now I perceive every fool must have a favour;" and for these jealous words the aspiring young gentleman challenged and fought him, wounding him in the thigh. Yet soon after this—no doubt because Blount fell in love with the Earl's sister, they became fast friends. He was one of the commanders of the dauntless little fleet that encountered the Armada; succeeded Essex as Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1597, and within three years had "broken the hearts of the Irish rebels," and effected the conquest of the country. "He had," says Camden, "no superior and but few equals for valour and learning;" and was pre-eminently gifted with the genius of command. When he first landed in Ireland, revolt was rampant on every side, and he found himself master only of a few miles of the country round Dublin. But under his stern rule all was changed; the insurrection mastered and stamped out; a Spanish force sent to support it gallantly repulsed at Kinsale; its leader, Hugh O'Neill, taken prisoner and brought in triumph to Dublin; and the Earl of Desmond, who had attempted another rising, forced to fly for his life. King James, on his accession, re-appointed him as Lord Lieutenant, created him Earl of Devonshire, and made him Master of the Ordnance and a Knight of the Garter, with large grants both of money and land. But he did not long enjoy his honours and rewards, for he died in 1606 of a burning fever, "brought," as his secretary Morrison avers, "by grief of unsuccessful love to his last end." Yet he had, in the previous year, married his early flame, Lord Essex's sister Penelope, with whom he had exchanged lover's vows, and even promises of marriage before she became the reluctant wife of Lord Rich. At his solicitation, she broke her marriage vows, bore him several children, and was in the end divorced by her husband. She was then re-married to her paramour, the ceremony being performed by Lord Devonshire's chaplain, Laud; which "gave such a wound to the reputation" of the future Archbishop, that, though he strove to vindicate himself by a written apology, the sense of disgrace is said by his biographer Heylin to have shortened his days. Penelope and her illegitimate children were well provided for by the Earl's will; and Mountjoy, her eldest son, 'received an Irish peerage from James I., and the Earldom of Newport in the following reign. But the title expired with the two next Earls. Thus ended the Lords Mountjoy; but the senior house from which they sprung, the Blounts of Sodington, survive them, and are yet to be found at their ancient seat in Worcestershire. Sodington—once a place of some strength, moated round, with four drawbridges, was burnt to the ground by Cromwell's soldiers, because its inmates refused to make weapons for them at their forge. Sir Walter Blount, the first baronet, who was then its owner, had four sons in the King's army, and passed many years of his life in the Tower. Two other junior branches, the Blounts of Orleton, and the Blounts of Maple Durham, likewise remain; for it has been the rare fortune of this great house to be still able to count up many descendants in the male line, and the renowned name brought to England eight hundred years ago runs no chance of extinction. Yet, by a strange anomaly, its actual representatives—the acknowledged heirs of its most ancient line—do not bear it. They are called by the name that was taken by their ancestor Nicolas in the reign of Henry IV. (see p. 153), and remain to this day the Crokes of Studley in Oxfordshire. The family crest is striking: it is an armed foot in the sun, with the motto Lux tua, Via mea. Beaupere : Beaupre, or Beaupreaux, from Anjou. This family bore Argent, on a bend Azure a pellet between two 'cross crosslets Or; and was seated in Norfolk from the time of the Conquest. Beaupre Hall, in the parish of Outwell, which took its name from them, was brought to John de Beaupre, "whose ancestors had considerable possessions in these townships," in the thirteenth century by Christiana de St. Omer. Edmund Beaupre, the last heir male, who received a grant of West Dereham Abbey in 1553, died in 1567. In Cornwall the Beaupres are mentioned as land-owners in 1323, but became extinct in the course of that century. The heiress married Trevanion.—Lysons. They are also found in Shropshire. Beaupre's Chantry in Ludlow Church, was founded by Peter Beaupre; and "one Oliver Beaupre presented thereto in 1518."—Eyton's Shropshire. Beaupre Castle, near Cowbridge, "the ancient and favourite seat of the Sitsylt family," was so named from the Welsh Maes Essylt, of which it is a translation. Beuill : or Boiville; variously spelt Boville, Boeville, Beeville, and Buvilla—in the Dives Roll it is Biville—from Beuville, near Caen. Two of this name are entered in Domesday: Humphrey de Buiville, a baron in Herefordshire; and William de Bocvilla, an under tenant in Suffolk. Their descendants must have been numerous, for "the family was widely spread in England, and in 1165 held sixteen knight's fees."—The Norman People. I find mention made of them in eleven different counties; and yet am only able to trace—and that tentatively—the posterity of the mesne-lord, William. Sir Philip de Boville (perhaps his son), in the time of Henry I., gave lands to Wykes Priory in Essex, his grant being confirmed by his suzerain, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex; and William de Boville occurs in Essex and Herts in 1130 (Rot. Pip.). Paul de Boville lived in the ensuing reign; and in 1165 Otwell de Boville held—again in Essex—of the Honour of Mandeville and De Thame (Lib. Niger). Richard de Bovill, who gave his name to Bovill's manor, temp. Henry II., "was a considerable man in these parts, and a benefactor to St. Botolph's Priory, Colchester, in 1189. And both he and William de Bovill were also benefactors to the Abbey of St. Osith."—Morant's Essex. They held Letheringham, in Suffolk, of the Glanvilles, with whom they afterwards intermarried, and continued till the time of Edward II., when Nicholaa, one of the daughters of William de Bovill, carried Letheringham to Simon FitzRichard.—v. Page's Suffolk. A branch of the family, descended from Sir Philip, was seated in Norfolk till about the middle of the fourteenth century. The last heiress, Margery, married 41 Edward III. All bore Quarterly Or and Sable, the coat of their suzerains, differenced only in tincture. None of the other considerable families of the name can by any possibility be connected with this, unless it be the Bevils of Chesterton, knights, in Huntingdonshire, "an ancient family," says Camden, "famous in this county, whose heirs general were married to Hewitt, Elnes, and Dryden." We next meet with the Bevills in the remotest corner of England. "The first Bevill at the Conquest was an officer under the Earl of Morton and Cornwall. One of his descendants married a Gwairnick heiress, who brought him the land of that name, which became the seat of the Bevills for about ten generations."—Gilbert's Cornwall. They bore Ermine a bull passant Sable. The last heir died in the time of Henry VIII. "Guerneck a late was one of the Maner Places of Boville alias Beville. This Name cam out of Base Normandy, and long continued there, ontylle of late tyme it felle onto two Doughters of Boville, whereof the one was maryed unto Arundell of Trerice now lyving. The other to Granville; and so they devide almost three hundred Markes of Lande."—Leland. This latter, Maud Bevill, the wife of Sir Richard Grenville of Buckland, Marshall of Calais under Henry VIII., was the mother of an heroic race. Her son was the bold sea-captain that "courted danger as a mistress," and matched his single ship against the whole Spanish fleet: her great-grandson the Cavalier leader Sir Bevill, that hallowed her ancestral name with imperishable renown. In Cumberland a family of Boyvills was seated at Skelton in the time of Henry I. "Those of the principal line were Lords of Levington. It soon came to be divided among female issue, and passed in six parts to the respective families with whom they intermarried."—Hutchinson's Cumberland. The father of Godard de Boyville (named in ancient evidences Godardus Dapifer) was enfeoffed by Ranulph de Meschines of the great manor of Millum, in that county, which was held by his heirs-male till the reign of Henry III., when it passed through an heiress to the Huddlestones. The Boyvilles are said to have been very near of kin to Ranulph, and a romantic legend is attached to their first possession of Millum. "The Baron of Egremont being taken prisoner beyond the seas by the infidels, could not be redeemed without a great ransom, and being for England, entered his brother or kinsman for his surety, promising, with all possible speed, to send him money to set him free; but upon his return home to Egremont, he changed his mind, and most unthankfully and unnaturally suffered his brother to lie in prison, in great distress and extremity, untill his hair was grown to an unusual length, like a woman's hair. The Pagans being out of hopes of the ransom, in great rage most cruelly hanged up their pledge, binding the long hair of his head to a beam in the prison, and tied his hands so far behind him, that he could not reach to the top when the knot was fastened to loose himself: during his imprisonment, the Paynim's daughter became enamoured of him, and sought all good means for his deliverance, but could not enlarge him. She understanding of this last cruelty, by means made to his keeper, entered the prison, and taking her knife to cut the hair, being fastened, she cut the skin of his head, so as, with the weight of his body, he rent away the rest, and fell down to the earth half dead. But she presently took him up, causing surgeons to attend him secretly, till he recovered his former health, beauty and strength; and so entreated her father for him, that he set him at liberty. Then, desirous to revenge his brother's ingratitude, he got leave to depart to his country, and took home with him the hatterell of his hair, rent off as aforesaid, which he commonly used to carry about with him, when he was in England, where he shortly arrived: and coming towards Egremont Castle about noon-tide of the day, where his brother was at dinner, he blew his bugle-horn, which (says the tradition) his brother the baron presently acknowledged, and thereby conjectured his brother's return; and then sending his friends and servants to learn his brother's mind to him, and how he had escaped, they brought back the report of all the miserable torment that he had endured for his unfaithful brother the baron; which so astonished the baron (half dead before with the shameful remembrance of his own disloyalty and breach of promise), that he abandoned all company, and would not look upon his brother, till his just wrath was pacified by diligent entreaty of the friends. And to be sure of his brother's future kindness, he gave the lordship of Millum to him and his heirs for ever. Whereupon the first Lords of Millum gave as their arms the horn and hatterell."—Ibid. They "held the manor with great liberties, and had Jura Regala there." A younger branch, seated at Kirksanton in the same county, continued till the reign of Edward II. Nichols mentions a family of Boyvilles of Stockeston in Leicestershire, that bore Gules a fesse Or between three sattires humette Argent. Barduedor : Barbedor in Leland's copy; where we find it joined to Brette, the next name, curiously transformed into "Broth." It is impossible to identify this knight of the golden beard, even though bearded men were rare enough to be signalized in the Conqueror's army. Humphrey de Bohun was "Humphrey with the Beard:" Robert de Umfraville "Robertus Barbatus;" and the "Hugo Barbatus" entered in Domesday is supposed by Sir Henry Ellis and others to have been Hugh de Montfort. But him he assuredly could not be, for Hugh de Montfort with the Beard was slain in single combat with Walkelin de Ferrers more than thirty years before the Conquest. (See Wace.) Though the colour of the beard is in no case given, it is possible that the Hugo Barbatus of Domesday was this Barbe d' Or; but this can obviously be no more than a suggestion. Hugo was a baron in Hampshire. Be this as it may, Barbedor occurs as a surname in the early part of Edward I.'s reign. Robert Barbedor was of Kent, William Barbedor of Kent and Northamptonshire, and Roger Barbedor of Kent and Huntingdonshire c. 1272.—Rotuli Hundredorum. Brette : from Brette in Maine, or possibly short