The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. I.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Careuile : M. de Gerville tells us that there are at least three places of this name in Normandy: and it is to be met with in various parts of England. Gilbert de Craville witnesses a deed in the county of Durham as early as the time of Bishop Flambard (1099-1133). See Surtees. "Magro Roberto de Karvill" appends his name to one of the first charters granted to Weymouth Abbey. Hugh Carvill was a land-owner in Devonshire temp. Hen. II.—(Pole's Devon): and Peter de Cara Villa—probably of the same stock—was Prior of St. Michael's Mount in 1316. In Norfolk, "the family of Chereville, Capreville, or Kerville, was early enfeoffed of Chervill's Manor. 10 Richard I. a fine was levied between Simon, son of Roger de Chereville, petent, and Robert, son of Walter de Chereville, of lands in Tilney. Sir Fraer (or Frederick) de Chervill held two fees in Tilney, Islington, Wigenhall, and Clenchwarton (when an aid was granted to the marriage of Henry III.'s sister to the Emperor of Germany) of the honour of Wirmegay; and was found, 34 Hen. III., to have a gallows at Tilney,^[1] and the liberty or power of hanging offenders."—Blomfield. The last Kervile, Sir Henry, had two children who died in their infancy. "He was a bigoted Papist, and about November, 1620, was accused by Sir Christopher Heydon that the Papists met at his house, in order to subscribe to and assist the Emperor against the King of Bohemia, when King James requested a loan (for the recovery of the Palatinate) from the nobility and gentry of England; whereupon he was sent for to the Council, and his papers seized: but afterwards released. Sir Henry Spelman says that on his death in 1624 the estates of the Kerviles came to the Cobbs of Sandringham."—Ibid. The Kerviles bore Gules a chevron Or between three leopards' faces with their impalements.

1. ↑ "This town gives name to a famous common, called Tilney Smeeth, whereon 3,000 or more large Marsh-land sheep, and the great cattle of seven towns, to which it belongs, are constantly said to feed; a piece of land so fruitful (as was reported by a courtier to King James I., at his first coming to the crown) that 'if over night a wand, or rod, was laid on the ground, by the morning it would be covered with grass of that night's growth, so as not to be discerned:' to which the King is said, in a jocose manner, to reply, that 'he knew some ground in Scotland, where, if a horse was put in over night, they could not see him, or discern him in the morning.'"—Ibid.