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

ADDITIONAL NAMES GIVEN BY LELAND.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
-------*--------
Return to Index

Challouns : a branch of the Counts of Chalons; the great French house mentioned in the old distich:

"Riche de Chalon, noble de Vienne,
Fier de Neufchatel, preux de Vergy;
Et la maison de Beaufremont,
D'ou sont sortis les bons barons."

In the time of Henry II. Harduin de Chalons married the heiress of Leigh in Devonshire, where his successors flourished for not less than three centuries and a half; though the time when they became extinct has never been accurately ascertained. Lyons reckons up twelve descents from the founder of the family, which would bring them down to the reign of Henry VIII., if not later. Their pedigree furnishes a list of great alliances; among them we find co-heiresses of the famous houses of Cantelupe, Mauduit, and Beauchamp. "Challons-Leigh," says Westcote, "takes denomination from the issue of the great Earl of Challons, of whose third son came Sir Harduin de Challons; and after, Sir Peter Challons of Challons-Leigh under King John; Sir Ralph, under Edward I.: divers others in descent, until Catharine, a daughter and heir of the family, weakened the strength of their state by strengthening St. Awbin; yet there remained a branch of the same stock, but planted in another soil." This was in the parish of Tavistock. "Here dwellith, or lately did, the only remainder of the honourable name of Challons. The last in our time was Henry Challons, who, having made three voyages for discovery in the North parts of Virginia and plantation of New England, on the fourth was most unfortunately taken, and most inhumanly treated by the Spaniards."—Pole's Devon. The coat of Challons was Gules, two bars and an orle of martlets Argent.

The family was no means confined to Devonshire, for it is met with in half-a-dozen different counties. Walter de Chaaluns or Chalouns witnesses several of the charters of Walter Gray, Archbishop of York 1215-1255. Peter and Robert de Chalouns of Buckinghamshire, Galfrid de Chalouns of Essex; Ralph de Chalons of Kent and Wiltshire, and John and William Chalons of Oxfordshire, all occur in the Rotuli Hundredorum of the time of Edward I. Sir Robert Chalons was among the forty-six Knights of the Bath made at his coronation by Henry IV.—Holinshed.