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

ADDITIONAL NAMES GIVEN BY DUCHESNE.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Seint Clo : the old spelling of St. Lo or St. Laud, as found in Leland's Itinerary, where he speaks of the heiress of De la Rivers as "one of the Ladyes S. Clo." On a brass in Morley Church, Derbyshire, of somewhat earlier date (1481) it is "Seyn' clow.'"

The name is very ancient in England, though it was never included in the Baronage. "St. Lo or St. Laud, was near Coutances, Normandy, and was a barony. Simon de St. Laud, who had grants at the Conquest, witnessed a charter of William, Earl of Mortaine, in favour of Keynsham Abbey (Mon. ii. 299). The widow of Geoffry de St. Laud held from the Bishop of Winchester 1148 (Winton Domesday). Adam de St. Laud was Viscount of Lincoln 1278, and Ralph de St. Laud 1329. Thomas de St. Laud, 1297-1300, was returned as holding estates in Notts and Lincoln."—The Norman People. William de Sto Laudo held Witteham, Wilts, of Gocelin de Bayeux.—Testa de Nevill.

The principal house of St. Lo was seated in Somersetshire, where it gave its name to Newton-St. Lo. From how early a period they held it is not precisely known: but they "certainly had their habitation there in the reign of Richard I. And in the succeeding reign of King John, when such exorbitant sums of money were levied on the great men of the kingdom, to support the extravagance of that luxuriant monarch, we find the Sheriff accounting in the sum of one hundred pounds and two palfries, for the manors of Newton and Publow, the property of Roger de Sancto Laudo. This enormous demand, among other considerations, it is probable, induced this great man to take up arms with the rebellious barons against the King, whom, when his measures of reconciliation with his people failed, he is said to have some time detained a prisoner in one of the towers of his mansion here, which was embattled and otherwise fortified after the manner of a castle."—Collinson's Somerset.

He was followed by three generations of Sir Johns. The first was with Prince Edward in Palestine in 1271; the second summoned to follow him to the Scottish wars in 1299; and the third married the heiress of Alexander Cheverell, who brought him Maiden-Newton, where he had a charter of free-warren in 1382. Their son was a clerk named Edmund; but his heir and successor was again a Sir John, and "the last Lord of Newton of this name." His sole daughter and heir married Lord Botreaux; and the manor descended to her son and her grandson, the last Lord Botreaux; then passed through his daughter to the Hungerfords, and from them to the house of Hastings.

But the family was far from extinct. "From a younger brother of the Lords St. Lo descended Sir John St. Lo, who in the time of Henry VI. was Constable of Bristol Castle, and Keeper of Kingswood and Tilwood Forests. From the same branch were also descended the St. Los of Dorsetshire. These younger branches were possessed of many considerable estates in this county; but the ancient patrimonial estate merged in the families of Botreaux and Hungerford above mentioned."—Ibid.

When Leland wrote, another Sir John represented the family, and held the "several manors and lands co. Somerset and Gloucester" that had come to him from his namesake in the reign of Henry VI., besides Tormarton in the latter county, brought by the heiress of De la Rivers.

"Here" (at Southton village) "hath Syr John Saincte Lo an olde Maner Place 2. long Miles by hilly and enclosid Ground, meately well woodid.

"Syr John Saincte Lo descendit of a younger Brother of the Lordes Saincte Lo, and hath litle of his Landes. For the laste Lorde Saincte Lo lakking Heyres Male, the Landes descendid by Heyres generale onto the Lorde Hungreforde, and the Lorde Botreaux.

"A good Peace of Syr John Saincte Lo Landes cummith to hym by De la River's Doughter and Heyre his Father's Wife or Mother.

"There is a faire Maner Place like a Castelle Building at Newtoun Saincte Lo, 2. Miles from Bath by Avon, sumtyme one of the chief Houses of the Lordes Saincte Lo. The Lorde Hastinges Erie of Huntingdon hath it now.

"From Southetonne onto Chute a Mile dim. by fayre enclosid Ground. It is a praty Clothing Towne, and hath a faire Chirch.

"Syr John Saincte Lo Graundfather lyyth in a goodly Tumbe of Marble on the Northe Syde of the Chirche."

In the time of Elizabeth we find Sir William St. Lo, Captain of the Queen's Guard, and Grand Butler of England, seated at Tormarton, a prosperous gentleman of large fortune. But the whole of it passed away from his legitimate heirs. He became—in an evil hour for them—the third husband of the grasping Bess of Hardwick, then the widow of Sir William Cavendish, and solely intent on enriching herself and the children he had left her. She would only consent to marry St. Lo on condition that he settled upon her the whole of his great estate: which accordingly went, with the spoils of two other of her four husbands, to aggrandize the rising house of Cavendish. Not only his brother, but his own daughters by an earlier marriage, were thus cheated of their lawful inheritance.

The Dorsetshire branch is now the only one that survives, and has been seated at Fontmel Parva from the seventeenth century. The present house "was built, it is presumed, by Admiral Edward St. Loe, who is reported to have brought from Honduras the mahogany with which the hall is still panelled."—Hutchins' Dorset. He died s. p. in 1729, and was succeeded by his brother John. These St. Loes have added an e to their name, and three annulets to their coat of arms, for they bear Argent on a bend Sable, three annulets of the first; whereas Sir John St. Lo III. of Newton-St. Lo sealed in 1372 with a bend surmounted by a label of five points.