The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Venoure : Seven tenants in capite—some of them obviously of Saxon origin—appear under this name in Domesday: Croch Venator in Hampshire: Godric Venator in Wiltshire: Godvinus Venator in Dorsetshire: Ricardus Venator in Warwickshire: Siward Venator in Oxfordshire: Walerannus Venator in Hampshire and Wiltshire: and Wlwi Venator in Surrey. Siward and Waleran are also found among the under-tenants (in Hampshire). These latter add five additional names to this already long list: Gislebertus (also entered as De Venables) Ralph, and Warmund Venator in Cheshire: Robertus Venator in Warwickshire; and Rogerus Venator in Worcestershire and Shropshire. They are all unmistakeably Norman.
Of Gilbert Le Veneur and his representatives, the Barons of Kinderton, I have already given some account (see p. 230). For the rest, it would be a formidable task—approaching indeed to temerity—to grapple with such a succession of genealogies: I will therefore content myself with tracing the fortunes of the Cheshire Le Veneurs, of whom sprung the wealthy and powerful house of Grosvenor.
Ralph Venator, supposed to be Gilbert's younger brother, was one of Hugh Lupus' "Barones et Homines," and a benefactor to his Abbey of Chester. He held Stapleford, "on the banks of the Lowy, adjacent to the ford which gives name to it," of the Earl in capite. His descendants bore the name of this manor, and retained it till the time of Richard II., when it was sold by William de Stapleford to the Orrebys.
This Ralph was in all probability the progenitor of the Grosvenors. It is true that in the famous Scrope and Grosvenor suit of the fourteenth century they are derived from Gilbert Le Veneur, dubbed for the nonce Le Grosvenor; and a man endowed with such a prodigality of descendants may well afford to be credited with a few more. Yet the evidence adduced is inconclusive and questionable; resting on the oral testimony of the Abbot of St. Albans, and some other witnesses, which amounted—at least, as regards the first three descents—to nothing more than a bare statement. "Allowing for a strength of memory which is unusual at the present day, a knowledge of the Grosvenor descents two or three hundred years back, acquired, it must be assumed, by a casual reading of charters and examinations of alledged chronicles, is remarkable."—Helsby's Ormerod. I should prefer to adopt the subjoined pedigree. "Ralph Venator's son Robert received from Earl Hugh, t. William Rufus, Over-Lostock, Cheshire (Ormerod, hi. 82). His son Robert had, c. 1153, a grant of Budworth, with the office of forester or grand-huntsman of Delamere Forest (Ibid. ii. 115) from Earl Hugh Kevelioc. Robert Grosvenor 1178 witnessed a charter of John, Constable of Chester, to Stanlaw Abbey (Mon. Angl. i. 897). Ralph, his son, t. John (Ormerod, iii. 87), was ancestor of the Grosvenors of Cheshire."—The Norman People.
I must, however, be permitted to observe that, according to the county historian, the name did not become Grosvenor till long after 1178. He tells us that, in the latter form, "it never occurs earlier than the reign of Henry III:" and the origin of the praefix is very doubtful. The office of Grand Huntsman of Delamere Forest would be rendered in the Norman tongue Grand Veneur[96] as it is to this day in France; and could never be translated Gros Veneur, or Grosso-venatori "One of the family," it is suggested, "may, in those days of nicknames, have acquired that of the 'Fat Hunter,'" (it should rather be the Fat Huntsman), "from his personal bulk." In later times it was corrupted to Gravenor.
About 1234, Richard le Grosvenor acquired Holme, a moated house "in an extremely flat and secluded situation," where the family continued seated for more than two hundred years: and in the following century Sir Robert le Grosvenor gained a great addition to his estate by marrying the heiress of Pulford of Pulford.
It was this Sir Robert who in 1386 had the celebrated suit with Richard Lord Scrope, who challenged his right to his coat of arms, Azure a bend Or; avouching that it had been "continually borne by his own ancestors since the Conquest." It lasted no less than three years, and was tried before a Commission specially appointed for the purpose, over which the Lord High Constable and Earl Marshal of England presided. On the part of Sir Robert, "nearly all the knights and gentlemen both of Cheshire and Lancashire were examined, with several of the Abbots and other clergy, all of whom deposed to the usage of the contested coat by the Grosvenors, and to having seen it painted on windows, standards, and monuments, in twenty-four churches, chapels, and monasteries in Cheshire; and family charters and deeds with seals appendant, exhibiting the same bearing, were brought into Court."—Ormerod, They were confronted by a splendid array of witnesses on the side of Lord Scrope, comprising such names as "John Duke of Lancaster, King of Castile and Leon," the Duke of Warwick, the Earls of Arundel, Northumberland and Derby, Sir Owen Glendower, and the poet Chaucer, then an esquire at arms.[97] "From the evidence they gave," says the Herald and Genealogist, "it may be inferred that the Grosvenors of Holme occupied no very brilliant position in the fourteenth century; for the very existence of Sir Robert was ignored by some of the witnesses, and if one may judge from the evidence of Sir Matthew Redman, their importance in the county was acquired through Sir Robert's marriage with Pulford's heiress." But, several generations before this,—from 1283 to 1287—a Grosvenor had been appointed Sheriff of Cheshire. I think we may fairly assume that there was a good deal of "hard swearing" on both sides. At a time when the feudal system was in full vigour, and the ties of feudal allegiance unbroken, "when lord defended tenant, and tenant defended lord in every affair of life," it is more than doubtful whether either churchman or layman was overscrupulous in regard to truth. It came out in evidence that there was another claimant to the disputed coat. "An esquire of Cornwall of the name of Carminow" also bore Azure a bend Or, which he had the audacity to assert had belonged to his ancestors from the time of King Arthur of the Round Table; and had in consequence been brought into collision with Lord Scrope, and fought a duel with Sir John Daniel, who maintained the right of his ward and son-in-law Le Grosvenor, at that time a minor.
In these utilitarian days, when anyone may assume whatever coat of arms he pleases (the Heralds' College being powerless to interfere in the matter), the question would have been of no importance; and men may wonder at the infatuation of their forefathers, who shed their blood and spent their substance in such a quarrel. But the ancient "cotte d'armes" was very differently regarded. It was the pride and badge of the race; the symbol of the much-prized droit de banniere et de cry de guerre that was the distinctive privilege of a gentleman; and as highly honoured and jealously guarded as the name itself.[98] Its colours were worn by the retainers that gathered round their lord's banner in time of war, and followed it through many a hard-fought field; as in this very case, in which it was recited how Sir Robert le Grosvenor "armed with these arms," accompanied Edward the Black Prince for seventeen years, and had borne them in "Berry, Algayne, del Tour de Brose, et a Issendon, et a la siege de Rochsirion, en Peyto, en Gyan, et a Viers en Normande, et en battaile de Poictiers."
Nevertheless, he was "out-weighed with powerful words," and the sentence of the court was against him. The famous golden bend was adjudged to the Scropes, and it was decreed that Sir Robert should only bear it within a bordure "as a difference," denoting a junior or inferior house. Sir Robert, in great indignation, appealed to the King himself, before whom, by his commissioners, the whole pleadings were reviewed, and a compromise at length effected. Sir Robert, "scorning to bear the other coat with a difference," accepted instead one of the wheat-sheaves of Chester; Azure a garb Or, being part of the ancient arms of Earl Ranulph de Meschines, since borne by the city; and granted as "a proof of his consanguinity to the Earls of Chester, so fully proved in the said trial."[99]
After this, little more is heard of the Grosvenors for the next three hundred years. The elder line ended with Sir Robert's grandson in 1464, through one of whose six co-heiresses Holme passed to the Shakerleys; but a younger brother, Raulyn or Ralph, who about twenty years before had married the heiress of Eaton, took his place as heir-male. Ralph's descendants were plain country gentlemen, content to live quietly and unobtrusively at home, who did their duty when called upon as sheriffs or knights of the shire, received a baronetcy from James I., and were impoverished by their loyalty to his successor. But in 1676 Sir Thomas, the third baronet, made the marriage that was to work a momentous change in the future, and build up one of the greatest fortunes in the kingdom. His wife Mary, the heiress of Alexander Davies of Ebury in Middlesex, brought him the freehold of a few grass fields, then only used for pasturing cows, which in process of time became of immense value as building land, and the site of Grosvenor Square and the surrounding streets. One of these, Davies Street, commemorates her name. It was not, however, till nearly fifty years afterwards, in the time of her son Sir Richard, that the buildings were commenced and the golden tide of wealth set in, bringing with it a rapid accumulation of honours. In 1761 this Sir Richard's nephew and namesake was raised to the peerage as Baron Grosvenor, and further created Viscount Belgrave and Earl Grosvenor in 1784. His son became Marquess of Westminster in 1831, and the third Marquess received a Dukedom in 1874.
The good fortune of the Grosvenors had not culminated even in the match with the Ebury heiress; for, about 1761, the first Lord made another extraordinary acquisition. Soon after George III.'s marriage, the ground on which Grosvenor Place now stands, with the adjacent estate, then the property of the Duke of Atholl, was offered for sale for £20,000: and as it adjoined the grounds of Buckingham House, the King wished that it should be bought by the Crown. But Mr. Grenville, who was then Minister, refused to sanction the expenditure. It was finally sold by auction, and Lord Grosvenor became the purchaser, paying for it a price considered rather above its value. Another noble Lord had sent to bid for it, and was disappointed when his agent returned unsuccessful. "How was it," asked Lord * * * (whose descendants recall the transaction with unavailing regret), "that you did not buy it?" "My lord," replied the agent, "I could not conscientiously have offered what Lord Grosvenor did. He gave at the very least £200 more than it was worth!"
To all outward appearance he had made but a poor bargain. The site of the future Belgravia was, up to the year 1826, a clayey swamp called the Five Fields, intersected by mud banks, and occupied only by a few sheds. The soil "retained so much water, that no one would build there, and the 'Fields' were the terror of foot-passengers proceeding from London to Chelsea after nightfall."—Curiosities of London. Many people believed them to have been one of the burial places in use during the Great Plague of London. Nobody, in their wildest dreams, would have thought of inhabiting them.[100]
But a grand transformation scene was at hand. There had been, even in the last century, a solitary house that stood on the outskirts of the Five Fields (on the site afterwards occupied by Lord Carlisle's): and some years after Lord Grosvenor became the owner of the property, a row of houses had been built there, and called Grosvenor Place. Apparently this speculation had not prospered; for half a century elapsed before any further building was attempted. At length, in 1826, Thomas Cubitt, an eminent London builder, conceived the idea of erecting a new quarter in this unpopular and unwholesome waste; and at once, it is said, offered the Earl—much to his own surprise—a ground rent of £40,000. It was a bold conception; but proved when carried out to have been a true inspiration of genius; for the success of the venture surprised the most sanguine anticipations. The new suburb became the fashionable part of London, and the price of the houses rose year by year, till the estimated future value of the estate defied all calculation. From the first it enjoyed the advantage of being skilfully planned as well as handsomely constructed: and latterly it has been greatly improved by the good taste and liberality of the present Duke.
Three other titles are now held by this family. The second Earl Grosvenor had married Lady Eleanor Egerton, daughter and sole heiress of Thomas Earl of Wilton, and by a special limitation in the Egerton patent, his second son Thomas succeeded to the Earldom on the death of his maternal grandfather, and assumed the name and arms of Egerton in 1821. Another younger brother, Lord Robert, Earl Grosvenor's third son, was created in 1857 Baron Ebury of Ebury in Middlesex. Lastly, the only surviving brother of the Duke, Lord Richard Grosvenor, who had held office under Mr. Gladstone, received the title of Lord Stalbridge in 1885.