The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Return to Index
Vernoun : from the castle and chatellenie of Vernon, now a commune in the arrondissement of Evreux, which gives its name to the surrounding canton, "one of the most picturesque and luxuriant of the vine districts." The castle must have been strong; for Orderic tells us that in 1152 it was besieged by Louis King of France with a large army, and he, after a long leaguer, was fain to enter into a secret negotiation with Richard de Vernon to raise the Royal banner on his tower.
The Lords of Vernon were of the house of Reviers. "Roger was Baron of Vernon c. 1030, about which time his daughter Blithildis was married. She granted to Trinity, Caen, in 1082, the lands at Vernon given to her by her father Roger. The grant was made with consent of William, her nephew, then Lord of Vernon (Gall. Christ, xi. 70, Instr.). This William recovered Vernon (which had been granted to Count Guy of Burgundy); and from him descended the Barons of Vernon, who held sixty-one knights' fees in barony."—The Norman People.
Two of his sons, Richard and Walter, appear in Domesday, both holding in Cheshire: Walter being at the same time a tenant-in-chief in Buckinghamshire: and a third of the name, Huard de Vernon, occurs as a mesne-lord in Suffolk. Of the latter I have no more to tell: and Walter is supposed to have left no heirs, as his Cheshire estates appear to have reverted to the Earl.
The elder brother,. Richard, was one of the Barons of Hugh Lupus' Palatinate, and "had a castle at Shipbrook on the Wever, to command the passes of the Wever, and the approach to Chester from the North, by the ancient line of the Watling Street. The site of his fortress is still indicated by the name of Castle Hill; and some remains are said to have actually existed on this spot thirty years ago."—Ormerod's Cheshire.
The first few descents of the Barons of Shipbrook are obscure and variously given; but either in the fourth or fifth generation the first Richard was succeeded by a second Richard de Vernon, from whose third son, William, Judge of Chester 1230-32, "all the acknowledged legitimate lines of this family and name now existing derive their descent."—Ibid. His eldest son, Warin, married Auda de Malbank, one of the co-heirs of the Baron of Wich Malbank, and was the grandfather of the last Baron of Shipbrook, who died childless about the middle of the thirteenth century. Three sisters remained as his co-heiresses; but their uncle Ralph entered into possession of the barony, and resolutely retained it till, after some years, they were brought to terms, and constrained to cede to him one moiety, with the capital manor of Shipbrook. Ralph was in holy orders—an ordained priest of the Church of Rome: yet he had a daughter born in wedlock as well as an illegitimate son, Sir Ralph, on whom he settled the portions of the barony that he had wrested from his nieces. On his death, Eustatia, his legitimate daughter and heiress, confirmed the grant to her base brother. This Sir Ralph, called in Cheshire evidences "the long liver," is said to have been one hundred and fifty years old when he died, and by a comparison of the dates cannot have been less than one hundred and twenty. He survived three generations of his descendants,[88] for his successor was his great-great-grandson, "young Sir Ralph," who d. s. p. The last representatives of this bastard line were the Vernons of Haslington, extinct in the seventeenth century. Minshull-Vernon retains the name in Cheshire.
Of the old blood, in true right of descent, there remained the posterity of Sir William de Vernon, Chief Justice of Chester, who held Marple in right of his wife Marjory, daughter of the Baron of Stockport, and was seated at Harlaston in Staffordshire. His son Sir Richard married two great heiresses; first, Alice de Avenel, dowered with Haddon and a broad domain in Derbyshire, and secondly, Maud, daughter and co-heir of the last Lord Camville, whose second husband was Sir Richard Stafford of Pipe-Rideware. But by neither of his wives had he children; and "in Henry III.'s time, and perhaps pretty early, he preferred his brother Robert's daughter and his own heir-presumptive, Hawyse, in marriage with Gilbert le Francais. In virtue of that marriage, Gilbert was Lord of Harlaston, and died 6 Ed. I. His son Richard resumed the Vernon name, and died 30 Ed. I."—Erdeswick's Staffordshire.
The succession in the male line, thus early interrupted, has never failed again, and continues unbroken after the lapse of six hundred years. The family seated at Haddon Hall grew and prospered, and held their place among the foremost in the county. A Sir Richard Vernon, afterwards Treasurer of Calais, was Speaker of the House of Commons that met at Leicester in 1402; his son Sir William, again Treasurer of Calais, was constituted Constable of England for life; and the next heir, Sir Henry, was Governor and Treasurer to Henry VII.'s eldest son. It was he that built the splendid pile of Haddon, where Prince Arthur, it is said, was a frequent guest, and a room in which the Royal arms are carved in stone long bore the name of the Prince's Chamber.
Sir Henry's grandson, Sir George, was the well-known "King of the Peak"; so named not only "for his magnificent port and hospitality," but from the arbitrary power that he exercised in his domain. Once, we are told, a poor pedlar who had been hawking his wares in the neighbourhood, and was last seen alive entering a cottage, the evening before, was found murdered in a lonely place. Sir George at once ordered the dead body to be brought to Haddon, and laid out in the hall, covered with a sheet; then, summoning the cottager to his presence, he asked him what had become of the pedlar that had been in his cottage the previous night? The man denied all knowledge of him. On this, Sir George, throwing back the sheet, called upon all present to lay their hands on the murdered man, and declare themselves innocent of the foul deed. The old superstition that the death-wound would bleed afresh at the murderer's touch, still held good; for the suspected culprit shuddered back from the ordeal when his turn came, and rushing out of the hall, made his way, as fast as his legs would carry him, through Bakewell towards Ashford. Sir George instantly despatched his men in hot pursuit, with orders to hang the fugitive wherever they might find him. The wretched man was overtaken in a field opposite the present toll-bar at Ashford, still called Gallows Acre, and here he was strung up to the nearest tree without further ado.
"Sir George is said to have been cited to London for this extraordinary piece of Lynch law; and when he appeared in Court, was twice summoned to surrender as the 'King of the Peak.' To this he made no reply; but the third time, when called on as Sir George Vernon, he stepped forward and acknowledged himself—'Here am I!' Having been summoned as King of the Peak, the indictment fell through, and Sir George was admonished and discharged."—Guide to Haddon Hall.
This autocratic King of the Peak had only two daughters, whose husbands shared his ample possessions. Margaret, the youngest, inherited Tonge and the Shropshire estates, and married Sir Thomas Stanley of Winwick. It was during one of the "merry meetings" that celebrated her wedding, when the great gallery was ablaze with lights and astir with dancers, that her beautiful sister Dorothy stole out through an adjoining postern, crossed the garden terrace, and ran down the steep stair leading to the foot-bridge over the river Wye below, where her lover Sir John Manners was waiting for her. He had horses in readiness; Dorothy was quickly lifted into her saddle; and speeding away unperceived in the darkness, they rode hard all night, and were married in his own county of Leicester on the following morning.
"It is a night with never a star,
And the Hall with revelry throbs and gleams,
There grates a hinge—the door is ajar—
And a shaft of light in the darkness streams:
"A faint sweet face, a glimmering gem—
And then two figures steal into light;
A flash—and darkness has swallowed them,
So sudden is Dorothy Vernon's flight!"
Sir John's suit had been bitterly opposed by all her family, her sister included, and Dorothy had been closely guarded and kept almost a prisoner, while he had roamed for weeks about the woods of Haddon, in the disguise of a forester, watching for the chance of exchanging a word or glance with her. Who that has visited the beautiful deserted mansion that was once her home, has not felt a thrill of romance on being shown Dorothy Vernon's door, and Dorothy Vernon's Walk—the lime tree avenue on the upper terrace of which she is said to have been fond; nor envied the lucky knight to whom the lovely Lady of Haddon came out on that summer's night, bearing in her hand such an inheritance?
"Haddon, by the river Wye in Derbyshire, was," writes Camden, "the seat for many years of the Vernons, who, as they were ancient, so they were no less renowned in those parts. * * * Sir George Vernon of Haddon was the last male of that branch; he died seized of thirty manors, and left two daughters, one married to Maners, of the Duke of Rutland's family, by which Haddon came to them; in honourable remembrance of which, there is wrote over the entrance to the house, God save the Vernons. And the Vernon's crest, being a boar's head, used to be served up with a song every Christmas." Haddon Hall is now held by Dorothy Vernon's lineal descendant, the Duke of Rutland.
"The other daughter," he continues, "was married to Stanley, second son of the Earl of Derby, by which he had Tonge in Shropshire, where he lieth interred, and where there are many fine monuments of the Vernons and Stanleys, and a chapel founded by Sir Henry Vernon, who married Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, curiously painted, gilt, and adorned with the matches of the Vernons." This Sir Henry (the builder of Haddon) "gave the great bell to Tonge, of forty-eight hundredweight, and a rent out of his manor of Norton, for the tolling of it, when any Vernon comes to town."
Though the King of the Peak is here spoken of as the last heir male of his house, he had in reality four younger brothers: i, Thomas, of Stokesay; 2, Humphrey, of Hodnet; 3, Sir John, of Sudbury; and 4, Arthur, Rector of Whitchurch. Sir John, who acquired Sudbury through a Derbyshire heiress, Helen, daughter of Sir John Montgomery of Cubley, was the progenitor of the Lords Vernon, still seated there. One of his descendants married the representative of. the last Vernon of Haslington; another the heiress of the Cheshire Barons of Kinderton, Mary Venables, whose son added her name to his own, and was created Lord Vernon, Baron of Kinderton, in 1762.
There are several junior branches; the Vernon-Harcourts of Nuneham in Oxfordshire; the Vernons of Hilton in Staffordshire, and the Vernon-Wentworths of Wentworth Castle in Yorkshire. Their old punning motto, Ver non semper viret, is bountifully illustrated; yet the highest title they have yet received perished with its first possessor. This was Francis Vernon of Norton in Suffolk, created Earl of Shipbrook in 1777, who died s. p. He derived from a cadet of the house of Haslington, who had settled in London as a merchant. His grandfather was one of William III.'s principal Secretaries of State; his father Ambassador to the Court of Denmark; and his father's brother the gallant Admiral—the "brave and happy Vernon"—who, with only six ships of the line, captured Porto Bello in 1739.