Généalogie and Heritage

Source: "PEERAGE AND PEDIGREE STUDIES IN PEERAGE LAW AND FAMILY HISTORY, VOLUME TWO" BY J. H ORACE ROUND M.A. , LL.D.

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Titre	"PEERAGE AND PEDIGREE STUDIES IN PEERAGE LAW AND FAMILY HISTORY, VOLUME TWO" BY J. H ORACE ROUND M.A. , LL.D.

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Sir WILLIAM Smythe, III

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BALTIMORE: w o GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY ' * 1970 Reproduced from the Original Edition London, 1910 International Standard Book Number 0-8063-0425-1 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-124476 American Publishers GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY Baltimore, Maryland Published in conjunction with THE TABARD PRESS Trowbridge, England Printed in Great Britain Bound in the United States of America

BALTIMORE:
w o GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
' * 1970

Reproduced from the
Original Edition
London, 1910
International Standard Book Number 0-8063-0425-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-124476

American Publishers
GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
Baltimore, Maryland
Published in conjunction with
THE TABARD PRESS
Trowbridge, England
Printed in Great Britain
Bound in the United States of America

Médias

URL

Notes


CONTENTS VOLUME II PAGE SOME 'SAXON' HOUSES i T H E GREAT CARINGTON IMPOSTURE 134 T H E GESTE OF JOHN DE COURCY 258 HERALDRY AND THE GENT 307 INDEX 385 SOME 'SAXON ' HOUSES Meaning of' Saxon descent '—It is claimed by ancient houses or those ivith ' Saxon ' surnames—Origin of these surnames—The Goodwins, Levinges, and Chads—Pre-Conquest pedigrees—The Howards—The Temples—The Sneyd pedigree—The Woolryches —Origin of the Audleys—The Stanleys—Master Johns dinnerparty—The Kingscotes and Berkeley!—The Digbys—The Mitfords — The Ashburnhams—Fitz-Geralds and Carews—The Shirleys— The Thursbys—Polwheie, Tre/awny, and Trevelyan—The Dering myth—The pre-Conquest Traffords—Charters antedated—The ' Canute ' story demolished—Some vague claims—Proofs wanting —Th e IVardlaws—The Binghams—The Pelhams and the Wingfields—The Stourtons—The Wallops, the Chetwodes, the Leighs, and the Stricklands—The Tollemaches and the Wakes— The Jerninghams and the Gowers—Fulford, Gatacre, Hornyold, and Hudleston—-The Crofts and the Pilkingtons—Staunton and Swettenham—-Hanbury and Sa/wey—The Berneys and the Wyndhams—Pedigrees in the pulpit—The We/bys—Scrase and Thistlethwayte—The Copingers—Confusion with place-names— Biddulph, Sibthorp and Sandbach—The Tichbornes—A mythical crusader—The Radclijfes—Eleven centuries of Boothbys—' Saxon ' surnames—Pennyman and Weld—Wilmot and Gilbert—The Dering concoction—A wondrous pedigree—The first baronet its author—The family " augmentation "—Th e arms and Saxon motto—Garter Segar s confirmation—The Ethelstons and the Thorolds—The Whatmans and the Godmans—Development of a pedigree—A Saxon house produced—Osbern and Godfrey—The Wolseleys and the wolves—The Lumley pedigree—The Yorkshire Scropes—True pre-Conquest houses—Berkeley and Arden—Origin of the Tracys—Houses of native origin—Alien immigration—Its n—Its trace in surnames—Modern -immigrants—Our surnames usurped by Jews—Conclusion. Apart from those families which claim to have ' come in with the Conqueror ', or at least to be of Norman descent, there are no inconsiderable number who, in one way or another, claim to be older than the Conquest, or, as it is often expressed, " of Saxon origin. " In a few cases a continuous pedigree beginning before the Conquest is definitely put forward ; in others the possession of the family estate is traced, or said to be traced, to the same early period : in some it is more vaguely claimed that a family was established in a certain county long before the Conquest, but in most, perhaps, there is the vague claim to ' Saxon ' " descent" or " origin. " There is pecular need for 'clear thinking' in this department of genealogy, for of these claims many rest on careless or confused thought. It is obvious that their real object is to assert, broadly speaking, that a family was already of importance before the Norman Conquest. But this, of course, is by no means implied in a claim to 'Saxon descent.' The people of this country, after the Norman Conquest, were officially divided into ' French' and ' English ' {Franci et Anglt)^ of whom the former represented the conquering invaders, Norman for the most part, and the latter the conquered English. These —whom some speak of as ' Saxons ' or ' AngloSaxons '—formed the bulk of the population * and included naturally the immense majority of the lower orders. There was, therefore, no inducement to assert "Saxon descent" as a distinction, and, as a matter of fact, the English of the upper and middle classes hastened to bestow upon their children the Christian names of their conquerors, ' leaving the old native names to those below them, among whom they lingered on for a good while longer. It will thus be seen that " Saxon origin " is, in itself, no distinction, being probably that of the bulk of our people. But if an actual pedigree can be carried back beyond the gulf of the Conquest, or if the possession of a family estate can be traced to the same remote period, or even if an existing family is so much as mentioned by name before Harold fell, then we should indeed have a most exceptional distinction, and one of which its possessors might well claim to be proud. For, from the historical standpoint, or even from the sociological, it would be no mean achievement for a family to maintain its position, without ruin or extinction, through all the revolutions and vicissitudes of English medieval history since the days when our native kings sat upon their fathers' throne. When we come to set together our self-styled Saxon houses, the first point, perhaps, to strike us is that, on their own showing, their known history only begins at some time in the 12th century, the century after that which saw the Norman Conquest. Their ' Saxon ' origin is a sheer guess : there is absolutely nothing to prove or even to suggest it. The idea seems to have originated in more ways than one. Indeed we can clearly distinguish two groups of families which laid claim to the distinction on wholly different grounds. The one includes several of our oldest—our very oldest—families, whose proved tenure of their lands begins at so remote a date that they find it difficult to conceive a time when they did not hold them. Ignoring the cataclysm of the Norman Conquest, they assume that their own ancestors passed unscathed through its terrors and retained their hereditary estate. One does not see why they should not similarly assume that the English Conquests of the fifth and following centuries left their own forefathers in peaceful possession. But the only family, so far as I know, that has reached this logical conclusion is that of Kelly of Kelly, whose history, as given in The Landed Gentry, begins only in the 12th century, but of whom we read that— " This family," we quote from their authenticated pedigree, " may look back beyond the (sic) Conquest, and derive themselves from the ancient Britons." It is indeed the group to which the Kellys belong, the families entitled to what might be termed ' the blue riband ' of genealogy, that we find conspicuous among the claimants to a pre-Conquest descent. Such houses as Tichborne of Tichborne, Wolseley of Wolseley, Fulford of Fulford, Trafford of Trafford, Polwhele of Polwhele, Ashburnham ofAshburnham, Stonor of Stonor,TrelawnyofTrelawOy, and so forth,—they have all advanced this claim in one form or another. Whether they can prove that claim or not, these social survivals from a distant past constitute for this country its true ancienne noblesse. Puny indeed a modern peerage,— it would till lately have been thought,—and punierstill a modern baronetcy by the side of a tenure in the male line from a period so remote that it is older even than the surname of the house, that surname derived from the estate which still surrounds its home. Where these conditions are fulfilled, the claim might almost be made that, as in the case of a reigning house, the family has no true surname, but is known by the name of its domain. The parallel is not remote. If genealogists are thus impressed by the long association between a family and its lands, " the man in the street, " on the other hand, will probably be most impressed, not by the fact that the tenure is so old, but by the news that surnames are not of older origin. Many absurdities and much fiction would be swept out of family history if only two elementary facts were clearly and firmly grasped. The one is that hereditary surnames were not introduced in this country till after the Norman Conquest—and, in most cases, long after it : the other is that owners of estates derived their surnames from them, and did not, as sometimes seems to be imagined, give to a locality their own name. l If only these principles had been grasped and borne in mind, we should never have read in a county history of the first class, in the last century, of Mr. Shobbington, astride upon a bull, riding up from his seat in Buckinghamshire to the court of William the Conqueror, and being authorised (? by Royal licence) to change his name to Bulstrode ; nor should we have seen the claim advanced that Boothby in Lincolnshire derived its name from one of the Boothby family a thousand years ago. The relatively late origin of surnames disposes also at once of the pretensions of what I have termed the other ' group ' of families conspicuous among the claimants to a pre-Conquest descent. They are those whose surnames are formed from certain Christian names, which lingered on (as I explained above) for some time after the Conquest, long enough in some cases to become the origin of surnames. In his history of his own ancient house General Wrottesley has observed that it was largely a matter of chance whether its surname would be finally fixed as Verdon from its Norman stammhaus, Wrottesley from its English lordship, or Symons from its ancestor Simon. Surnames indeed must largely have been a matter of chance in their origin. At the time when they were tending to become fixed, —say in the latter part of the 13 th century,— there would still be a goodly number of men in the lower orders who had been christened by what we should now term old ' Saxon ' names, which, in the form of a patronymic, might pass into a surname for their sons and their descendants. Let us open at a venture ' The Domesday of St. Paul's, ' 4 with its lists of peasants and their holdings in 1222. We soon discover that, then as now, fashion was spreading downward. Even peasants were beginning to discard the names of their English forefathers and to bestow upon their children those which had come from abroad with the Normans. We open the volume at the survey of the Hertfordshire manor of Sandon. On the right hand page (p. 83) we meet with the three sons of a man bearing the ancient name of iEthelward (Ailwardus)—a name which had been also borne by " Fabius Quaestor Patricius iEthelwerdus," as he styled himself, historian and ealdorman, born of the royal line....

CONTENTS
VOLUME II
PAGE
SOME 'SAXON' HOUSES i
T H E GREAT CARINGTON IMPOSTURE 134
T H E GESTE OF JOHN DE COURCY 258
HERALDRY AND THE GENT 307
INDEX 385

SOME 'SAXON ' HOUSES
Meaning of' Saxon descent '—It is claimed by ancient houses or those
ivith ' Saxon ' surnames—Origin of these surnames—The Goodwins,
Levinges, and Chads—Pre-Conquest pedigrees—The
Howards—The Temples—The Sneyd pedigree—The Woolryches
—Origin of the Audleys—The Stanleys—Master Johns dinnerparty—The
Kingscotes and Berkeley!—The Digbys—The Mitfords
— The Ashburnhams—Fitz-Geralds and Carews—The Shirleys—
The Thursbys—Polwheie, Tre/awny, and Trevelyan—The Dering
myth—The pre-Conquest Traffords—Charters antedated—The
' Canute ' story demolished—Some vague claims—Proofs wanting
—Th e IVardlaws—The Binghams—The Pelhams and the
Wingfields—The Stourtons—The Wallops, the Chetwodes, the
Leighs, and the Stricklands—The Tollemaches and the Wakes—
The Jerninghams and the Gowers—Fulford, Gatacre, Hornyold,
and Hudleston—-The Crofts and the Pilkingtons—Staunton and
Swettenham—-Hanbury and Sa/wey—The Berneys and the
Wyndhams—Pedigrees in the pulpit—The We/bys—Scrase and
Thistlethwayte—The Copingers—Confusion with place-names—
Biddulph, Sibthorp and Sandbach—The Tichbornes—A mythical
crusader—The Radclijfes—Eleven centuries of Boothbys—' Saxon '
surnames—Pennyman and Weld—Wilmot and Gilbert—The
Dering concoction—A wondrous pedigree—The first baronet its
author—The family " augmentation "—Th e arms and Saxon
motto—Garter Segar s confirmation—The Ethelstons and the
Thorolds—The Whatmans and the Godmans—Development of a
pedigree—A Saxon house produced—Osbern and Godfrey—The
Wolseleys and the wolves—The Lumley pedigree—The Yorkshire
Scropes—True pre-Conquest houses—Berkeley and Arden—Origin
of the Tracys—Houses of native origin—Alien immigration—Its n—Its
trace in surnames—Modern -immigrants—Our surnames usurped
by Jews—Conclusion.

Apart from those families which claim to have
' come in with the Conqueror ', or at least to be of
Norman descent, there are no inconsiderable number
who, in one way or another, claim to be older than
the Conquest, or, as it is often expressed, " of Saxon
origin. " In a few cases a continuous pedigree
beginning before the Conquest is definitely put
forward ; in others the possession of the family
estate is traced, or said to be traced, to the same
early period : in some it is more vaguely claimed
that a family was established in a certain county
long before the Conquest, but in most, perhaps,
there is the vague claim to ' Saxon ' " descent" or
" origin. "
There is pecular need for 'clear thinking' in this
department of genealogy, for of these claims many
rest on careless or confused thought. It is obvious
that their real object is to assert, broadly speaking,
that a family was already of importance before the
Norman Conquest. But this, of course, is by no
means implied in a claim to 'Saxon descent.' The
people of this country, after the Norman Conquest,
were officially divided into ' French' and ' English '
{Franci et Anglt)^ of whom the former represented
the conquering invaders, Norman for the most
part, and the latter the conquered English. These
—whom some speak of as ' Saxons ' or ' AngloSaxons
'—formed the bulk of the population * and
included naturally the immense majority of the
lower orders. There was, therefore, no inducement
to assert "Saxon descent" as a distinction, and,
as a matter of fact, the English of the upper and
middle classes hastened to bestow upon their children
the Christian names of their conquerors, ' leaving
the old native names to those below them, among
whom they lingered on for a good while longer.
It will thus be seen that " Saxon origin " is, in
itself, no distinction, being probably that of the
bulk of our people. But if an actual pedigree can
be carried back beyond the gulf of the Conquest,
or if the possession of a family estate can be traced
to the same remote period, or even if an existing
family is so much as mentioned by name before
Harold fell, then we should indeed have a most
exceptional distinction, and one of which its possessors
might well claim to be proud. For, from
the historical standpoint, or even from the sociological,
it would be no mean achievement for a family to maintain its position, without ruin or
extinction, through all the revolutions and vicissitudes
of English medieval history since the days
when our native kings sat upon their fathers'
throne.
When we come to set together our self-styled
Saxon houses, the first point, perhaps, to strike us
is that, on their own showing, their known history
only begins at some time in the 12th century, the
century after that which saw the Norman Conquest.
Their ' Saxon ' origin is a sheer guess : there is
absolutely nothing to prove or even to suggest it.
The idea seems to have originated in more ways
than one. Indeed we can clearly distinguish two
groups of families which laid claim to the distinction
on wholly different grounds. The one includes
several of our oldest—our very oldest—families,
whose proved tenure of their lands begins at so
remote a date that they find it difficult to conceive
a time when they did not hold them. Ignoring
the cataclysm of the Norman Conquest, they assume
that their own ancestors passed unscathed through
its terrors and retained their hereditary estate. One
does not see why they should not similarly assume
that the English Conquests of the fifth and following
centuries left their own forefathers in peaceful
possession. But the only family, so far as I know,
that has reached this logical conclusion is that of
Kelly of Kelly, whose history, as given in The
Landed Gentry, begins only in the 12th century,
but of whom we read that—
" This family," we quote from their authenticated
pedigree, " may look back beyond the (sic) Conquest, and
derive themselves from the ancient Britons."
It is indeed the group to which the Kellys
belong, the families entitled to what might be
termed ' the blue riband ' of genealogy, that we find
conspicuous among the claimants to a pre-Conquest
descent. Such houses as Tichborne of Tichborne,
Wolseley of Wolseley, Fulford of Fulford, Trafford
of Trafford, Polwhele of Polwhele, Ashburnham ofAshburnham, Stonor of Stonor,TrelawnyofTrelawOy,
and so forth,—they have all advanced this claim
in one form or another. Whether they can prove
that claim or not, these social survivals from a
distant past constitute for this country its true
ancienne noblesse. Puny indeed a modern peerage,—
it would till lately have been thought,—and punierstill a modern baronetcy by the side of a tenure in the
male line from a period so remote that it is older
even than the surname of the house, that surname
derived from the estate which still surrounds its
home. Where these conditions are fulfilled, the
claim might almost be made that, as in the case of
a reigning house, the family has no true surname,
but is known by the name of its domain. The
parallel is not remote.
If genealogists are thus impressed by the long
association between a family and its lands, " the
man in the street, " on the other hand, will probably
be most impressed, not by the fact that the tenure
is so old, but by the news that surnames are not of
older origin. Many absurdities and much fiction
would be swept out of family history if only two
elementary facts were clearly and firmly grasped.
The one is that hereditary surnames were not
introduced in this country till after the Norman
Conquest—and, in most cases, long after it : the
other is that owners of estates derived their surnames
from them, and did not, as sometimes seems
to be imagined, give to a locality their own name. l
If only these principles had been grasped and borne
in mind, we should never have read in a county
history of the first class, in the last century, of Mr.
Shobbington, astride upon a bull, riding up from
his seat in Buckinghamshire to the court of William
the Conqueror, and being authorised (? by Royal
licence) to change his name to Bulstrode ; nor
should we have seen the claim advanced that
Boothby in Lincolnshire derived its name from one
of the Boothby family a thousand years ago.
The relatively late origin of surnames disposes
also at once of the pretensions of what I have termed
the other ' group ' of families conspicuous among
the claimants to a pre-Conquest descent. They
are those whose surnames are formed from certain
Christian names, which lingered on (as I explained
above) for some time after the Conquest, long enough
in some cases to become the origin of surnames.
In his history of his own ancient house General
Wrottesley has observed that it was largely a matter
of chance whether its surname would be finally
fixed as Verdon from its Norman stammhaus, Wrottesley
from its English lordship, or Symons from
its ancestor Simon. Surnames indeed must largely
have been a matter of chance in their origin. At
the time when they were tending to become fixed,
—say in the latter part of the 13 th century,—
there would still be a goodly number of men in the
lower orders who had been christened by what we
should now term old ' Saxon ' names, which, in the
form of a patronymic, might pass into a surname
for their sons and their descendants.
Let us open at a venture ' The Domesday of
St. Paul's, ' 4 with its lists of peasants and their
holdings in 1222. We soon discover that, then as
now, fashion was spreading downward. Even
peasants were beginning to discard the names of
their English forefathers and to bestow upon their
children those which had come from abroad with
the Normans. We open the volume at the survey
of the Hertfordshire manor of Sandon. On the
right hand page (p. 83) we meet with the three
sons of a man bearing the ancient name of iEthelward
(Ailwardus)—a name which had been also
borne by " Fabius Quaestor Patricius iEthelwerdus,"
as he styled himself, historian and ealdorman, born
of the royal line....