Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/368

290 the humble, but respectable, origin of the family; and even Foster in his Peerage (1882), who is always accurate when he had facts placed before him, commences with "Sir Robert Palk, descended from Henry Palk, of Ambrook, Devon (Henry VII., 1493-4)-"But Ambrook, which is in Staverton, never did belong to the Palks; it was the property first of the Shapcotes, and then of the Nayles. Sir Bernard Burke, in addition to the Ambrook myth, states that Walter, seventh in descent, married Miss Abraham, and had Robert, Walter (who was member for Ashburton), and Grace. The late Sir Bernard Burke was not remarkable for accuracy, and here he has floundered into a succession of blunders. The descent from Henry Palk, of Ambrook, is apocryphal; and Walter Palk never was member for Ashburton, or for anywhere else. Another false assertion made has been that the family are descended from a Rev. Thomas Palk, of Staverton, a "celebrated" Nonconformist divine, who died in 1693. Wills proved in the Court of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter disprove this.

The real facts are these.

Walter Palk, of Ashburton, married Grace Ryder, and by her means came in for a petty farm called Lower Headborough, close to Ashburton. He died in 1707, when his personal estate was valued at £160 10s. 5½d. His son Walter married Frances, daughter of Robert Abraham, a farmer in Woodland, and his pack-horses carried serge from Ashburton over Haldon to Exeter. This is probably the origin of the story commonly told that the first Palk was