Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/427

Rh "By an inquisition post mortem taken the 6th of Sept. 1637, (old style,) it appears that John Cantewell of Cantewell's Court was seized, amongst other proprietors, of the castles and lands of Kilfane, Stroan, and Cloghscreggie, which were held of the king in capite by knight's service; and that this monumental effigy was erected to the memory of a member of that family, there can be no doubt from the arms borne on the shield.

"The De Cantavilles were originally of Norman extraction; and we find the name of Thomas de Kentewalle amongst the witnesses to a grant made to his town of Gowran by Theobald Walter, who was appointed chief butler of Ireland by Henry II. about the year 1177; (see Introduction to Carte's Life of James Duke of Ormonde.) By a patent roll of the eleventh year of Edward II., (1317.) we find that a Thomas de Cantewelle was empowered to treat with the felons (meaning the Irish) of the cantred of Odogh, now the barony of Fassadineen in the county of Kilkenny. This Thomas lived to be an old man, for by a patent roll of the thirteenth of the same king he was exempted from attending at assizes, "being worn out with age." In the fifth year of Richard II. (1382) licence was granted to Thomas Derkyn and Walter Cantewell, "living in the marches of Ballygaveran in front of the Irish enemies Mc Morough and O'Nolan, to treat for themselves, their tenants, and followers ;" this Walter was probably grandson to the Thomas above-mentioned; his castles of Stroan and Cloghscreggie were on the verge of the barony of Gowran, here called Ballygaveran, the "marches" of the English pale as bordering on that part of the county of Carlow, then possessed by the Irish septs of the Mc Moroughs, or Cavaughs, and O'Nolans, between whom and the English settlers a constant warfare was maintained.

"In the year 1409, the 18th of March, we find the custody of the lands, &c. "of Robert, son and heir of Walter Cantewell in Rathcoull and Strowan, committed, rent free, to Richard and Thomas Cantewell;" and on the 16th of December of the same year, on this Robert Cantewell's coming of age, "all the lands, tenements, &c. in Rathcoull and Strowan, in the county of Kilkenny, then in the king's hands," were released to him.

"That the cross-legged effigy in Kilfane church was erected there in memory of the immediate predecessor of the Thomas de Cantewelle who was an old man in 1319, seems probable from the reasons above mentioned; from the entire absence of plate armour it cannot have belonged to Thomas himself. It is probably the work of a foreign artist, though perhaps executed in Ireland."

Mr. Preston, of Flashy Hall, near Skipton, exhibited through Mr. Hailstone, Local Secretary, the brass matrix of the personal seal of William Grainde-