Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/177

 ii s. vm. AUG. 30, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Europe," owing to their complicated and antiquated ceremonial code, but the above sayinsr attributed to Disraeli is new to me.

L. L. K.

THE IDENTITY OF EMELINE DE REDDESFORD. (11 S. viii. 66.)

ALTHOUGH, to my regret, I find myself unable to offer a satisfying reply to your correspon- dent in his somewhat difficult, but interesting, enterprise, he will, I am sure, forgive me for putting together a few notes bearing upon the question, and relating to Walter de Riddelsford, the reputed^ father of the lady in question.

First of all, in spite of the form " Reddes- ford," and even " Revelsford," I venture to suggest that Riddelsford, or Riddelford, is the more correct. The medial s is not constant in the mediaeval forms of this name, and may possibly be " inorganic."

From the Rotuli Litt. Glaus., a. 15 John, p. 139, and elsewhere, may be seen that Walter had acquired under Henry II. certain rights over the vills of Kilmacchose (Kilmacanoge), Kilnemen, Knocflin (Knock- lyne), and Tachony ; also that he paid 20 marks to the King for confirmation of his lands, the game upon them (hares and foxes), and for having had reasonable boundaries suggested between his lands and those of his neighbours. According to the ' Song of Dermot ' (edited by Orpen), Walter was bound to serve Earl Richard FitzGilbert II. in Leinster with 20 knights. It was held by a hundred. (Cf. Round, ' Comm. of London,' p. 155.) He is mentioned in 1213 as a witness between the Commonalty of Dublin and the Cistercian Order. (Cf. * Hist, and Municip. Docts. of Ireland,' Rolls Series, p. 473. ) He held the following manors : Bray, Kylka(?), and Tistelderemod (cf. Rot. Litt. Claus., sub a. 1226), with right of a fair at the last-named place. In 1220 he is found holding the Castle of Adamirthur for Walter de Laci (6th Baron), the elder brother of Hugh, Earl of Ulster. In 1237 he was party to a peace between the Marshals and Maurice FitzGerald, Walter de Laci, and Richard de Burgh. (Cf. Papal Reg., a. 11 Gregory IX.) He is known to have had a sister Basilia ; but his wife has not been identified.

This evidence all goes to show the inti- mate relations between Walter de Riddels- ford and the De Lacis in Ireland, one of

whom, Hugh de Laci, Earl of Ulster (born c. 1167), is supposed to have married his daughter Emeline, who was living in 1267. This I believe to have been the case. But if so, this lady, as I shall hope to show, was probably his second wife.

MB. RELTON puts forward a theory to the effect that Emeline was stepdaughter only to W. de Riddelsford, and was the daughter of Bertram de Verdon and Rose, his second wife, in order to show that she may have been (as she is stated often to have been) the same with Lesceline de Verdon, who is also said to have been wife to Hugh, Earl of Ulster. Let us, therefore, turn to this point.

Bertram de Verdon died Governor of Acre in 1192, having married Rose in c. 1140. She was therefore born c. 1125, and had ceased to bear children in 1172. Her supposed daughter Lesceline, therefore, must have been twenty years and more of age at Bertram's death in 1192; and her mother, Rose, was c. 67. It is true that the latter paid 201. to the King in 1198 for her liberty to marry again. But she died in 1215, apparently not having changed her name, and, perhaps, 90 years of age. If Lesceline was indeed her daughter, she must have been senior by many years to Emeline de Riddelsford.

Now, as Walter de Riddelsford was living after 1237, it is manifest he must have been Rose's junior by many years, and as she was a widow in 1198, when she was, say, 74, it is extremely improbable that he married her. There is no proof, moreover, that Bertram and Rose de Verdon had a daughter. Their son and heir, Thomas, died in 1198, and his brother Nicholas became heir and successor to the great Lincolnshire family estates. The latter's daughter and heiress Rose ( = Theobald de Butler) died 10 Feb., 1247, her son taking the name of De Verdon.

It can be shown, however, that Bertram de Verdon was quite as closely in touch with Hugh de Laci, Earl of Ulster, as was Walter de Riddelsford, a much younger man. For in 1185 he was Seneschal to Hugh's father, the Constable of Dublin (d. 1186). Hugh, Earl of Ulster, was the second son of Hugh de Laci, fifth baron, and of Rose de Monmouth, and was probably born before 1170.* He had two sons, Walter and Roger, a daughter Rose (Carew MSS., v. 412), and, according to ' The Four Masters ' (iii. 349), a daughter, who married

ade Governor of Winchester Castle in 1191.
 * Gilbert de Laci, Hugh's younger brother, was