Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/378

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NOTES AND QUERIES. ui s. vm. NOV. s, 1913.

I will now offer the few comments I propose making upon your correspondent's interesting article.

MR. ST. CLAIB BADDELEY states that the wife of Walter de Reddesford, alias de Riddlesford, has not been identified.

From the above pedigree he will see the name or, rather, the names of both Walter's wives (for he married twice, the second w r ife being the mother of his issue), and doubtless it will be a satisfaction to MR. ST. CLAIB BADDELEY to notice further that his surmise that Walter's daughter Emeline was Hugh de Laci's second wife is confirmed.

I now come to what, to my mind, is a very important statement of your corre- spondent, namely, that " there "is no proof

that Bertram and Rose de Verdon had

a daughter."

It has hitherto been a belief in the Verdon family that Lesceline was Bertram de Verdon's daughter, a belief which finds sup- port in Lynam's ' The Abbey of St. Mary, Croxden, Staffordshire,' Burke's ' Extinct Peerage,' and in the above De Riddlesford pedigree, in which it is distinctly stated that Lesceline was Bertram de Verdon's daughter.

As this Bertram had no issue by his first wife, Maud de Ferrers, it follows that, if Lesceline was his daughter, Rose de Verdon Mas her mother. Doubtless your corre- spondent is correct, assuming that Bertram and Rose were her parents, in stating that Lesceline " must have been twenty years and more of age at Bertram's death in 1192." Lord Walter in a covering letter writes that " the dates of Lesceline's marriage and death are unknown." May not addi- tional evidence that Lesceline was the daughter of Bertram and Rose de Verdon be deduced from the extracts from the ' Calen- dar of Documents relating to Ireland ' which I submitted at the first of the above references ? These show that Lesceline on her marriage to Hugh de Laci held cer- tain lands of the fee of Nicholas de Verdon, Bertram and Rose de Verdon's acknowledged son ; and had not Lesceline been Nicholas's sister, would such lands have been found forming part of her dowry on her marriage to the Earl of Ulster ?

That these lands were held by Lesceline of the fee of Nicholas de Verdon, and how they came to pass from her husband, Hugh de Laci, to his brother Walter de Laci, is shown from the following passage in the

Carew MSS., ' The Book of Howth,' p. 416 r namely :

" Grant to Walter de Lacy, for three years, of the Castle[s] of Karrickfergus, Antrim, and Rath, all the land which Hugh de Lacy had in Ulster, the Castle of Nober and whatever he held of the marriage [portion] of. Celina [Lesceline] his wife, and of the fee of Nicholas de Verdon, with the Castle of Carlingford, &c. ; all which the said Walter or Gilbert his son, or any other who shall be his heir, shall surrender to the King without difficulty. 9 Hen. III. [1224]."

I have no evidence at present to show whether the lands which formed part of Lesceline's marriage portion were in the possession of Nicholas prior to the death, in 9 R. I. (1197), of Thomas his brother, whose heir he is recorded to have been, or whether they formed part of the estates then inherited ; but, if the latter, as was probably the case, that year or the following may reasonably be taken as the earliest date at which Lesceline married Hugh de Laci, she being then, based upon your correspondent's calculation, c. 25 years of age or over, and Hugh, said to have been born c. 1167, c. 30 years old. From the and the above extract it is quite clear that Hugh still held Lesceline's lands in 1224, or circa eight to twelve years after her death, for, according to your correspondent, Hugh married secondly c. 1212-16.
 * Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland r

Such is the evidence we possess in support of the contention that Lesceline de Verdon was the daughter of Bertram arid Rose de Verdon.

We have now, however, to consider the identity of Lesceline from a different point of view.

Within the last day or two I have had brought to my notice a contribution to The ^Genealogist, New Series, xv. 3-4, from the pen of Mr. J. Horace Round, in which he makes the suggestion that Josceline, a daughter of Thomas de Verdon above mentioned (of whose existence I was pre- viously unaware, having always understood that Thomas died s.p. : Burke's ' Extinct Peerage,' 1840 ed., p. 534), may be identical with Lesceline de Verdon, wife of Hugh de Laci, Earl of Ulster, a suggestion which he makes upon the discovery in the Germans - ton Register, p. 1896, of an " Indentura de maritagis Josceline filie Thome Verdoun et Hugonis Lascy " (vide Historical MSS. Commission, Appendix to Fourth Report).

Mr. Round contends that the identity of Josceline with Lesceline becomes almost a certainty when we remember that Lesceline