Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/440

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. n. NOV. SB, MM.

first person mentioned in the Mews pedi- gree of the 1686 Visitation of Hampshire at

the College of Arms) was Peter Mews, who <lied before 1597. Are we to have it that the Bishop's father and Ellis of Stourton

Caundle were brothers, and that the uncle who educated the Bishop was thus really his great-uncle ? M. M.

Paulet St. John (son of Ellis Mews who took the name of St. John) married as his second wife Mary, daughter of John Waters '(not Walter) of Brecon, and widow of Sir Halswell (not Henry) Tynte of Halswell, Somerset. This lady retained her title of Lady Tynte during her married life with Mr. St. John, as may be gathered by the following extract from vol. xxviii. of The

Gentleman's Magazine :

DEATHS.

-1758, Dec. 17. Hon. Lady Tynte, at Farley, near Win ton. Her jointure of 2,OOOZ. per Ann. comes to Sir Charles Kemeys Tynte, Bart.

Mr. Paulet St. John was not created a i baronet until nearly fourteen years after her death, viz., Sept, 9, 1772. Lady Tynte's being designated " Hon." is of course a .mistake.

Their son Sir Henry Paulet St. John,

.2nd Bart., married Dorothea Maria Tucker's

(surname omitted by DR. WHITEHEAD),

-daughter of Abraham Tucker of Betchworth

Castle, Surrey, esquire.

CROSS-CROSSLET.

HARDING OF SOMERSET (12 S. ii. 350). The facts relating to this family, as far as I know them, are as follows :

Alnod, a thane in the reign of Edward the

'Confessor, and a landowner in Somerset,

Dorset, Wilts, and Devon, bought of Bishop

Alwold (1041-56) a lease for life of certain

flands of the see of Sherborne, and in King

William's time took land in Burstock from

-a thane who had held it in King Edward's

time.

Harding, son of the above Alnod, held in 1066 manors in Somerset, in Meriet, Lopen (the two places adjoin), and four other places mentioned in Domesday. Harding, alleged father of Robert fitz Harding, died Nov. 6, about 1115, and from him descended the present great house of Berkeley. i JVThe Meriets of Meriet. The Fitznichols of Tickenham and the Baronial De la Warrs are also descended from Alnod. See Green- field's ' Pedigree of the Meriets of Meriet ' .and 5 S. xii.

The Domesday entry about Cranmore .(Crenemella) indicates that at the date of the

Inquisition the king had in hand the whole of East and West Cranmere (or Cranmore). Within the next two years the whole estate was restored to Glastonbury Abbey and to Harding, the abbot's tenant. The estate as held in 1066 and 1086 by Harding under Glastonbury Abbey cannot now be accurately defined. It probably consisted of both the parishes now distinguished as East and West Cranmore. See Ey ton's ' Somerset Domes- day/ i. p. 161.

It is important to note here that from 1066 to 1086 there was more than one Harding in Somerset. Two Hardings, at any rate, were great thanes, and one held a highly placed position at Court. The Hardings we know of definitely were :

1. Harding of East and West Cranmore.

2. Harding of Meriet, who held many Somerset manors.

3. Harding or Hardinc, who was on Feb. 28, 1072. attendant upon Queen Edith's Court at Wilton (Wilts).

It is only reasonable to think that these three, living within a limited area, were connected, but I hazard the statement that the precise connexion will not easily be established.

Of the three Hardings named above, the one placed second is the most important. Around Harding of Meriet much has been written, probably because from him has descended the great family of Fitzhardinge. 1 will give references to various authorities, and be content to quote the latest remarks upon him, which were contributed by Mr. J. H. Round to his Introduction to the chapters upon Domesday in the first volume of. ' The Victoria County History of Somer- set,' pp. 417-18 :

" Of the King's theyns, that is the Englishmen who in 1086 were still allowed to hold land, Harding, son of Elnod or Alnod, was clearly the greatest. He has been the subject of much discus- sion, rather because he was the probable ancestor of the historic race of Berkeley than because he was certainly the founder of the Somerset house of Meriet. In the Geld-roll of Crewkerne Hundred (1084) he is styled Hardinus de Meriet, taking his name from his chief manor, as did his descendants. Mr. Freeman established the identity of this Harding, son of Elnod or Alnod, with the Heardinc or Hierdinge, son of Eadnoth, who is found in Anglo-Saxon documents, and with the Herdingus, son of Ednod, who was alive when William of Malmesbury wrote, and whose father, that historian tells us, fell in repelling the descent on Somerset by Harold's sons in 1068. This identifies the latter with the Eadnoth Stallere of the chronicle, the Eadnothus Haroldi Regis Stallarius of Florence, who commanded, they tell us, William's troops on that occasion. The Domesday holder of Meriet is also clearly the Harding n'lius Elnodi who acted as justice itinerant for Devon and Cornwall in 1096.'