Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/29

 9>8.x.jnLyi2,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

21

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 19, 190S.

CONTENTS. -No. 237.

NOTES : De Laci Family, 21 Birmingham : " Brumagem," 22 Mr. Thorns "Wyk" and "Wick," 23 Jacobite Verses Effigy in Tettenhall Churchyard, 24" Reliable" Pseudo-Scientific Novel A Travelled Goat" Elucubra- tion," 25 Wearing Hats in Church Ser.jeants-at- Law under James I. "Returning thanks" "Hock-bottom prices " Weathercock at Exeter, 26 Wassail -bread : Wassail-land Disappearance of a Banking Firm, 27.

QUERIES : Laml.'s Satan in Search of a Wife ' Halley Family Admiral Gordon in Russian Navy, 27 Baronets of Nova Scotia " Muffineer" Barbadian Registers Elizabeth Percy Greek and Russian Ecclesiastical Vest- ments Hobbins Family Sanderson Family R. W. Smyth-StuartBaxter and Cummings Knighthood, 28 " Fetlocked " S. T. Coleridge Fountain Pen Statistical Data Hebrew Incantations Arms on Fireback, 29.

RHPLIES :-Arms of Eton and Winchester, 29 Hymn on King Bdward VII., 30 -National Flag Dead Sea Level C. Babington Armsof Knights, 31 Rossettl's ' Ruggiero '

Royal Standard Henry IV.'s Exhumation Green Unlucky Defoe " Circular joys," 32 Tib's Eve "Keep your hair on " Aix-la-Chapelle, 33 " Lupo-mannaro "- Disappearing Chartists " L Fizgert "Evolution of a Nose "Daggering" Coronation Dress of Bishops- Sworn Clerks in Chancery Staffordshire Sheriffs, 34 Locomotive and Gas The Author of Evil Fonts T. Phaer, 35 Quotation Authors Wanted Gerald Griffin

Windsor Uniform Black Malibran, 36 Attorney's Kpitaph Mont Pelee St. Paul and Seneca Gillespie Grumach, 37 Old Songs W. Baxter" Knife "Female Fighters-" Upwards of," 38 Lady-day Day, 39.

NOTES ON BOOKS:-' Nottingham Parish Registers' Bennett's 'Archbishop Rotberham '--Reviews and Maga- zines.

Notices to Correspondents.

gaits.

THE DE LACI FAMILY, TEMP. HENRY I. AND STEPHEN.

FOR some time past I have ventured, with every respect to our best authorities in Gloucestershire and beyond it, to entertain grave doubts regarding the received notions respecting certain early and highly important members of this Domesday family, and during the past year evidence of a rather startling nature has come to hand, not only to accen- tuate my scepticism, but to confirm some of my conclusions.

Roger de Laci forfeiting his estates for rebellion (excepting one manor) in 1088, these were passed over to his brother Hugh, founder of Lantony Prima, by King William II.

Mr. A. S. Ellis, in his ' Domesday Tenants of Gloucestershire,' states that Hugh " was dead without issue in 1121, and the only sur- viving brother, Walter, being a monk (abbot, 1130-39), a nephew named Gilbertson of their sister Emma, took the name of De Laci, and secured the estates, which descended in his heirs." This theory has been faithfully fol- lowed by C. L. K. in the ' D.N.B.' (vol. xxi. p. 390) : " Henry I. seems to have taken the

Laci estates into his own hands ; but Gilbert, son of Hugh's sister Emma, assumed the name of Laci, and claimed to represent the family." At p. 375 the last writer states likewise of Gilbert : " His father's name is not known. After the death of his uncle, Hugh de Laci, the family estates were taken into the royal hands."

No authority for this last statement is given ; but the effect of these two accounts has been to satisfy students that the theory of Mr. Ellis as to the childlessness of Hugh de Laci was not to be questioned. This writer, discovering neither wife nor child for Hugh, seems to have originated the notion that Gilbert de Laci changed his unknown original name for his uncle's in order to acquire the estates. I am not able to prove to the con- trary, though the matter seems to me unusual and improbable. On the other hand, I am able to prove that Hugh de Laci both had a wife and did not" die childless, having had at least one daughter, whom he endowea with certain of his vast lands, and whose direct descendants inherited them from her.

The first document is from a MS. ' Regis- trum ' of Lantony Secunda in the possession of the Rev. Fitzroy Fen wick at Tnirlestane House, Cheltenham : f " Cecilia Comitissa, cognita donatione Hifgonis Lacey, ayi sui, super eandem ecclesiam de Wyke, nobis earn confirmavit," <kc. That is to say, Cecily, Countess of Hereford (daughter of Pain Fitz- John), aware of her grandfather Hugh de Laci's gift of the church of Wyke (now Pains- wick) to the Prior and Convent of Lantony, confirms it to them, &c. So that Cecily, who married Roger, son of Milo, Earl of Hereford, and had from her father Pain FitzJohn seven librates of land in his manor of (Pains)Wick, shows herself to be granddaughter to Hugh de Laci. If we turn to the charter No. 20, Duchy of Lancaster, which Mr. J. H. Round has been able to date to a nicety, December, 1137-May, 1138, and which is a confirmation by King Stephen to Roger and Cecily his wife of all the lands which her father Pain had inherited or acquired, together with her own marriage portion, we find the following words :

" Et omne maritagium quod predictus Paganus dedit filiae sure de honore Hugonis de Laceio in terris el inilitibus ; et omne illud juris quod ipse Paganus habebat in toto Honore Hugonis de Laceio," &c.

How, then, did Pain FitzJohn come by Hugh de Laci's estates ? Mr. Ellis and C. L. K. evidently wrote under the impres- sion that they were acquired from the king. The above charter, however, partly informs us : " Et propter hoc quicquid Paganus dedit