Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/397

 O^S. IV, Nov. 25,'99,] 441 NOTES AND QUERIES. about that date possessed of the manors of Tateshale and Tumby in co. Lincoln ; another Inquisition, taken five years later, shows these two manors to be then in the possession of Sir John Kirkton. Col. Moore appears to have overlooked these Inquisitions ; abstracts of them could be obtained from any pro- fessional copyist in London for a small fee, and doubtless they would furnish the in- formation he desires, as to how Sir John Kirkton became possessed of Tateshale. It is possible that Sir John Kirkton held this property in right of his wife Isabel, of whom little is known, except that her first husband, George de Meriet, of Castlecarlton, co. Lin- coln, died about 1328-9, and that she survived her second husband, Sir John Kirkton, some two years. It may be she was a granddaughter of Joanna de Driby. Col. Mooee suggests that the interesting building at Kirton was erected by Sir John Kirkton (who died 1367-8), and the shield on the entrance arch, bearing the Kirkton arms, would appear to support his suggestion. On the opposite side of the entrance arch, how- ever, he finds another shield, bearing the quartered arms of Cromwell and Tateshale, which would indicate a later date for the erection of the building. The lordship of Tateshale was brought into the Cromwell family by the marriage of Maud Bernake (great - granddaughter of the before - men- tioned Joanna de Driby) with Kalph, Lord Cromwell, and the issue of this marriage were the earliest members of the Cromwell family entitled to quarter the Tateshale arms. Maud Cromwell died in 1418-9, and it seems impossible that the arms of her descendants should appear on a building erected before 1368. Another shield, found by Col. Mooee inside the building, bears two lions passant gard- ant; these arms he, no doubt rightly, attri- butes to Littlebury. In the Visitation of Lincolnshire taken in 1592 a pedigree of this family is given, and therein it is recorded that Elizabeth, sister (or daughter) and heir of Sir John Kirkton, Knt., married Sir Humphrey Littlebury. From this marriage descended one Humphrey Littlebury, who died in 1486 possessed of the "manor of Kyrketon in Holand, held of the Lady Margaret, the King's mother, as of the honor of Riche- mond, in co. Lincoln, in socage " (' Calendar of Inquisitions, Henry VII.,' vol. i. No. 324). It seems probable, therefore, that this manor was in the Littlebury family for more than a century. Other shields are mentioned by Col. Moore. respecting which he says," Unfortunately all traces of metals or tinctures have dis- appeared." If by this he refers to the dots and lines now used to denote the heraldic tinctures, it may interest him to know that these symbols were first introduced in the early part of the seventeenth century. One of the shields inside the building bears the arms of the "Meeres" family—a fesse ermine between three water-bougets. The Visitation of Lincolnshire before mentioned also contains a pedigree of this family. Therein Richard Meers is stated to have married a daughter of Sir John Kenton (sic). No issue is given of this marriage, but a nephew appears in the pedigree as " Sir Roger Meers, Lord of Kirton. This Roger was perhaps identical with Roger de Meres, Justice of the Common Pleas, who died about 1385-6. Foss, in his 'Judges of England,' says :— " Roger de Meres was of a Lincolnshire family, established at Kirketon, in the district of Holland. There are circumstances which raise a suspicion that this Roger de Meres was the same with Roger de Kirketon, and that he used both names in- differently. We know he had property at Kirketon, and it was quite a common practice for a man to call himself after his estate." In conjunction with these remarks it is interesting to note the slight difference between the arms of Kirkton and Meeres. The following wills at Somerset House may help Col. Moore : 1444, William Kirketon— Kirketon (St. Peter's), Lincoln (P. C. C. 29 Luffeuham). 1495, Thomas Meres, Esquire— Kirkton in Holand, Lincoln (P. C. C. 20 Vox). Alf. T. Everitt. High Street, Portsmouth. Aldoate and Whiteciiapel (9th S. iv. 168, 269, 385).—As the form Ealsegate appears to be an an-a£ 	y6fitvov,it would be a great favour if Mr. Stevenson would print the passage in which it occurs, as I am at a distance from a good library, and cannot refer to Herman's work. Is it quite certain that Ealsegate is the modern Aldgate 1 It has struck me that it may be a contraction for Ealdredesgate. It is quite true that the gen. es frequently dis- appears at an early date in local names, but so early as the beginning of the twelfth cen- tury we find an approximation to the modern form. For instance, in the record of the donation by the English Cnihtengild of its land and soke to the church of the Holy Trinity in 1125, we find the land described as " sita infra muros eiusdem civitatis iuxta gortam que nuncupatur Algata" (see Mr. [. C. Coote's paper on ' The English Gild' in Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, v. 478). A copy of