Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/234

 l82 THE ANCESTOR But if Sir Robert was really born in 1341, it follows that he was over thirty years of age when he did homage to the abbot for his lands in 1373 ;^ and no doubt some deduction is to be made from the round number fifty which he gave as his age ; whilst it is likely enough that the homage of 1305 was simi- larly deferred, at any rate for a year or two. What we know for certain is that the second Robert was born between 1271 and 1284, Robert of Rudheath earlier than 1307, his son (as it will appear) before 1322, and his grandson before (no doubt several years before) 1352. For my own part, I am inclined to stand by the Ledger Book and insert an extra generation in the pedigree. Robert Grosvenor of 1305, then, I put down as dead in 1328. This was the companion in arms of William de Modburlegh in the Scotch war under Edward II. ; but it was his son who married William's daughter. The marriage had taken place before 1323 (16 Edward II.), when she is named as his wife ; and the fact that he is described as of Rudheath may be taken to imply that he had a home of his own during his father's lifetime. With Emma de Modburlegh — as coheir of her mother Maud, daughter and heiress of Robert Downes of Chorlegh — came a share of lands in Chorlegh and Werford. Her father's estate, on the death of her half-brother without issue, passed to a sister of the whole blood. She survived her husband, and in 16 Edward III. (1342) made a grant of land to Ralph her son and Joan his wife, and another to Robert her younger son. In 20 Edward III. (1346) she was named in a conveyance of lands in Lostock Gralam and elsewhere made by John de Ruddeheath to Ralph Grosvenor ; and, according to the depositions, was still living about 1366. Ralph died in or before 30 Edward III. (1356, the year of Poitiers), when (as we have seen) on the point of starting for Picardy. Sir Robert, we already know, while still a minor, married a daughter of Sir John Danyell, or Danyers, and accompanied his father-in-law to France in 1359-60. His subsequent services, under the Black Prince and Sir James Audley, come just ten years later ; but he may have spent much or all of the intervening period in Guienne, as he did not pay homage to the abbot for his lands in Lostock until 1373. He was then a widower, his wife Margaret having died in June 1370, as he himself states in 1391, when called to prove the age of 1 MS. Harl. 2064, ff. 260, 281.