Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/239

 THE ANCESTOR 187 application however of this interpretation would not do. For example, a Ranulphus Venator, who gave Cattenhall to pious uses,^ is called in later inquisitions the lord of Kingsley ; that is to say he was Randle Kingsley, the other forester of Mara. And so with Gilbert. He held none of the lands found soon after in possession of the Grosvenors ; but it is needless to labour the point, for there can be no question who he was. Newbold, Brereton, Kinderton, Davenport, Witton, Blaken- hall, with a share in Sinderland and Baguley — these are all among the Venables lordships, Kinderton indeed the caput haroni^e, and at once prove his identity with Gilbert de Venables, named in the same survey as lord of Eccleston, Alpraham, Tarporley, Wettenhall, Hartford, Lymm, High Leigh, Winsham, Mere, Peover, Rostherne and Hope. Not a landless man exactly, this Gilbert : a baron and founder of a baronial house ; a substantial person enough, albeit himself, as slayer of dragons and a reputed scion of the house of Blois, on the borderland between history and legend. The obscure owner of Budworth, or of a moiety of Lostock, was clearly no heir of his. The same assumption may possibly have led the Grosvenors, in the first instance, to adopt the hende dore. The name le Veneur was not uncommon in Normandy, and French writers tell us that a bend azure was borne with that surname by Norman families.^ We may easily suppose that one of the Grosvenors, or kinsfolk and neighbours of theirs from Cheshire, passing over to Normandy on some occasion, happened to meet with le Veneurs there, and claimed relationship, as an American travelling in this country might do. We are not always logical even in these days. The reversal of colours would be quite in accordance with precedent ; and a vague knowledge that similar arms were borne by presumed kinsfolk across the Channel was pretty certain to give rise to the idea that they were originally brought over from Normandy — with the Con- queror of course. If my conjecture be wrong, the similarity of the Norman coat and name is certainly acurious coincidence. and Lache upon Rudheath ; the king adding the bailiwick of his hundred of Caldey ; and there again, as at Hilbre and Meoles, the Grosvenors had some interest, hitherto unexplained (Ormerod, ii. 1 76-80, 498, 516; iii. 14.5 and note). ^ Ormerod, ii. 98. 2 La Roque, Maison d'Harcourt, ii. 1 1 80, seq. See also Anselme, viii. 256, seq. ; and compare 311, 683, 685 ; also vi. 661.