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 i88 THE ANCESTOR Who, then, was Robert Grosvenor ? Was he a descendant, though not heir, of Gilbert Venables ? If so, we might expect to find him holding land under that baron by sub-infeudation. Was he a corpulent le Veneur fresh from Normandy ? Of that there is no indication. He need not have been Norman at all. The Domesday tenant of Kingsley, the lordship which gave his colleague in the forest a surname, was one Dunning, who, before the Conquest, held also Oulton Lowe, Greasby and Storeton. The foresters, his successors, were not improbably his heirs ; they are found to be mesne lords of Oulton Lowe as well, attributed in Domesday to Nigellus (de Burceio), as were Greasby and Storeton. Storeton after- wards belonged to the forester of Wirral. The Davenports again, in Macclesfield forest, trace back their pedigree to an early Orm, whose name was not unknown in that part of England before the invasion. Mr. Round, in his Introduction to the Hampshire Domesday, has pointed out that, in that county, 'of the huntsmen most were English.*^ A poacher, it is said, makes the best gamekeeper. To appoint men of native origin to these offices, and make them responsible for enforcing the forest law, may have been found convenient, or even a matter of settled policy. To base a theory upon these suggestions would be rash, but hardly more rash than to infer Norman blood from a French surname. Whatever their origin, the vitality of the legend is remark- able. Not merely has belief in it been kept green at Eaton, as the great equestrian statue before the house and the baptis- mal names of the late duke testify, but perhaps no other story of the kind is as widely known and credited. The court of chivalry, with its suggestions of romance and pageantry, aided no doubt by the ever growing wealth and importance of the family, has made a deep impression upon the public mind. The Scropes are almost forgotten. Cheshire can boast several families, Venables and Vernon, Massey and Mainwaring, which undoubtedly spring from Norman invaders, and bear names brought with them from lordships beyond the sea. Yet for one person to-day to whom these names have any meaning, twenty would be ready to say that the Grosvenors came over with the Conqueror. W. H. B. BIRD. ^ Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 425.