Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 7.djvu/324

 322 SDNDON — STOREY. Slip, who had been a favourite of the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, became Mistress of the Kobe* to Caroline, the Queen Consort. She d. 1 Jan. 1741/3, (tj He rf. s.p. 20 AJirll 175-', aged about S0,( h ) when the peerage became act/net Will pr. 1752. SUNDRIDOE OF COOMB BANK. i.e., "SuxrmnxiE of CooMnrc Bank, co. Kent," Barony (Campbell), cr. 1766 ; see "Aroyll" Dukedom [S.], cr. 1701, under the 5th Duke. SURREY. Remarks as to this Earldom kindly supplied by J. Horace Round" :— " The Cheat-ion ok thk Eauldom ok Svn.tt.KY is a matter of considerable difficulty ; I do not know of any evidence in support of Dugdale's view that the first Earl was a Count in Normandy, and I cannot but think that this idea originated in the Earls' use of the style ' Uc Warcnna.' It seems to me possible that they used this, tfanir family name, in preferetice to the style of Surrey, on account of their power lying, not in Surrey, but in Sussex and Norfolk. Mr. Waters, in his 1 (,'undrada tic Wartime,' assailed the authority of the Lewes Priory foundation charter on the two definite grounds that (1) it makes Gundreda a daughter of Queen Matilda, and (2J it states that her husband was created Earl of Surrey by William Uufus.' But the former of these poind is the question in dispute, and as to the other, Mr. Waters claimed that it ' is contradicted by Orderic Vitalis, who is corroborated in this instance by the incontrovertible evidence of charters.' For Orderic says that the Earldom was created before 1080 ; while the Battle Abbey chatters of 1076 and 10S0 were witnessed by William M ' Co mm it Waremu:' As to his title of Earl not appearing in Domesday, Mr. Waters accounted for it by a strange theory that only 'Palatini' Earls were recognised in that record [Anh.'jottrn. xli, 307]. As a matter of fact, Orderic (aa Courthope bad duly pointed out) does assign the creation to William Kufus, precisely as does the foundation charter. Moreover, the ' Liber de B yeUl ' definitely states that the Earldom was bestowed on William 'in reward for his faithful counsel and good services in the great revolt of the barons iu the spring of 1088' [Arch. Journ. xliii, 307]. All this had been overlooked by Mr. Waters, and in his ' Postscript,' two years later than his ' Qundrada' he recanted his former denial and accepted 1088 as the true date (ibid, p. 3o8) admitting also the force of ' the silence of Domesday,' which he had previously explained away. There remained, however, the Battle charters. But Professor Freeman had long before denounced the ' alleged foundation charter ' of Battle Abbey as 'auspicious,' aud the names of its witnesses as ' impossible.' Vet Mr. W .iters seems to have accepted its evidence as 'incontrovertible.' For my part I go even further than Freeman, and have reason to look with the gravest suspicion on more than one of the Battle charters. Putting all the evidence together, I find Orderic's statements contradictory, and, therefore, of little weight (as they sometimes are where Earldoms are concerned), while the Battle charters cannot be accepted as trustworthy evidence. Combining this with 'the silence of Domesday ' and the known attestations of William, "it as ' Comes, 1 to charters, I do not believe that he received an Earldom from William I. I look, for reasons of my own, with distrust on the Lewes foundation charter ; hut, perhaps, the most curious part of the whole business is, that Professor Freeman, who had originally accepted it, rejected it on the strength of Mr. Waters' argument [English Hist. Rev. Ill, 690], which rested partly on a charter he had himself denouueed as spurious and partly on a statement by Orderic, which Mr. Waters had subsequently rejected ! " (») Her " letters " tho' not containing any good " Character-sketches " are of some value, as elucidating the manners of the Court of George II., over whose Queen she had great influence, which she is said to have used to her pecuniary advantage. See Jesse'B " Court of Hanover." vol. ii., p. i'2ij. The " Memoirs of Viscountess [sic] Sutidon " are edited by Mrs. Thomson. ( b ) He appears to have been a very stupid man ; there is a good anecdote m illustration thereof in his colleague's, Bubb Dodilington's " memoirs."