Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 2.djvu/20

 4 BASSET (of Drayton) 1398, of the Honour of Richmond (formerly belonging to her brother) but, according to another inq., the heirs were (i) the said Earl of Stafford and (2) Alice, wife of William Chaworth, descended from Maud, a sister of the said Margaret, who m. Sir William Herriz. These findings were confirmed by another inq. (1403), 4 Henry IV, on the death of Joan, widow of the last Lord Basset. It is certain that the last Lord devised all his estates to his nephew ("mon neveu "), Hugh Shirley, and the heirs male of his body, with rem. to William Stafford (br. of the Earl of Stafford), and to divers others. It is certain, also, that the Shirley family inherited, by this devise, considerable estates in the counties of Nottingham, Leicester, and Warwick (touching which Sir Ralph Shirley had a memorable dispute with the Earl of Stafford), many of which remained in the Shirley family till the death of Earl Ferrers in 1827. Isabel, the mother of Hugh Shirley, appears to have been sister of the last Lord Basset — possibly of the half blood — which, even were she his paternal sister, would at that time have precluded heirship; but inasmuch as Alice, the mother of the last Lord, w., secondly, Hugh de Meinill, she might, not improbably, have been (merely) a uterine sister by that alliance. Again, it is possible that she might have been a bastard sister, and " the late Francis Townshend, Esq., Windsor Herald [17 84-1 8 1 9], on the authority of Robert Glover, Somerset, a most learned and skilful herald, considered the illegitimacy of Isabel Shirley to be indisputable; quoting a pedigree drawn out in 1583 by that herald [Glover] for Sir George Shirley, her lineal descendant and heir, in which she is called natural sister of the last Baron, and the coat assigned to her is debruised by a baton. If the illegitimacy of Isabel be established, this dignity [the Barony of Basset] would be in abeyance between the representative of Thomas, Earl of Stafford (who is presumed to be the present Baron Stafford), and those of the said Dame Alice Chaworth, who (upon the decease of her great-granddaughter and h.), in 1507, were (i) Joan, wife of Sir Thomas Dynham; (2) Elizabeth, wife of Anthony Babington; and (3) Anne, wife of William Mering, who died s.p." A tabular pedigree of the coheirs of this Barony (on the supposition that Isabel Shirley was a bastard) is in Co/L Top. et Gen., vol. vii, p. 257, while at p. 392 of the same vol., are given the arguments in favour of her legitimacy : which are also urged (with, perhaps, still greater force) by Sir Egerton Brydges in Collins, vol. iv, p. 91. See also some remarks thereon in Beltz's Order of the Garter, p. 164, note "4; "and Shirley's Stemmata Shirleiana, 2nd edit., pp. 28-32. Courthope adds this note, which shews a belief (right or wrong) in the Shirley family that the Barony of Basset had vested in them: — "It may here be remarked as an instance of unaccountable negligence or ignorance, that in the Patent creating George Townshend, Lord Ferrers of Chartley and Lord Compton (heir general of the above Sir Thomas Shirley and Isabel Basset), to be Earl of Leicester in 1784, he is called Baron de Ferrers of Chartley, Baron Bourchier, Lovaine, Basset and Compton. "In 1784 it is unquestionable that the Baronies of Ferrers of Chartley and Compton were vested, jure matris, in the Hon. George Townshend, but it is confi- dently alleged that he was not legally possessed either of the Baronies of Bourchier, Lovaine, or Basset. As it would scarcely be imagined that titles of honour should be lightly attributed in a patent under the Great Seal, this assertion requires to be supported by facts, and the following brief account of each of the Baronies in question may be deemed satisfactory. " First, Bourchier. — The Barony of Bourchier, as will be found more fully stated under that head, became merged in that of Ferrers of Chartley, and, together