Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/447

 CORNEWALLE 427 a., also in open Pari., BARON OF MILBROKE, co. Bedford. He d. s.p. legit., between lo and 14 Dec. 1443, when all his honours became extinct. For fuller particulars see Fan hope, Barony. CORNWALL (County of) EARLDOM. Brient de Bretagne, a Count of Brittany, 2nd s. of Eudes, Count of Penthievre, in Brittany, by Onguen or Agnes, da. of Alan Caia;nard, Cox;nt of Cornouaille in Brittany, is often considered to have been EARL OF CORNWALL.^) He is mentioned in a charter as Comes AngRce terre.(^) He was br. of Alan, who received the honour of Richmond [see suh "Richmond"], with whom he is said to have commanded a band of Bretons at the battle of Hastings. He received Cornwall and West Devon, when that region had been reduced into possession. Early in 1069, he witnessed a charter in favour of Exeter Cathedral, and, in June, put to flight the sons of Harold near the river Taw. He was probably deposed alter the rebellion of Ralph de Gael in 1075. He was, subsequently, among the invaders of South Italy. I. Robert, Count of Mortain in Normandy, one of the two sonsC^) of Herluin de Conteville, by Herleve, mother of William the Conqueror, was b. about 1031. About 1050 he received, from his It is hard to believe that even at this late date (1433) a summons to Pari, by writ was looked upon as conferring a peerage with rem. to heirs gen. of the body, when we find Sir John Cornewalle, almost directly after the receipt of his writ, obtaining a peerage in the patent for which there is no explicit grant of any power to transmit the title at all, and which, if interpreted most liberally could only have given him that power with respect to his heirs male of the body. See note sub Fanhope, Barony; and on the general question of how far early writs of summons did confer a Peerage see Appendix A in the last volume. V.G. (') Chester Waters writes, as to the Earldom of Cornwall, that " the first Earl after the Conquest was Brient of Brittany, the elder br. of Alan, who was created Earl of East Anglia to soothe the Bretons in England, when they were indignant at the expulsion of Ralph de Guader, in 1075, and the transfer of IJrient's Earldom to Robert of Mortain." (b) His nephew, Alan de Bretagne, by his charter dated 1 140, in which he styled himself "Alanus Dei gratia comes Britan' et Cornubie et Richemuntis," gave a rent of IDS. to the church of St. Michael's Mount, "pro redemptione anime Brientii avunculi mei de cujus hereditate terram Cornubie possideo" {Monastican, vol. vi, p. 990). As J. H. Round first suggested [Gniealoght, N.S., vol. xvii, p. i), it appears most probable from this charter that Brient, "Comes Anglice terre," was antecessor of Count Robert of Mortain in Cornwall and Devon as well as in SufiFolk. [ex inform. G. W. Watson). {^) Eudes his br.. Bishop of Bayeux, was in 1067 cr. Earl of Kent, and d. unm. Feb. 1097.