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 A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE the earliest, lie was thus only five years old in 1246,^ when he manumitted two of his natives of Poulton, near Warrington,' a liberty extended to other natives of Ashton and Newton, in Makerfield, in 1256.' He obtained on 13 January, 1257, a charter of free warren in his demesne lands of Walton- in-le-Dale, Newton-(in)-Makerfield, and Woolston, near Warrington,* and in December of the same year a weekly market on Tuesday, and an annual fair on the eve, the feast, and the morrow of St. German the bishop, at his manor of Newton.^ In November, 1268, he was appealing Richard de Holand and eight others in the king's court for the destruction of his fish pond at Newton, and for carrying away and imprisoning his wife and sons." He was commis- sioned in 1279 with two others to inquire of those in the county having land to the value of ^(^20 yearly who had not taken up knight's service.^ The same year he was commissioned to inquire of trespasses done in the forests of Lancaster.* In 1280 he was one of the justices appointed for the gaol delivery at Lancaster.' We have dealt at length with the petition which he presented in Parliament in 1278 for the recovery of the manor of Prestatyn, lost by his great-grandfather a hundred years before. He failed to obtain a re-grant of this estate, but there is some evidence that in lieu thereof the king gave him the manor of Little MoUington, co. Chester, afterwards known as MoUington Banastre, to hold by the service of a fourth part of a knight's fee.^" In 1284, whilst Richard was prior of St. Oswald's of Nostell, Robert Banastre obtained licence for a chantry in his manor of Rokeden in Newton, in return for which he endowed the church of Winwick with a yearly rent of 1 2d. for lights for the altar of St. Mary the Virgin." To Cockersand Abbey he con- firmed all grants of land made by his tenants in Makerfield, but reserved ' Infangenthef et Utefangenthev ' over the tenants of those lands, as pertain- ing to him by reason of his barony.^* To the monks of Stanlaw he gave ten acres of land adjoining the chapel of the Low in Walton, and estovers in his wood there." He married Alice, daughter and heir 1 The arms of Robert Banastre are recorded as Argent, 3 chevrons gules ; Greenstreet, ' Harleian Roll of Arms,' Genea/ogiit, N. S. vol. 3, p. 120. One of his earliest charters granting lands in Woolston to Robert de Samlesbury, and attested by William le Botiller, Richard le Botiller, Richard Phyton, then seneschal of Maker- field, and others, is sealed with a seal bearing a water bouget and the legend S' ROBERTI BANASTRE. (Ibid. 403. Chetham Soc.xcv'm. 21.) This latter seal was evidently used by the grantor immediately after attaining possession of his inheritance, and may possibly have been an old seal of his father's. Another charter, attested by Richard Fitun, then seneschal of Makerfield, who died before May, 1 246 {Lanes. Inquests, Rec. Soc. xlviii. 161), grants lands in Newton, between Receruding and Kocshaewet, to Paulin, son of Richard de Neuton. (Raines' Lanes. MSS. rxxviii. 113.) Another charter, granting to Philip, the clerk, of Chester, a ridding in Walton is attested by Adam de Blakeburn, Henry de Whalley, Adam de Hoghton, ThunUn de Holand, Adam de Holand, Hugh de Haydock, Gilbert de Suthworth, William de Sonky, Hugh de Hyndelegh, Gilbert de Haydock, Jordan de Kenyan, Richard de Golburne, and Robert de Lauton. (Ibid. 121.) Most of these were his tenants in Makerfield. His usual sealings are made with a small circular seal of green wax bearing 3 chevronels upon a small triangular shield with two long sides, surrounded by the legend S' ROB : BANASTRE >J<. In some of his seals a rather larger shield appears between 2 water bougets with the legends — SIG: ROBERTI DE BANASTR' ^, or S' ROBERTI BANASSTER ^. This seal is exemplified by Chris. Towneley from the de Hoghton charters in Add. MSS. No. 32,106, ch. 520. All his later sealings were made with the 3 chevronels. - Lanes. Fines (Rec. Soc.), xxxix. 100. 3 Ibid. 125. 6 Chart. R. No. 53, 42 Hen. III. m. 5. « Cur. Reg. R. No. 186, m. 24 </ 7 Ca/. Pat. R. 1272-81, 342. 8 Ibid. 406. 9 Ibid. 450 ; CaJ. Close R. 1279-88, 395. 10 Ches. Inq. +1 Edw. III. No. 3. u Chartul.of No;tel, Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xix. f. 179. 12 ' Prout ad me pertinet racione baronie mec occasione hujusmodi latrocinii ubi sacrabel sequitur.' Cockersand Charlul. Chetham Soc. 643. 12 Coucheroflf'halky, Chetham Soc. 1 13-6.
 * Cal. Chart. R. i. 458.